Rumsfeld Offers Optimistic View of Iraq (do not worry about the deaths

[wakeme2008]

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Rumsfeld-Iraq.html

December 5, 2005
Rumsfeld Offers Optimistic View of Iraq
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 9:52 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Monday the American public should be optimistic about the situation in Iraq, and not judge progress based on the death toll alone.

..more at article... I could not get past this point... try telling a parent about "death toll" should NOT be worried about. :grr:

[stop the bleeding]

1. yeah becasue they have made sooo much more progress elsewhere

for us to focus our energy. Don't focus on the Death Toll? WTF?

[Rose Siding]

2. "stop defining success in Iraq as the absence of terrorist attacks"

''To be responsible, one needs to stop defining success in Iraq as the absence of terrorist attacks,'' Rumsfeld said in remarks at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He said Iraqis are more upbeat about their country because it is on an improved political path and on the road to democracy.

An up-is-down cultist.

[daleo]

9. It sounds like we need an "upbeat" meter from Rumsfeld

Perhaps Rumsfeld could issue a daily smiley face report.

"Today there were ten U.S. military and 100 Iraqi civilians killed, but all is redeemed by the 250 smiley faces attached to car bumpers. At this rate, every car in Iraq will have a smiley face by 2012 (if it hasn't been blown up)."

[0007]

23. This is real progress

[Barrett808]

26. Already done: "Freedom's Progress" map

http://photos.groups.yahoo.com/group/iraqfrontnews/vwp?.dir=/&.dnm=%27Freedom%27s+Progress%27+map.jpg&.src=gr&.view=t&.hires=t

Find the "De-weakening Iraq" story and go to about 1:40.
http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/the_daily_show/videos/rob_corddry/index.jhtml?playVideo=35712

Courtesy of The Daily Show:
http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/the_daily_show/videos/most_recent/index.jhtml

[okieinpain]

11. that's because they go out at night and get payback from the saddam

days.

[VegasWolf]

3. Yeah! We should base success on what Rummy tells us! Not our

lying eyes.

:sarcasm:

[Rebel_with_a_cause]

4. I'll have to add Rummy's latest to my baby's collection of disposables.

[RethugAssKicker]

5. Forget about the daily death and destruction.. We've

built schools, shopping malls, and hospitals...

Isn't that good news!. Why do you people hate America?

[cliss]

6. Don RumsFailed is in the wrong line of business.

This man should never get out on the Sunday talk shows. He's not very presentable. His lifts his hands up and gestures, and generally looks like a fool.

Worst of all: he should not be trying to convince Americans of ANYTHING. He comes off as a liar. His face betrays all of his wicked deeds. How he thinks he's smarter than his listeners. Imagine this man as an inspiring person.

The fact that they send this guy out should tell you something.

The fact that they send this guy out

[tabasco]

7. Soldiers are fungibles according to Rumsfeld.

Easily replaced, one just like the other. He actually said that troops are fungibles. Rumsfeld is an evil person and should be punished for his crimes.

[Hello_Kitty]

37. I had to look that up

He really did say that on CNN! :grr:

[tabasco]

38. Rumsfeld said it on March 11, 2004. Kerry's response:

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4739978/

Rumsfeld ‘fungible’ comment draws Kerry ire
In his news conference Thursday, Rumsfeld, responding to a reporter's question about why more troops were needed when the situation in the south of Iraq had largely stabilized, said “the reason it is contained is because we have the extra troops there. That is self-evident. Come on, people are fungible. You can have them here or there.”

Rumsfeld's comment drew immediate fire from Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. John Kerry, in a statement released hours later.

“Secretary Rumsfeld's comment that 'people are fungible' is further indication of this Administration's continuing disregard for the men and women who put their lives on the line every day in Iraq,” Kerry's statement read.

“Secretary Rumsfeld has it wrong,” the statement read. “Troops are not chess pieces to be moved on a board, they are real people with families and loved ones who depend on them. From failing to provide our troops with adequate body and vehicle armor to breaking their commitment not to extend assignments beyond one year, this Administration has continually let them down. They deserve more than cold impersonal calculations when their tours are extended, they deserve compassion and understanding of the sacrifice they and their families are making for their country.”

[ninkasi]

8. Rumsfeld might try

reading http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/. Riverbend doesn't agree with his rosy view of the war. She says they have one hour of electricity for every five hours without. This is from her latest blog.

"As it is, people fear the Americans will be here for the next twenty years- unless they are bombed and attacked out of the country. Although many Iraqis support armed resistance in theory, I think that the average Iraqi simply wants to see them go back home in one piece- we feel sorry for them and especially sorry for their families at times. There are moments when you forget the personal affronts- the raids, the checkpoints, the fear of bombing, the detentions, etc. and you can see through it all to the actual person behind the weapons and body armor... On the other hand, you never forget that it's a foreign occupation and will meet with resistance like all foreign occupations.

Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice can all swear that American troops will not pull out of the country no matter how many casualties they sustain, but history has proven otherwise… "

Who to believe, an Iraqi citizen, or one of the liars in the Bush administration....

[Az_lefty]

10. I'll be sure and tell this to my neighbor...

who just lost their son in Iraq. I'm sure they'll be comforted.

:sarcasm:

[calimary]

22. Aw, MAN!!! Just before Christmas. georgie and dickie and rummy

and contradicta and all their friends send them a nice box with flag wrapping. Nice Christmas present, isn't it?

I am SO sorry to hear this. It's one thing when you hear of the number count - and it sinks your heart a little to see how many have died by now. It's another to hear one of those is known to someone here. Brings it a little closer, and makes the heart sink farther.

It's just a sin, any time during the year. But over Christmas...

I am so sorry... All I can do is pray for them. Not much comfort, but then again, my war-stopping activities aren't terribly effective yet, either.

This is CRIMINAL. I am so sorry...

:cry:

[suston96]

12. This is why Rumsfeld is singing that song...

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/04/politics/04strategy.html?ei=5094&en=1965451f230185f4&hp=&ex=1133672400&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print

It is the new White House tactic promoted by this guy. Whose name was accidently revealed on the White House .gov site.

"Based on their study of poll results from the first two years of the war, Dr. Gelpi, Dr. Feaver and Jason Reifler, then a Duke graduate student, took issue with what they described as the conventional wisdom since the Vietnam War - that Americans will support military operations only if American casualties are few.

"They found that public tolerance for the human cost of combat depended on two factors: a belief that the war was a worthy cause, and even more important, a belief that the war was likely to be successful.

"In their paper, "Casualty Sensitivity and the War in Iraq," which is to be published soon in the journal International Security, Dr. Feaver and his colleagues wrote: "Mounting casualties did not produce a reflexive collapse in public support. The Iraq case suggests that under the right conditions, the public will continue to support military operations even when they come with a relatively high human cost."

"The role of Dr. Feaver in preparing the strategy document came to light through a quirk of technology. In a portion of the document usually hidden from public view but accessible with a few keystrokes, the plan posted on the White House Web site showed the document's originator, or "author" in the software's designation, to be "feaver-p." "

[Barrett808]

13. Rumsfeld assails U.S. news coverage from Iraq (Iraq like Iwo Jima)

Rumsfeld assails U.S. news coverage from Iraq
By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld assailed U.S. news coverage of the Iraq war on Monday and accused journalists of rushing to find fault with the United States and its military.

He spoke just days after the U.S. military acknowledged that it had paid Iraqi newspapers to publish pro-American news stories written by an "information operations" task force. Rumsfeld complained that the issue "has been pounded in the media" but "we don't know what the facts are yet."

"We've arrived at a strange time in this country where the worst about America and our military seems to so quickly be taken as truth by the press, and reported and spread around the world, often with little context and little scrutiny, let alone correction or accountability after the fact," Rumsfeld told an academic audience.

Opinion polls show eroding public support for the war and declining confidence in President George W. Bush's leadership as the U.S. military death toll, now at 2,127, climbs.

Rumsfeld accused news organizations of focusing on the deaths of U.S. troops while offering little context about the cause for which they died.

"You couldn't tell the full story of Iwo Jima simply by listing the nearly 26,000 Americans that were casualties in a brief 40 days at Iwo Jima," Rumsfeld said of the World War Two battle against the Japanese for the small Pacific island.

"So too, in Iraq, it's appropriate to note not only how many Americans have been killed -- and may God bless them and their families -- but what they died for, or more accurately what they lived for," Rumsfeld said in his speech at the John Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies.

(more)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051205/pl_nm/iraq_usa_rumsfeld_dc

[ProSense]

14. Rummy this is a known: They died because you and Bush lied. n/t

[Skip Intro]

16. That lying bastard makes my stomach turn, goddamned murderer.

"what they died for"

how dare he

[Drum]

15. As for me,

I don't have a problem with our military, but with the current crop of civilian idiots that the military must answer to. What a horribly managed affair!

On the upside---anything that pisses Rumsfeld off is A-OK with me...keep it comin'!

[daleo]

17. Iraq is like Iwo Jima - they both start with the letter I.

That's about it.

[Canuckistanian]

20. And they both have foreigners in them!

Brilliant!

[OKNancy]

18. It's not the military we hate

It's you and your buddies, Rummy
----------
We've arrived at a strange time in this country where the worst about America and our military seems to so quickly be taken as truth by the press, and reported and spread around the world, often with little context and little scrutiny, let alone correction or accountability after the fact," Rumsfeld told an academic audience.

[Bob3]

19. oh piss off you damned evil jackass

for one thing there was a backlash at the Iwo Jima Death toll (there were calls for McArthur to take over the campaign)

Also this administration has been obsessive about keeping facts from the people. That being the case they have no business complaining that the papers aren't telling the whole story

And one last thing - When the the whole story of the Iraqi war comes out your wrinkled little ass is going to jail butt munch.

[cliss]

39. This post is great because it explains how RumsFailed

thinks. He is basically driven crazy by the media and most of all: the Internet.

RumsFool has mentioned many times how "lies are spread at the speed of light" and "misinformation spreads around the world quickly".

He doesn't like that we are sitting here, clicking away on our little keyboards and being generally disrespectful. If he could pull the plug, he would.

RumsFailed is a megalomaniac. He has this intense need to suppress anything that's not favorable to him.

[0007]

21. Would love to see Rummy wrestle Baghdad Bob

[pinniped]

24. Every time they claim to kill these so-called insurgents/Enemies...

of the Illegitimate Iraqi Government it's all over the place. Yahoo, sfgate, CBS, whatever.

These monkeys are the ones trying to claim progress by phony death tolls.

[President Kerry]

25. oh how telling.. this fucker finds a way to beat himself at being

evil every time he opens his piehole.

"...not judge progress based on the death toll alone."

:grr:

[OKNancy]

27. kick

[WearyOne]

28. Don't dwell on Iraq deaths, says Rumsfeld

Don't dwell on Iraq deaths, says Rumsfeld

WASHINGTON: Painting an optimistic picture of Iraq's future, the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, has warned that the US mission in Iraq is "essential to protecting the lives of the American people".

Mr Rumsfeld said that progress in Iraq cannot be measured by the level of bloodshed or the number of terrorist attacks, and criticised news outlets for dwelling on violence in reports from Iraq.

His comments on Monday coincided with the Pentagon announcing the appointment of a retired four-star general to lead a taskforce to seek solutions to the threat posed by improvised explosive devices (IED), which have become the leading cause of death of US troops.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/dont-dwell-on-iraq-deaths-says-rumsfeld/2005/12/06/1133829597989.html

[Arkana]

29. Rummy, I dare you to say that to ANY Gold Star Mother

and see how fast you get your ass kicked, you lying sack of horseshit.

[MaineDem]

35. My sentiment exactly!

That was the first thought I had upon reading that headline. How dare he!!!

And since our mission is to protect the Americans in Iraq and we take the Americans out who would we be protecting? Is this like a Catch 22 type thing???

[Arkana]

36. Exactly. The soldiers over there are people, not mindless drones.

They are fathers and brothers and sons. They have families. Rumsfeld doesn't understand that--his family was the rest of the swamp scum he crawled from.

[stray cat]

30. Think happy thoughts!

Don't look at reality

[MichiganVote]

31. More pixie dust from the Bush cabal

These are our kids, our neighbors kids. What a moron. Should be appointed the head of Homeland Security. Oh, wait, another Bush moron already holds that post.

[MidwestTransplant]

32. Rummy: Don't dwell on number of Iraq deaths....we sure aren't.

[superconnected]

33. Basically your sons and daughters mean nothing to Rummy.

Get over it. Think of the progress we're making.

Blood thirsty murders everywhere agree.

[Solly Mack]

34. So easy to say if you have nothing to lose

but since Rumsfeld has absolutely no personal stake in the matter - he and others like him can shut the fuck up.

[kineneb]

40. give Rummy a gun, send him to Iraq

then tell him to shut up.