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CounterPunch
January
24, 2003
The Forrestal
of His Time
Rumsfeld's Dementia
by WAYNE MADSEN
On January 8, the Dr. Strangelove-like Donald
Rumsfeld was engaged in one of his puffed up oratories at a televised
Pentagon press conference. He began ranting and raving about
the draft in response to a question concerning Representative
Charles Rangel's bill to reinstate an equitable conscription
system. Then Rumsfeld blurted out the most insensitive, ridiculous,
and insulting pile of Taurean excrement I've ever heard from
the Princeton frat boy from Chicago.
Rumsfeld, who appears to be a superb
candidate for the Ezra Pound suite at Washington's St. Elizabeth's
Hospital, said, "If you think back to when we had the draft,
people were brought in; they were paid some fraction of what
they could make in the civilian manpower market because they
were without choices. Big categories were exempted -- people
that were in college, people that were teaching, people that
were married. It varied from time to time, but there were all
kinds of exemptions. And what was left was sucked into the intake,
trained for a period of months, and then went out, adding no
value, no advantage, really, to the United States armed services
over any sustained period of time."
No value! Three quarters of the names
of the Vietnam War memorial were draftees. Hundreds of thousands
of draftees in every war between the Civil War and Vietnam lie
buried in cemeteries throughout the country and around the world.
Rumsfeld, a weekend warrior Naval Reserve
jet jockey, who conveniently served on active duty after Korea
but before Vietnam, should resign from office. There is no doubt
Rumsfeld insulted every family in America who had relatives drafted.
One of my great uncles -- a draftee -- is buried in a World War
I cemetery in France. Another uncle, also a draftee, took part
in the D-Day invasion of France. Not to mention the fact that
during the Vietnam War, I joined the Navy and eventually pulled
a low draft number which would have also made me one of those
no value added draftees of yours.
Appearing on Fox News Sunday on January
19, Rumsfeld said he would support the notion of Sadaam Hussein
and his family being given sanctuary in another country. I have
another proposition. How about if some other country gives you
sanctuary Mr. Rumsfeld? Maybe a European country that still maintains
a draft. Then, the next time you make such a stupid comment,
irate villagers with torches can chase you into the nearest castle
where you can recharge your neck electrodes.
To no one's surprise, neither Fox nor
ABC News, where Rumsfeld also appeared on January 19, bothered
to ask him about his dissing of draftees.
Rumsfeld, who surrounds himself with
a pathetic collection of draft evaders like Paul Wolfowitz and
Richard Perle, is, by far, nuttier than the first Secretary of
Defense, James Forrestal, another Princeton graduate. After being
fired by President Truman in 1949, Forrestal committed suicide
by jumping from the 16th-floor of Bethesda Naval Hospital.
That's a difficult act to follow Mr.
Rumsfeld, but you have succeeded.
Wayne Madsen
is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and columnist.
He wrote the introduction to Forbidden
Truth.
Madsen can be reached at: WMadsen777@aol.com
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