Not Qualified to Manage a McDonalds
Donald Rumsfeld doesn’t seem to be able to design a shift schedule that would work for a fast food restaurant:
The 1st Brigade of the 1st Armored Division was extended in order to allow its replacement unit, the 1st Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division, a minimum 12 months between overseas tours, the official said. The 3rd Infantry has already served two tours in Iraq, including the initial invasion of the country in March 2003.
Nor can he create a working budget to cover the costs of the Pentagon, as reported in this NPR story, Pentagon Asks for $25 Billion for War Equipment.
Actually it is Army Chief of Staff, General Peter Schoomaker, a man called out of retirement to fill the job by Rumsfeld, who is asking for the money to repair and replace Army equipment that has been chewed by by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The General has five depots filled with broken equipment, but he doesn’t have the money to make the necessary repairs.
There are no unknowns, and no surprises in these problems. These are very basic elements in military planning and a lot of people have been doing this for decades, until Rumsfeld decided that he was the only person in the universe who knew how to run the Department of Defense.
Rumsfeld doesn’t know how to do his job; it’s that simple.
6 comments
There are no unknowns, …
There are no unknowns, and un-no unknowns, and… oh, wait; Rummy’s already been that route before. What an arrogant, ignorant man, in a position in which arrogance alone or ignorance alone can be dangerous.
Effective staffing and inventory control are the basic requirements for any business from a lemonade stand to General Electric. If you can’t manage those two elements you are not qualified to be a supervisor much less a Secretary of Defense.
Ignorance, like shit, runs downhill. With Clueless McFartsalot in the White House, no one should expect competence in the Pentagon. Unfortunately for all those brave enough (or lacking any other reasonable option but) to wear the uniform of our country.
They keep “stealing” money from the Pentagon to fund other projects, like border security, and, not that Congress cares, is illegal. They move money around and military bases don’t have enough to pay their light bills, but the Shrubbery just doesn’t care.
Of course the Shrubbery doesn’t care. Their only agenda is getting themselves in power, keeping themselves there as long as possible, and giving themselves as big a golden parachute as possible on the way out. Anything that contributes to the likelihood of succeeding in that agenda is praiseworthy and noble. Anything that would tend to make it impossible of fulfillment, on the other hand, is base and traitorous. And that includes making sure that military families don’t have to go on welfare or get food stamps to make ends meet every month when the main breadwinner is away getting his/her arse shot off for the glory of the preznit.
I had to laugh when I heard Rummy on NPR this afternoon, speaking in Tirana and telling the Albanians that in 20 years they’ll be looking back on this decision. Rummy said they’d be thinking of all they contributed to bringing about peace in our time, yada, yada, yada. I was yelling back at the radio “They’re more likely to be thinking, ‘What the fuck were we thinking?!’ you asswad!”
The Albanians? The first thought in my head is the infamous Waffen SS 20th Mountain Division, one of the end of the war “paper divisions” that were whipped up by the SS to please Der Furher. It was essentially the Albanian prison system’s class of 1944 under German officers and NCOs. It evaporated in 6 months, and the inmates took their weapons when they left.
Is Rummy going for his own version?
Maru posted a piece on Rummy in Montenegro. The guy is really reaching. These people might help him out, but he is going to have to come up with some serious cash.