Why Ya Gotta Love Donald Rumsfeld ...

Last week, after grilling Donald Rumsfeld about everything under the sun, the House Armed Services Committee afforded its junior House members an opportunity to also question the Secretary of Defense. One of them questioned him about something related to heavy use of the reserves, and asked if it made America appear to be stretched too thin to countries that might "want to make mischef."

After responding to the important questions from the power-brokers for hours, Rumsfeld could have blown this one off. Instead, his classic answer serves as a small reminder of why we are all extremely lucky to have a guy like Donald Rumsfeld serving our country:

If you think about it, 5 years ago - 10 years ago, I would go around Europe and talk to friends back from when I was abassador to NATO, and they were worried about us. They were worried about the United States of Amercia ... they were worried about Somalia - and the probelms there - where the US made decisions that left question marks in the minds of other countries in the world. We've even seen intelligence where Saddam Hussien made comments about "the United States won't do this," "they cant sustain anything," "they'll cut and run."

And the world has seen in the last three and a half years the capability of the United States of America to go into Afghanistan, a land-locked country all the way across the globe, and with 20,000, maybe 15,000 troops, working with the Afghans, do what 200,000 Soviets couldn't do in a decade. They've seen the United States and the coalition forces go into Iraq, and the world has seen a vivid demonstration of the power and capability and agility of the armed forces of the United States.

That has to have a deterant effect on people.

It's true, we're doing a lot in the world right now. But if you put yourself in the shoes of a country that might decide that they'd like to make mischef, they have a very recent vivid example of the fact that the United States has the ability to deal with mischef.

He just has a way of painting a picture for you that leaves no doubt about what he's trying to say ("do what 200,000 Soviets couldn't do in a decade" - ha!).