Donald Rumsfeld and the new (oxy)morons

I just watched the two-part Jon Stewart interview with Donald Rumsfeld from last week and was both fascinated and revolted by a couple of phrases he used in relation to the decision to go to war in Iraq.

They are as follows . . .

• 'Always never' -- as in: " . . .intelligence is always never perfect."

• 'Parade of Horribles" -- as in: a worst case scenario list submitted for consideration to the National Security Council prior to green-lighting the invasion. A couple of items posited as possible, but unlikely in this list were, 1) The war could last 6-8 years; 2) There will be no weapons of mass destruction.

Given that both these "unlikely" Horribles came to pass, I did a little research as to what else may have made the list. That information can be found in an excerpt from Douglas Feith's book on NPR.

Everything on that list occured. Everything.

Now two trite thoughts occur to me . . . "Parade of Horribles" would be a terrific band name, and "Always Never" would be a great title for a novel of bleak irony.

Unfortunately those ideas are followed by a gravitational third thought . . . How I would feel if I had been directly impacted by the loss of life which became the toxic product of these words? If my son or daughter was one of the Horribles-cum-reality?

It takes your breath away. It's fucking gross.