The other night (Thursday?) the Honorable Donald H. Rumsfeld said something to the effect of–-AND THESE ARE NOT HIS EXACT WORDS DESPITE THE QUOTATION MARKS–-the following:
“Sometimes it is beneficial for the media to know the United States is helping another nation and sometimes it’s not and sometimes the situation changes.” Here he grinned and raised his hands up in the air like he does sometimes (kinda reminds me of C-3PO). “For example, the United States recently had a military presence in a country that we kept secret because the leader of this other country didn’t want it known that we were there. Recently, though, I talked to the leader of this country and said that it was no longer beneficial to keep our presence in this country a secret from the media and the leader of this country agreed and so we no longer keep our troops there a secret.”
Or something like that. The thing is, he never said what “this country” was. I guess he was trying to be cute. Does anybody know where in the world the Rumster was talking about? Where does the United States now have troops that, until very recently, we officially did not? I recently read someplace that we now have a small group of soldiers in India–-could this be it? There’s no other place in the world I can think of where we have troops that the rest of the world hasn’t known about for some time.
I got the impression that the American troops in “this country” might have something to do with the war on terror. I also got the impression that these troops aren’t the ones in Yemen, Georgia, the Philippines, or any of the countries around Afghanistan. Nor are these troops one of the small advisor teams we sent all over the place as a matter of course, or the Marines or military attaches attached to our embassies or anything like that. Finally, I got the impression that our presence in “this country” wasn’t exactly some super obscure news item. Evidently all the reporters around Rumsfeld when he said this knew what he was talking about–nobody present questioned Rumsfeld about “this country.”
Anybody have any ideas?
The Rumsfeld pseudo-quote comes from a public talk he had with some Ivy League media guru that aired on C-Span sometime late last week.
I’ll offer some educated speculation. Since Al-Qaeda and the Taliban have been routed in Afghanistan, bin Laden and company have been attempting to regroup elsewhere. There are several countries that have been friendly to this group in the past or can offer some temporary solace, most notably, Somalia. The terrosists were based there for some time before relocating to Afghanistan. If you pay attention to the newspapaers, there have been rumblings over the past few months about this. The Somali President has a tenuous hold over his country. A resident Al-Qaeda presence could destabilize the country or subject it to an American bombardment. it was my impression that the Somali President was anxious to avoid either of these scenarios. A quiet invitation for American forces to begin intelligence gathering operations and training would be just the thing to convince us that the Somali government and the terrorists are not in collusion.
Tenous control over the country? I doubt it was Somalia simply because the country doesn’t have a functioning government, they don’t even control the capitol. Al Queda cannot destablize Somalia any more than it already is, Somalia consists only of lines on a map. If it weren’t for the fact that current international norms require the existence of states there would be no Somalia on a map.
Now the breakaway nation called Somaliland is a different story, they have a functioning government and civil society from what I have heard. But since we don’t recognize them I doubt it too.
Tenous control over the country? I doubt it was Somalia simply because the country doesn’t have a functioning government, they don’t even control the capitol. Al Queda cannot destablize Somalia any more than it already is, Somalia consists only of lines on a map. If it weren’t for the fact that current international norms require the existence of states there would be no Somalia on a map.
Now the breakaway nation called Somaliland is a different story, they have a functioning government and civil society from what I have heard. But since we don’t recognize them I doubt it too.
I think he was talking about Pakistan. Sure, we ‘knew’ the US was there, but there was no official recognition of this, which gave the Pakistan government room for strategic denial. Now the information is explicit.
Maybe it was one of the Stans, although I thought it was common knowledge that we were in Pakistan and Uzbekistan as well as, of course, Afghanistan. The Somalia idea is interesting as well and no doubt will be the focus of way too much time in Googleland for me this evening.
Damn Rumsfeld . . . even when he’s being communicative and telling everybody what they want to hear you still can’t make heads or tails of what he’s saying . . . what a politician . . .
