Larry Wilmore, who I had neglected to put on my list of People I Do Not Want to Piss Off, (Since corrected) was rather put out by Donald Rumsfeld’s rewriting history on Iraq and claiming that he never suggested that he was bringing a stable democracy to Iraq.
Rumsfeld, 2003:
From the very beginning, we were convinced that we would succeed, and that means that that regime would end. And we were convinced that as we went from the end of that regime to something other than that regime, there would be a period of transition. And, you cannot do everything instantaneously; it’s never been done, everything instantaneously. We did, however, recognize that there was at least a chance of catastrophic success, if you will, to reverse the phrase, that you could in a given place or places have a victory that occurred well before reasonable people might have expected it, and that we needed to be ready for that; we needed to be ready with medicine, with food, with water. And, we have been.
Rumsfeld, 2015:
Over a decade after presiding over the invasion of Iraq, Donald Rumsfeld admitted that the country may not have been ready for a democracy.
In an interview with British newspaper the Times, the former Secretary of Defense reflected on America’s role in shaping the Middle East, and suggested expecting Iraq to seamlessly transition to a democracy was “unrealistic.”
“I’m not one who thinks that our particular template of democracy is appropriate for other countries at every moment of their histories,” Rumsfeld told the Times. “The idea that we could fashion a democracy in Iraq seemed to me unrealistic. I was concerned about it when I first heard those words.”
Larry Wilmore rightly said the Rumsfeld is, “The only Donald worse than Trump.”
And I am saying that Larry Willmore is a part of the sacred and hermetic order of People I Do Not Want to Piss Off.