Exclusive interview! Donald Rumsfeld defends predator drones

I was lucky enough to catch up with Donald Rumsfeld, former Secretary of Defense, at the Edward Teach Memorial Golf Course and Scuba Diving Facility outside of Kingston, Jamaica. Rummy had hit two horrible shots in a row, badly slicing both of his balls, and was in a foul mood.

Interviewer
Hey Rummy, you aim golf balls even worse than predator drones!

Rumsfeld
Watch out, asshole, or I’ll aim one at you.

Interviewer
If you did, I’d be the safest guy on the fairway.

Rumsfeld
There are known knowns, known unknowns, unknown knowns, and unknown unknowns. You’re an unknown unknown. Bug off.

Interviewer
Actually, I wanted to ask you a few questions about predator drones.

Rumsfeld (chuckling)
You don’t say! That happens one of my favorite topics. After all, I pioneered them! Obama uses them more than we did, so he gets the Nobel Peace Prize! Is that unfair, or what?

(The rest of the interview was conducted intermittently, between the 9th and 11th holes.)

Interviewer
You introduced the practice of so-called targeted killings with predator drones. Aren’t predator drones both immoral and ineffective?

Rumsfeld
How do you mean?

Interviewer
They’re immoral for a couple of reasons. First, the predator drone is the ultimate coward’s weapon. Some chicken-shit asshole at a military base outside of Las Vegas sits around jerking off playing video games, and real people get blown to bits, murdered and maimed, halfway around the world.

Rumsfeld
That’s the beauty of it.

Interviewer
I thought the whole point of being a soldier was risking your life for your country.

Rumsfeld
We’re not soldiers. We’re chickenhawks! (imitates clucking chicken) Awk-puk-puk!

Interviewer
Seriously, Rummy: Isn’t killing from a safe distance, thousands of miles from the people you kill, the act of a despicable coward?

Rumsfeld
Absolutely not! It takes almost unimaginable courage to operate a killer drone.

Interviewer
How is that?

Rumsfeld
All of the great wisdom traditions tell us that there is justice in the universe. It takes immense courage to do something as absolutely evil as operating a predator drone, knowing that God or karma or whatever may some day pay you back.

Interviewer
Hmmm…I hadn’t thought of it that way. But I guess you have a point.

Rumsfeld
Of course I do! Come on, think about it. Killing people with a predator drone is vastly sicker and uglier and more despicable and disgusting than raping and murdering people the way Ted Bundy did. At least Ted had the guts to look his victims in the eyes, and take a chance they might fight back. Doing something of such ultimate evil requires incredible courage, knowing that if the universe does indeed turn out to be just, you’re absolutely screwed. I’m proud of our men and women in uniform who have the guts to be evil scumbags a million times worse than the sickest civilian serial killer!

Interviewer
Okay, I have to admit you have a point. But even if we admit that the scumbags operating the drones have a certain amount of metaphysical courage, isn’t it the case that these weapons are completely ineffective? Just about every on-the-ground investigation of every predator drone attack has found that it’s innocent civilians, not terrorists, who are getting blown up. Women and children, wedding parties, groups of old men having tea. This just pisses off the enemy and increases his will to fight. Not a smart tactic.

Rumsfeld
Smart military tactic or no, sometimes you just have to do what’s right.

Interviewer
What’s right!? We’re talking about blowing up innocent civilians!

Rumsfeld
Exactly.

Interviewer
What’s right about that?

Rumsfeld
Think about it. When an aggressor invades somebody else’s country, the people of that country have two choices: They can either fight back, or they can choose not to fight back.

Interviewer
So?

Rumsfeld
So the decent ones, the brave ones, the ones whose lives are worth a good goddamn – in other words, the ones who deserve to live – are the ones who fight back. We call them “terrorists.”

Interviewer
Um…

Rumsfeld
While those who choose not to fight back are, by definition, worthless, cowardly scum – the kind of creeps and quislings who allow their country to be invaded and occupied by foreigners from halfway around the world, and don’t lift a finger to stop it.

Interviewer
I think I see where you’re going with this…

Rumsfeld
So when we slaughter so-called “innocent civilians” with our predator drones, we’re actually killing people who are worthless, cowardly scum.  The brave ones, the ones who are fighting back, we avoid. So we’re really doing the right thing, even at the expense of our own interests. How can you argue with that?

At this point Rumsfeld hooked a ball fifty yards into the ganja field bordering the fairway, disappeared into the field, and, as far as I know, never re-emerged.