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And we don't know what we don't know, Senator.
by hnthrowaway0328 3y ago
And we don't know what we don't know, Senator.
- dylan604 3y agoFeel like a Cheney "known unknowns and unknown unknowns" meme would be fitting here.
- maybelsyrup 3y ago> Feel like a Cheney Rumsfeld
- dylan604 3y ago[flagged]
- ethbr1 3y agoRumsfeld cites NASA as the place he most likely picked it up from. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_are_unknown_unknowns#Origins https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_are_unknown_unknowns#O...
- dylan604 3y agobecause an evilBastard quotes someone else doesn't make them any less evilBastard
- ethbr1 3y agoYou seem to have a rather stark view of the world. I'd suggest possibly broadening it to include the possibility that people can be evil in some ways, good in others, stupid and smart, and capable and incapable. Even the simplest humans are complex creatures.
- dylan604 3y agoI guess that depends on what makes evilBastard evil. I don't care if evilBastard is a "great" dad. When you mastermind to commit what any rational person would call war crimes does not get white washed because they played ball with their kids on the weekends or donated a bunch of money to charity in an attempt to assuage guilt (if any were felt to begin with). In my list of people that to me qualify as evilBastard, the Bush Admin is way worse than theZuck.
- fineIllregister 3y agoDonald Rumsfeld is responsible for the deaths of one million innocent Iraqi civilians at the cost of 3 trillion American dollars for nothing except the enrichment of a few. I agree that every person is complicated, but any possible nuance here is completely overwhelmed by the amount of destruction. Donald Rumsfeld is absolutely evil. You might think you are smart for hedging, but if you think killing one million innocent lives just makes a person "complicated", you've lost the plot.
- jimbob45 3y agoI have to wager that the Iraqi people probably prefer the current order of things. I would guess that they would keep things the way they are rather than bring back Saddam.
- dylan604 3y agotoo bad we can't ask those million that are no longer living because of the decisions made during the Bush Admin
- fineIllregister 3y agoPay up. > "[T]wo-thirds of Iraqis as a whole believe that what happened in 2003 was bad for them." https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/how-iraqis-view-life-after-fall-saddam-twenty-years-ago-and-today https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/how-iraq...
- 3y ago
- anigbrowl 3y agoThis is just frothing at the mouth. I also think Rumsfeld was a war criminal, but that has nothing to do with the epistemology of this remark. I doesn't become less true just because someone you dislike says it, that's a genetic fallacy.
- dylan604 3y agowho's saying the quote is less true because of the person quoting it? i claimed that the speaker is an evilBastard while stating that just because evilBastard is not any less reprehensible because they quoted a smart person. you've read too much into this to grandstand
- anigbrowl 3y agoThis isn't even coherent. We get it, you have an opinion and you want attention for it.
- tiahura 3y agoMcNamara
- yen223 3y ago"known unknowns" and "unknown unknowns" are concepts that came out from the project management world. It's not a thing that Rumsfeld invented.
- anigbrowl 3y agoI always felt bad for Rumsfeld (not Cheney) being the target of so much mockery for that comment. I disliked him style and decisions as Secretary of Defense, but that was one of the smartest and most realistic things he said. It's amazing to me how many people derided it as meaningless garbage when it self-evidently true and provided a worthwhile insight into the complexities of strategic decision-making.
- dudinax 3y agoHe was lying about weapons of mass destruction. The context is that he'd previously said we had to invade Iraq because of the imminent threat of the weapons of mass destruction. So he's using a trivially true and non-interesting statement about "unknown unknowns" to evade questions about previous statements where he claimed to know something. In other words, it was garbage response. He deserves mockery, scorn and a criminal trial.
- D13Fd 3y ago> to evade questions about previous statements where he claimed to know something. I’m not sure that’s quite accurate, although it’s not that far off either. The full context is here: https://web.archive.org/web/20160406235718/http://archive.defense.gov/Transcripts/Transcript.aspx?TranscriptID=2636 https://web.archive.org/web/20160406235718/http://archive.de... His “unknown unknowns” response was, to me, a basically fair if evasive response to whether there is any evidence of a direct link between Baghdad and terrorists as far as supplying WMDs. He essentially said “we don’t know what we don’t know.” To me the more damning answer is the follow up later in the conference, where he strongly implied that he has evidence but can’t disclose it. That just misled the public and is far worse than the “unknown unknowns” comment in my view.
- dudinax 3y agoHe'd already said for months previous that he knew Iraq had WMDs and were planning to supply terrorists.