December 12, 2005--For Want of A Flashlight . . .

As part of The Coalition of the Willing, those nations that have joined us in Iraq, one member, Mongolia, has supplied 131 soldiers. Thus, on a recent trip to the region, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld dropped in for a visit to thank them and to receive in turn a gift—a horse that is a direct descendent of the kind of steed that Genghis Kahn and his warriors rode across the Steppes and the Gobi Desert on their conquests.

According to the NY Times (link below), Genghis Rummy quickly named it Montana because the area he visited and where he received his horse reminded him of the big sky landscape of that state.

But then he ran into a problem—how to get Montana home with him (his DOD 747 is equipped with the highest high-tech command and communications gear but is not outfitted to transport livestock); and equally significant, what to give the Mongolians as the culturally-required exchange gift. Since events of this kind are obviously heavily choreographed in advance one would have thought Rummy and his entourage would have planned for this. Or for what to do in Iraq after toppling Saddam.

But scramble they did and managed to come up with an appropriate ceremonial token—a flashlight. Yes, a flashlight in exchange for a Genghis-Kahn quality horse. Talk about taking your few remaining allies for granted.

For the flashlight, since Rumsfeld couldn’t take his gift with him (I suppose they will have to send a specially equipped plane from the US Cavalry to do that), the Mongolians will take care of the steed and said, most generously, that they will do so for as long as it takes because the animal now truly belongs to the SOD. And until he retrieves it, “only the Steppe winds will ride on his back,” to quote a poetic Defense Ministry official. It all sounds so quaint and reminiscent of those better times when conquest and pillage were so easy and so much fun and didn’t require UN or Congressional approval to justify one’s actions, much less appearing on Meet The Press.

But before I end, let me understand something else—the Clintons, when they left the White House, got into all sorts of grief when they tried to slip out under cover of darkness with a couple of cheesy lamps and end tables that were allegedly given to them as gifts; but Rumsfeld gets away with shipping Montana (on a government plane) to his ranch in New Mexico (Montana in New Mexico?)?

OK Rummy, keep the horse, join the wind and ride on his back across the Mohave; but do us all a favor—how about doing it soon and permanently?

In fact, send me the bill for shipping the horse. And oh yes, for the flashlight. I assume batteries were included.