A few people have sent this to me. Apparently, Rumsfeld is troubled by our current level of technological ability in the war on terrorism. From Reuters:
The United States lags dangerously behind al Qaeda and other enemies in getting out information in the digital media age and must update its old-fashioned methods, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Friday.
Modernization is crucial to winning the hearts and minds of Muslims worldwide who are bombarded with negative images of the West, Rumsfeld told the Council on Foreign Relations.
The Pentagon chief said today’s weapons of war included e-mail, Blackberries, instant messaging, digital cameras and Web logs, or blogs.
“Our enemies have skillfully adapted to fighting wars in today’s media age, but … our country has not adapted,” Rumsfeld said.
The sad thing is that Rumsfeld lack of technological ability has been reprimanded because of his domestic response to hurricane Katrina. It turns out that he does not even use e-mail.
When it came to documentation of how Secretaries Michael Chertoff and Donald Rumsfeld responded to Katrina, however, congressional investigators got a different answer from the administration. The House committee established to investigate Katrina was “informed that neither Secretary Chertoff nor Secretary Rumsfeld use e-mail,†reported Reps. Charlie Melancon and William Jefferson, two Louisiana Democrats who participated in the inquiry despite a boycott by other House Democrats who felt that the inquiry was too partisan. The Democrats made the disclosure in a report attached as an appendix to a widely publicized investigative report released today by the Republican majority which led the House Katrina investigation.
What is that about talking the talk and walking the walk? I am sure it is comforting to know that most second graders have a stronger grasp on internet communications than our Secretary of Defense.