Rumsfeld to Europe: I'm Sorry
By Donald Rumsfeld as told to J. Daniel Janzen

It has come to my attention that my remarks at the recent Munich Conference on Security Policy were not received with unanimous enthusiasm. Apparently, there were some who found my performance arrogant, even belligerent. To these people, I can only say, it takes one to know one.

Perhaps my words have been misinterpreted, giving offense where none was intended. If that is the case, let me speak more clearly now: You tried to stop us from going to war but we did it anyway, just because we felt like it, and there's not one thing you can do about it. In your face, you snail-eating pussies.

Did we lie? Did we deliberately misconstrue thin evidence to justify a war we'd planned all along? Of course we did, and for one simple reason: Like the American public, you can't be trusted with the truth. You're like children or, more to the point, senile old foreigners mumbling down the hallways of your crumbling socialist housing. While you're drooling in your beards, we're out there fighting to keep the oil flowing and the towel-heads at bay.

Iraq is only the beginning. We'll spread democracy throughout the Middle East if we have to repress every ayatollah and mullah in the place to do it. Open your markets and your society will follow, that's our motto — let's see what's under the burkha, honey! Once those people gets a taste of our American institutions, they'll wonder why they ever bothered with their own traditions.

And while we're going about it, a little support from Old Europe would be nice, maybe a moratorium on all the nitpicking. You think we give a shit what you think about what goes on in Guantanamo? You're welcome to keep that Geneva Convention noise to yourself, assuming you still want to land your planes at our airports and sell your steel to our SUV-makers. See if you can bring your populations into line, too. We've got 70% against us in Germany, 67% in France? That sounds to me like an imminent threat to the homeland, and you know what that means.

A propos of polling, some might question the Bush administration's mandate in light of our plummeting approval ratings — even deny the very legitimacy of our government, as if the United States were the kind of place where a cabal of corrupt businessmen could engineer a non-democratic seizure of power contrary to the will of the majority. To these, I say, we know where you live, and your dog looks cold in the yard — you should let him inside.

With precious few months remaining in the current term, a few contrary-minded nations might be tempted to run out the clock on us, drag their feet until a more credible leader is sworn in next January. Forget about it. Sure, it's been a little rocky lately, what with the 9/11 commission on one side and the Iraq intelligence one on the other, the Valerie Plame affair creeping dangerously close to the Oval Office, W. whiffing on "Meet the Press" on Sunday and this damn AWOL business sticking around like a case of the crabs. But we didn't come all this way to leave quietly — we've got more October surprises lined up than a haunted house on Halloween, and you already know we'll stop at nothing. We'll Patriot Act that commie Kerry back to the Stone Age if we have to.

After all of our efforts on behalf of international security, it pains me that people have come to regard our administration as a war-making one. Let me assure you that our objective is peace. In fact, we aim to establish the most stable and enduring peace since the Pax Romana, and we'll do it the same way: by exerting dominion over all the known world.

Of course, we can't do it without your help. That's what globalization is all about. We invite, encourage and demand the assistance of the community of free nations, and the other ones, too, in the prosecution of our unilateralist policies. To those that comply, we will be generous with any crumbs of reconstruction that fall from Haliburton's table. For the rest, I recommend keeping a close eye on our pre-emption agenda. You never know what can happen.

In closing, let me just say: the food was delightful, the scenery quaint, and I look forward to seeing you all again at this time next year. What stories we'll have to tell then!

Love,
Donald Rumsfeld