Rummy Says War Critics are Appeasers

As the saying goes, the more things change the more they stay the same. Critics of Administration defense budgets during the Cold War as well as more recently, our aiding and/or abetting the assassination of elected officials (see this CIA document), our supporting military coups after the fact (The Greek Colonels), and now our waging war in Iraq have been verbally beat around the heads and shoulders by politicians with the sensibilities of playground bullies who call them "soft on Communism," "UnAmerican," and "Appeasers of Communists (or other) Bad Guys," etc. Its what those who are doing the wrong thing do to deflect the public's eyes from genuine defense needs or what foreign policies and wars are and are not actually in the nation's best interests.

Now, Rumsfeld, who knows better, is saying, according to the Seattle Times,

"Can we truly afford to believe that, somehow or some way, vicious extremists could be appeased?"

And also"

The struggle we are in is too important — the consequences too severe — to have the luxury of returning to the 'blame America first' mentality," Rumsfeld told the American Legion. "Can we truly afford to return to the destructive view that America — not the enemy — is the real source of the world's troubles?"

Rumsfeld must be standing on his head while facing a wall during news conferences because he seems to be seeing everything upside down and backwards.

Let's get one thing straight. Democrats have proved over the years that they are ready and willing to fight real and imagined enemies of the US or its friends. Wilson took us into World War I. FDR took us into World War II. Truman led us, more precisely, the UN, into Korea. JFK did not cave in to the USSR when it made its effort to put missiles in Cuba and he escalated the war in Vietnam, a very, very bad idea. Johnson escalated it further thereby compounding our problems there. Both Democrats were clearly not "soft on Communism." Ineffective though it may have been, Carter okayed a mission to rescue our hostages in Iran. Clinton got us involved in Kosovo and Somalia, for good or ill. So, the idea that Democrats are somehow less interested in protecting the US and its friends than Republicans, a thesis, which, sadly, the Republican spinmeisters have managed to instill in the minds of many Americans, is, put in the simplest of terms, total bullshit. It might be more truthful to say that Democrats are warmongerers.

It should have been clear to the Administration that there was neither a need to invade Iraq (it was a secular Muslim country that was not bothering anyone thanks to the no-fly zones we, the Brits, and the French established and the constant pressure from the UN to get rid of its WMD), nor was an invasion of Iraq likely to prove beneficial in the end. It was clear to me and others I communicated with that imposing a working democracy on this highly ethnically divided country would never be successful. It was clear to me and others that Muslims generally and Arabs in particular don't much like Americans meddling in their affairs. I personalize these remarks to drive home the point that one didn't have to be a Middle-East expert to know these things.

The verb "appease," being transitive, requires an object. The object that Rumsfeld provides is "vicious extremists." Who the hell are these vicious extremists and why is it that they exist? Well, one class of vicious extremists consists of the insurgents, which seems to consist of domestic Sunnis desperate to keep the Shiites from coming to power as well as, possibly, Arabs from other countries who want to fight Americans. I have a news flash for Rumsfeld:

These vicious extremists were either not in Iraq when we invaded (the Arabs who came to Iraq to fight Americans) or were in one way or another aligned with Saddam's government. The latter became vicious extremists as a result of the fact that we overthrew Saddam (and did not prepare a response to this contingency before invading).

So, the fact is that America was the source of the trouble it faces in Iraq. I have another news flash for Rumsfeld:

Before the war, there was no Sadr militia. The Shiites were very quiet and were well-protected by the no fly zone. But now they have a formidable militia which probably consists of "vicious extremists and we are fighting them."

So, again, America was the source of the trouble it faces in Iraq.

In short, the Bush Administration made this mess. It is time for them to be real patriots and start telling the truth to the American people. That is what genuine patriots do. The truth is that Rumsfeld doesn't have a clue as to how he can extricate the US from Iraq without leaving behind either a nightmarish Shite controlled Fundamentalist Islamic state or a civil war or both.

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Tags: Donald Rumsfeld, appeasers, Iraq War, Democrats, Republicans, Sadr militia, Iraq insurgents