http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060829/ap_on_..._pe/rumsfeld_23

Rumsfeld lashes out at Bush's critics
By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Tuesday the world faces "a new type of fascism" and likened critics of the U.S. war strategy to those who tried to appease the Nazis.

In unusually explicit terms, Rumsfeld portrayed the Bush administration's critics as suffering from "moral or intellectual confusion" about what threatens the nation's security. His remarks amounted to one of his most pointed defenses of President Bush' war policies and was among his toughest attacks on the president's critics.

Speaking to several thousand veterans at the American Legion's national convention, Rumsfeld recited what he called the lessons of history, including the failure to confront Hitler in the 1930s. He quoted Winston Churchill as observing that trying to accommodate Hitler was "a bit like feeding a crocodile, hoping it would eat you last."

"I recount this history because once again we face similar challenges in efforts to confront the rising threat of a new type of fascism," he said.

"Can we truly afford to believe that somehow, some way, vicious extremists can be appeased?" he asked.

"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 spoke to the American Legion as part of a coordinated White House strategy, in advance of the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, to take the offensive against administration critics at a time of doubt about the future of Iraq and growing calls to withdraw U.S. troops.

Rumsfeld recalled a string of recent terrorist attacks, from 9/11 to deadly bombings in Bali, London and Madrid, and said it should be obvious to anyone that terrorists must be confronted, not appeased.

"But some seem not to have learned history's lessons," he said, adding that part of the problem is that the American news media have tended to emphasize the negative rather than the positive.

He said, for example, that more media attention was given to U.S. soldiers' abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib than to the fact that Sgt. 1st Class Paul Ray Smith received the Medal of Honor.

He did acknowledge that the U.S. military has its own "bad actors — the ones who dominate the headlines today — who don't live up to the standards of the oath and of our country." But he added that they are a small percentage of the hundreds of thousands of troops who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Those who know the truth need to speak out against these kinds of myths and lies and distortions being told about our troops and about our country," he said.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was addressing the American Legion convention later Tuesday, and Bush is scheduled to speak here later in the week. On Monday, Vice President Dick Cheney and Rumsfeld made separate addresses to the national convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Reno, Nev.

Rumsfeld made similar arguments in Reno about doubters of the administration's approach to fighting terrorism, saying too many in this country want to "blame America first" and ignore the enemy.

Rumsfeld's remarks ignited angry rebukes from Democrats.

"It's a political rant to cover up his incompetence," said Sen. Jack Reed (news, bio, voting record), D-R.I., a former Army officer and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Reed said he took particular exception to the implication that critics of Pentagon policies are unpatriotic, citing "scores of patriotic Americans of both parties who are highly critical of his handling of the Department of Defense."

Rep. John Murtha (news, bio, voting record), the hawkish Pennsylvania Democrat who voted in favor of the war but recently called for troops to withdraw, said in a statement: "It's interesting to me that they generalize the support for the war. They're not realistic with the fact that there's no progress."

Sen. Christopher Dodd (news, bio, voting record), D-Conn., chimed in that Rumsfeld's remarks were trying to "shoot the messenger" rather than examine failed policy.

Rumsfeld defended the war in Iraq, saying that while U.S. military tactics have changed as conditions on the ground have changed, the administration's war strategy has remained constant: "to empower the Iraqi people to defend, govern and rebuild their own country."

In arguing against giving up in Iraq, he said people should know from history that wars are never easy.

"You know from experience that in every war — personally — there have been mistakes and setbacks and casualties," he said. "War is," as Clemenceau said, `A series of catastrophes that results in victory."



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I am so glad I found this article in CGCS as I wish to scream out
Rumsfeld speaking to the Legion accept for Dessert Storm where in the military during periods the US had the Draft.
Is this the first Hint of the Draft (not backdoor) coming back? I do know the young people 18 years still have to register for selective service.
Is idiot Rumsfeld trying to get us ready for invasion of Iran?

How many active troops are there in today's military?

Please someone give me some facts and information.

The only type of fascism we are facing is the one being imposed on us by this bunch of facists.

Here are the 14 characturistics of Fascism, as defined by Dr. Lawrence Brit.

It would appear that most of the characturistics do not apply to terrorist organizations like al Qaeda; there seems to be quite a few applications to the current regime in Washington.

EDIT: Seems Rummy has no clue...

Rumsfeld Says Critics Appeasing Fascism

SALT LAKE CITY - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld compared
critics of the Bush administration to those who sought to appease
the Nazis before World War II, warning that the nation is
confronting "a new type of fascism." By Julian E. Barnes.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/e7g...Io30G2B0HoyG0Ey

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Pelosi_h...gment_0830.html
Video: Pelosi has 'long thought' Rumsfeld's 'judgment has been impaired'

RAW STORY
Published: Wednesday August 30, 2006


Earlier today on MSNBC, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said that she had "long thought" that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's "judgment has been impaired," a day after Rumsfeld compared critics of the Bush Administration's war in Iraq to Nazi-era "appeasers."

"I have long thought that the Secretary of Defense's judgment has been impaired," Rep. Pelosi told MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell. "Two and a half years ago, I called for his resignation."

Pelosi called on President Bush to publicly denounce Rumsfeld's statements.

"He speaks for the administration, so I can only assume that his words are the words of the president," said Pelosi. " If they are not, it behooves the president of the United States to reject this characterization of political debate in our country."

Pelosi also released a statement earlier today which called Rumsfeld's comments a "pathetic" attempt to divert attention from his failings on the war in Iraq.

"Secretary Rumsfeld's efforts to smear critics of the Bush Administration's Iraq policy are a pathetic attempt to shift the public's attention from his repeated failure to manage the conduct of the war competently," said Pelosi in a press release received by RAW STORY.



Excerpts from MSNBC interview with Pelosi:

#
DONALD RUMSFELD (secretary of Defense): (From videotape.) I recount that history because once again we face similar challenges in efforts to confront the rising threat of a new type of fascism. With the growing lethality and the increasing availability of weapons, can we truly afford to believe that somehow, some way, vicious extremists can be appeased?

MS. O'DONNELL: Congresswoman Pelosi, you have heard the secretary of Defense. He is now saying that critics of this administration are essentially like Nazi-era appeasers.

REP. PELOSI: I have long thought that the secretary of Defense's judgment has been impaired. Two and a half years ago, I called for his resignation.

He speaks for the administration, so I can only assume that his words are the words of the president.

If they are not, it behooves the president of the United States to reject this characterization of political debate in our country.

The secretary referencing World War II is interesting. We have now been in Europe -- we have now been in Iraq longer than we were in Europe for World War II. So for the secretary to talk about moral -- for him to talk about moral clarity, when Abu Ghraib happened on his watch and destroyed our moral credibility in the world, is interesting as well.

MS. O'DONNELL: You have called the Iraq war a "grotesque mistake." And what Secretary Rumsfeld said yesterday is that those types of comments essentially are helping the enemy; that the media over there takes those comments and portrays them, and those embolden terrorists.

REP. PELOSI: What the secretary must be forgetting is that what emboldens the enemy is sending our troops into the line of fire without the equipment they need to protect themselves and to get the job done. What emboldens the enemy is sending them there without the military intelligence to get the job done. What emboldens the enemy is our lack of knowledge of the ground truth, or maybe we're in denial of what is actually happening there.

Democrats are deadly serious about providing for the common defense. In order to do so, you must know your enemy. Clearly, the Bush administration did not when it went into Iraq.

MS. O'DONNELL: The secretary --

REP. PELOSI: In order to protect the American people, you have to know your power. And we are diminishing that power by this war in Iraq, which is the wrong war. It is not the war on terror. It is the wrong war. We should have stayed in Afghanistan longer and a fuller force to get the job done there.

MS. O'DONNELL: As the Democratic Leader in the House, however, I'm sure that you saw the comments of Secretary Rumsfeld, and the previous day's comments by Vice President Cheney where he accused critics of, quote, unquote, "self-defeating pessimism." We've heard Karl Rove also say that Democrats are "obstacles" to national security.

The president is expected to address to the American Legion on Thursday. And we're hearing from the White House that essentially this is a series of speeches that will kick off this third round of a defense of the Iraq war, just as, of course, we're getting read to commemorate the five-year anniversary of 9/11, and we're just 10 weeks away from the November elections.

Do you see now what the Republican strategy is to defeat the Democrats in November, and how do the Democrats plan to respond to that?

REP. PELOSI: Well, it's not a question of responding to it, it's assuming our responsibility to protect the American people. Let's take a measure of the failures of the Bush administration in this regard. Don't take it from me, the 9/11 commission has given the government D's and F's in providing for homeland security. Independent analyses have said that the war in Iraq is weakening our national security, our military strength to protect America against threats to our national security, wherever they may appear.

Five years after 9/11, our first responders in most parts of the country -- police, fire and emergency services people do not have the equipment they need to communicate in real time.

Ports are not secure, borders are not secure. The administration has a lot to answer for. But what do they do? A good -- the best defense is a good offense.

But we will not be (swift-boated ?) by them. We again call for a military second to none to protect the American people, diplomatic alliances to maintain the peace, to stop terrorism, to stop the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. This administration has hampered our ability to do that by losing the credibility we have lost in the world because of the war in Iraq.

MS. O'DONNELL: Congresswoman, if one could characterize what is the Democratic message in the November elections, I think it would be that you are arguing that there should be change in Iraq. The Democratic leadership has said that there needs to be a timetable when it comes to Iraq.

But The Washington Post has reported that in the most competitive congressional races out there in the country, a majority of the candidates don't agree with you and the leadership, and they are not calling for such a timetable in Iraq.

So once again, is it true that the Democratic party is divided?

REP. PELOSI: No, we haven't called for a timetable.

MS. O'DONNELL: Is it true that --

REP. PELOSI: No, let me be clear, Norah, about that.

What we have called for -- Senator Reid and I and the leadership of the appropriate committees of jurisdiction of national security have said to the president, we believe that what he is doing in Iraq is not making our country safer, is not making our military stronger and is not making the world more stable.

So what we're saying to him is beginning -- beginning -- no later than December 2006, we must begin a responsible redeployment. It doesn't say when it ends. It says beginning then. And there is unity in the Democratic party on that.

We're also telling him that he's got to have dialogue with the Iraqi leadership so that they disarm the militia and that they amend their constitution to reduce the civil strife in their country, and we join them -- if the president would provide the leadership -- in reaching out to countries in the region for diplomatic alliances to help bring stability to the region and reconstruction to Iraq.

War votes have never been won that have been dictated to members. In fact, we don't dictate anything. But candidates across the country will represent their own districts in how they express themselves on the war.

MS. O'DONNELL: And, Congresswoman, quickly, can I ask you, are you confident that you will be able to have and hold a no-confidence vote on Secretary Rumsfeld when Congress returns in the coming weeks?

REP. PELOSI: The only no-confidence vote that matters is the vote of confidence that George W. Bush has in Secretary Rumsfeld. That's what's important. And if the president wants to associate himself with the intemperate words, the ineffective action and the failure of leadership of Secretary Rumsfeld, that's up to him. But he's the only vote that counts.

MS. O'DONNELL: And finally, Congresswoman, I have to ask you -- I read about, of course, that profile of you in Time magazine, which -- of course, the headline was a quote from you which says, "Anybody knows not to mess with me."

REP. PELOSI: (Laughs.)

MS. O'DONNELL: You're tough. What does that mean?

REP. PELOSI: Well, it means I have five children and five grandchildren and I'm very concerned about protecting our country, about making our economy stronger and fairer, about a new direction the Democrats want to take our country to make the country safer, to make our economy fairer, to educate our children, to provide access to health care, to have dignified retirement and to move us toward energy independence, which is a national security issue as well.

So with the agenda and the unity of the Democrats around that agenda, I'm single-focused on presenting that new direction; hopefully, winning the elections so that we can respond to the concerns of the American people, who say that the country is going in the wrong direction. Democrats are proposing a new direction. That's my focus.

MS. O'ODONNELL: Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader in the House of Representatives, thank you very much for your time from New Orleans --

REP. PELOSI: Thank you, Norah.

MS. O'DONNELL: -- and also your comments on Secretary Rumsfeld. We greatly appreciate it

REP. PELOSI: Thank you. My pleasure.

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/earlywarnin...n_of_war_o.html

William M. Arkin on National and Homeland Security
Rumsfeld's Enemy: It's Us

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld delivered a fire-and-brimstone speech at the American Legion's annual convention yesterday -- after acknowledging young soldiers serving in Iraq and giving the boy scouts a shout-out, the secretary wove an elaborate picture of an enemy made up of terrorists, morally misguided Westerners, disagreeable military strategists, and a cynical news media.

Rumsfeld stated there could be no appeasing the enemy and any "any moral or intellectual confusion about who and what is right or wrong can weaken the ability of free societies to persevere."

The "who" Rumsfeld is talking about is himself.

Rumsfeld is the "who" that is right, and everyone who disagrees is not only wrong, but a danger to freedom.

Within minutes of the conclusion of Rumsfeld's speech yesterday, I received an e-mail from Thayer C. Scott, the secretary's speechwriter, serving up talking points.
The Defense Department then took the unusual step, usually reserved for its broadsides against Seymour Hersh of the New Yorker, of issuing a statement saying that the Associated Press coverage of Rumsfeld's Salt Lake City remarks mischaracterized them.


Either Rumsfeld has delivered one of the most important speeches of the modern era, or he's gone crazy.

I think the latter, not just because I think the secretary is wrong on his intellectual characterization of terrorism, and not just because he is wrong about the media and its intentions, and not because he is so pugnacious, or because he has been wrong so many times before.

Rumsfeld is so wrong about America. His use of World War I history and the specter of fascism and appeasement, and his argument about moral weakness or even treason in any who oppose him, is not only polarizing but ineffective in provoking debate and discussion about the proper course this country must take to "fight" terrorism.

This is not the first time that Rumsfeld has shown himself to be so out of touch, so contemptuous of America. Rumsfeld as secretary of defense has displayed a contempt from long before 9/11 for anyone who disagrees with him, particularly in his initial wars against those in the uniformed military.

Moreover, Rumsfeld's declaration of war yesterday follows from his basic view that the Defense Department has to do it all: He has created an intelligence bureaucracy because he is distrustful and contemptuous of the CIA and all others. He has built up a secret army and covert capabilities in special operations forces because he wants to control and to rely only upon his own warriors. He has created a homeland security apparatus that looks over the shoulder of the Department of Homeland Security and is the ultimate arbiter of security. He has created his own FBI in the Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA), and fought to ensure that the NSA stays under Pentagon control. He has created his own law and his own human rights policy. He has subverted Congress through unexamined supplemental budgets and super-secret programs.

Even as a military strategist, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld pushed a losing strategy in Afghanistan. This is not just because he went to war with an initially small force. After all, the war against the Taliban and al Qaeda began just weeks after 9/11 and that was what could be mobilized in that short period. The tragic error was that Rumsfeld continued to think that the terrorist threat existed in the form of a small army to be routed by his fabulous "transformed" warriors.

It is Rumsfeld who declared "mission accomplished" long before President Bush stepped on to the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln. Rumsfeld has been wrong in fighting and too quick to declare victory thereafter.

Rumsfeld declared victory in Afghanistan, in addition, because he was twitching to move on to the next enemy, and the next and the next. But even when the weaknesses and problems became apparent about how the Afghanistan war had been fought, Rumsfeld still pushed an identical military strategy in Iraq, brushing aside any criticism as naïve and appeasing and out of touch with the new gathering storm of weapons of mass destruction.

And even as Iraq has become one of the biggest hornets' nests in history, the secretary has convinced himself over and over that progress is being made and victory is just around the corner. America, Rumsfeld says, is not to blame, conflating a just war with a preemptive American strike. America is not to blame and therefore Rumsfeld is not to blame: no missteps, no errors of judgment. The secretary just wants his soldiers to believe now that he anticipated all along that the enemy was totalitarian and fascist and that Iraq was part of the big plan.

If I were the conspiratorial type, I'd say Rumsfeld was a particular menace to America because in his view of a monolithic and totalitarian terrorist enemy, and in his analysis of the weakness of American society, he can only come to the messianic conclusion that he indeed needs to takeover the country in order to save it. And this might even be worth speculating about were it the case that Rumsfeld reflected the views of those in the military leadership, or were it the case that Rumsfeld could actually engineer such a coup.

But alas, the secretary would get the intelligence wrong, employ too few troops and send tank columns on thunder runs through Manhattan and Hollywood, prematurely declaring victory and then being befuddled about the American desire to recover and preserve its way of life, which is not the Rumsfeld way.

"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 asked yesterday.

This has got an easy answer: World troubles? Rumsfeld is the source of troubles much closer to home.

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In times of universal lies, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act
Don'know if the quotation is acurate, but the the idea is of G.Orwell

Posted by: Rossini | August 30, 2006 05:28 PM

"Terrorists Lie" Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld is right! Terrrorists lie.

These people belong in jail. Our democracy and our freedom is at stake. The terrorists I am refering to are in the White House.

They lied to us about their reasons for going to war in both Afghanistan and Iraq. They havent been able to rebuild Iraq because it hasnt been a priority. Control of middle east oil is a priority. Winning contracts for their defense contractor buddies has been a priority (where'd the 400 billion go???). Building a pipeline for US oil companies in Afghanistan was a priority. Keeping Iraqi oil out of the market and the oil prices at record highs is a priority. Transforming our democracy into a monarchy where the President is king and not bound to any laws passed by Congress is a priority.

Bin Laden who?????

Posted by: melissa | August 30, 2006 05:24 PM

For those who believe that Rumsfeld should be replaced:

BY WHOM??

I have yet to read a credible suggestion as to who would make a GOOD Secretary of Defense during the remainder of the Bush administration...

Posted by: JR | August 30, 2006 05:19 PM

Is it just me or the majority of Americans feel the way I feel? FEAR. I, like the "decider" decided not to post my thoughts in FEAR that I'll be called "unpatriotic." or being told that "you are either with us or against us." I, we, for that, have to thank the "uniter." What is in the "lack box" for the future of America if we all FEAR? We all know that FEAR will be the theme for the next elections, and you don't have (no disrespect for the blind people)to be blind to see it. I was going to post my views about the shrub's administration but, after reading all the spinning and hate that comes out of the blinded and closed minded followers of the shrub's GOP. I felt FEAR.
Thank you messrs. shrub and Co.
Judgment day is coming.

Posted by: JMC | August 30, 2006 05:18 PM

Mr Bales, with upmost respect because I sense you are a good and fair man, those of us who are concerned are not asleep. We too fear, but we fear something other than what you fear. We do not fear being attacked. No man can live his life in that kind of fear. Those of us who are concerned fear something else. That evil learns.

In WWII, evil was apparent, and it was apparent the right thing to do was to fight it. No one would argue against that even today with today's changed representation of the world. When atrocities happen, you know them when you see them. You sir, sound as if you have seen a few to know that's true.

Evil both home and abroad has learned it's safe when entreanched in apparent righteousness.

Put the whole war this way, in human terms: What if you were mugged one time years ago, and yesterday you saw someone on the street who gave you a bad look, so you shot him. This country would put you away forever, if not worse. And I'm not argueing that.

That's exactly what we've done on a global scale. Killed but not in self defence.

Those of us who are concerned are so because we know the difference, and when people are in power telling you there is no difference, that they're justified because hypothetical future atrocities have been prevented, we're concerned that evil has learned by settling for a little bit of our souls at a time.

Posted by: Matt Jarvis | August 30, 2006 05:02 PM

Its ironic considering The New Order oops thats the nazis
Bushes New World Order IS the fascism of today.

Posted by: Stanley Retting | August 30, 2006 04:56 PM

"as if this isn't an extremely explosive clash of cultures that requires a united West if we are to survive (yes, survive --- those aren't popguns and peeshooters they want to use against us)."

Definitely a clash of cultures, I agree. But my point was that I hope fanatics stay away from policy-making long enough for the clash to cease being so...clashy--just like Q's militaristic counterparts in the 80s no longer feel so violent towards Ruskies, I hope 40 years from now the current fanatics won't feel so "us and them" about Arabs. Should we gut the military and ignore counter-terrorism as a means to that or any end? Of course not, quite the opposite. But we shouldn't be messianic about it. It's uncouth, Q.


"(And please, for the love of God, don't use the old "All Muslims are not bad" argument. Gunter Grass and the Pope turned out to be pretty nice fellows, but that didn't stop nine million Jews from dying. Nor do the few "nice Muslims" negate the sizeable percentage of a billion who wage war against us as we sit here cheerfully debating Rumsfeld's intent, among other frivolities.)"

Straw man that may work for a middle school debate team. If they're evil, then why not do as Coulter says and bomb every Arab country and Iran? Once again, no lib on this blog has advocated gutting the military or ceasing counter-terrorism. From what I can tell, they're just a little more nuanced in how they think about the issue, and they're open to engaging with moderates in the ME, which Q apparently believes is like appeasing Hitler.


Q finds that

Posted by: solidstate | August 30, 2006 04:52 PM

An older issue of the War College magazine Parameters had an article positing the triangulation of future warfare along the lines of Paper, Rock, Scissors. The thought occurs that such a development is already well advanced, where nations capable of projecting overwhelming military might nevertheless lack the political capacity for protracted engagements. Regardless of the merits of Mr. Rumsfeld's specific allegations (i.e., criticism of the administration aids our nation's enemies), his underlying observation that democracies are ill-equipped for long-lasting conflicts appears apt.

Posted by: ST | August 30, 2006 04:39 PM

I thought that I had misread the title of your article. But you meant it. You revealed more about yourself than about Rumsfeld. These times remind me of the late 1930's. Many did not recognize the danger from the "Axis." Pearl Harbor was a wake-up call, and we woke up.
We had a wake-up call on September 11 and many others before that beginning in 1979 in Teheran. Many of our people and most in Europe are still asleep.


Posted by: Donald W. Bales | August 30, 2006 04:37 PM

The Bush administration has mismanaged this war by not planning for what to do after Saddam was out ,sent in too few troops to take control of the country, did not take the time to understand the diffrences between the various groups and ended up to help create a bigger mess than ever and those who disagree with the Bush policy are Nazi type appeasers? Excuse me are people such as 'Mad Dog" Rummy so in love with themselves that they go running off at the mouth?
There is a good reason why the Bush
administration went after Saddam-The project for the New America Century-1997.The so called War on Terror is in reality a war on democractic rule at home.Radical Islam is a serious threat to our country but instead of working out policies on all levels military, legal, diplomatic the powers to be decided to create an American empire. In the meantime Bin Laden has a video tape of the month club going,Iraq is in far worse shape than ever, radical Islam is spreading and ports, railyards and power plants in America are largely unprotected.It is time for Rummy to start taking an enema several times a day to help clean out his mind.He is a foolish, arrogant and dangerous man.

Posted by: NJ Resident........ | August 30, 2006 04:28 PM

An older issue of the War College magazine Parameters had an article positing the triangulation of future warfare along the lines of Paper, Rock, Scissors. The thought occurs that such a development is already well advanced, where nations capable of projecting overwhelming military nevertheless lack the political capacity for protracted engagement is already well advanced. Regardless of the merits of Mr. Rumsfeld's specific allegations (i.e., criticism of the administration aids our nation's enemies), his underlying observation that democracies are ill-equipped for long-lasting conflicts appears apt.

Posted by: ST | August 30, 2006 04:27 PM

insul8ted wrote:
"Rumsfeld is right. Islam's goal is world domination."

What does that have to do with Iraq, the way we are occupying Iraq, the lack of a plan in Iraq, Abu Graib, and Rummy's inability to admit or correct a mistake? If you really believe Islam's is on the mark with terrorist soldiers to dominate the world, I would think you would be interested in having someone effective leading the Defense Dept. Rummy has PROVEN himself to be incompetent, unwilling to listen to professionals, and unable to correct a bad course due to arrogance. If anyone wants him to remain in his job, its the terrorists!

We Americans need to get someone who is not a crony but an effective manager who knows the Defense Dept and can effectively lead it. I vote for Colin Powell, you know, the guy Bush pushed out of his administration because he had conflicts with Rummy?.

Posted by: Sully | August 30, 2006 04:27 PM

"I'd say Rumsfeld was a particular menace to America because in his view of a monolithic and totalitarian terrorist enemy".....

Yah, right.....
I'd say that Bush & co. are the menace. After all, rumsfeild is so appreciated that Bush & co wouldn't accept his resignation, even though it was a pure political satire dreamt up to empower the drones in our society that actually believe the propaganda.

This speech and others like it are a test. They are watching our moves to see if we will react. If we do not, then they will seize control. This means no more freedom than the Chinese.

However, if people take to the streets and demand retribution for the crimes and ineptitude being inflicted our name, we will prevail.

Discussions on hanging those in government who commit treason should be the talk of the day.

By the way, it was so nice of you to admit that you are fed talking points. So much for those who don't believe in conspiracies.
("I received an e-mail from Thayer C. Scott, the secretary's speechwriter, serving up talking points....")

To those drones that actually still support the obvious traitors:
Catch a clew and open your eyes... Or get off the line......


Posted by: Mike T. | August 30, 2006 04:23 PM

What Mr Rumsfeld actually wrote:

It was a time when a certain amount of cynicism and moral confusion set in among Western democracies. When those who warned about a coming crisis, the rise of fascism and nazism, they were ridiculed or ignored. Indeed, in the decades before World War II, a great many argued that the fascist threat was exaggerated or that it was someone else's problem. Some nations tried to negotiate a separate peace, even as the enemy made its deadly ambitions crystal clear. It was, as Winston Churchill observed, a bit like feeding a crocodile, hoping it would eat you last.

There was a strange innocence about the world. Someone recently recalled one U.S. senator's reaction in September of 1939 upon hearing that Hitler had invaded Poland to start World War II. He exclaimed:

"Lord, if only I had talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided!"

I recount that history because once again we face similar challenges in efforts to confront the rising threat of a new type of fascism. Today -- another enemy, a different kind of enemy -- has made clear its intentions with attacks in places like New York and Washington, D.C., Bali, London, Madrid, Moscow and so many other places. But some seem not to have learned history's lessons.

We need to consider the following questions, I would submit:

With the growing lethality and the increasing availability of weapons, can we truly afford to believe that somehow, some way, vicious extremists can be appeased?
Can folks really continue to think that free countries can negotiate a separate peace with terrorists?
Can we afford the luxury of pretending that the threats today are simply law enforcement problems, like robbing a bank or stealing a car; rather than threats of a fundamentally different nature requiring fundamentally different approaches?
And can we really afford to return to the destructive view that America, not the enemy, but America, is the source of the world's troubles?
These are central questions of our time, and we must face them and face them honestly.

We hear every day of new plans, new efforts to murder Americans and other free people. Indeed, the plot that was discovered in London that would have killed hundreds -- possibly thousands -- of innocent men, women and children on aircraft flying from London to the United States should remind us that this enemy is serious, lethal, and relentless.

But this is still not well recognized or fully understood. It seems that in some quarters there's more of a focus on dividing our country than acting with unity against the gathering threats.

It's a strange time:

When a database search of America's leading newspapers turns up literally 10 times as many mentions of one of the soldiers who has been punished for misconduct -- 10 times more -- than the mentions of Sergeant First Class Paul Ray Smith, the first recipient of the Medal of Honor in the Global War on Terror;
Or when a senior editor at Newsweek disparagingly refers to the brave volunteers in our armed forces -- the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Marines, the Coast Guard -- as a "mercenary army;"
When the former head of CNN accuses the American military of deliberately targeting journalists; and the once CNN Baghdad bureau chief finally admits that as bureau chief in Baghdad, he concealed reports of Saddam Hussein's crimes when he was in charge there so that CNN could keep on reporting selective news;
And it's a time when Amnesty International refers to the military facility at Guantanamo Bay -- which holds terrorists who have vowed to kill Americans and which is arguably the best run and most scrutinized detention facility in the history of warfare -- "the gulag of our times." It's inexcusable. (Applause.)
Those who know the truth need to speak out against these kinds of myths and distortions that are being told about our troops and about our country. America is not what's wrong with the world. (Applause.)

The struggle we are in -- the consequences are too severe -- the struggle too important to have the luxury of returning to that old mentality of "Blame America First."

One of the most important things the American Legion has done is not only to serve and assist and advocate, as you have done so superbly for so much of the past century, but also to educate and to speak the truth about our country and about the men and women in the military.
Not so long ago, an exhibit -- Enola Gay at the Smithsonian during the 1990s -- seemed to try to rewrite the history of World War II by portraying the United States as somewhat of an aggressor. Fortunately, the American Legion was there to lead the effort to set the record straight. (Applause.)

Your watchdog role is particularly important today in a war that is to a great extent fought in the media on a global stage, a role to not allow the distortions and myths be repeated without challenge so that at the least the second or third draft of history will be more accurate than the first quick allegations we see.

You know from experience personally that in every war there have been mistakes, setbacks, and casualties. War is, as Clemenceau said, "a series of catastrophes that result in victory."

And in every army, there are occasional bad actors, the ones who dominate the headlines today, who don't live up to the standards of the oath and of our country. But you also know that they are a very, very small percentage of the literally hundreds of thousands of honorable men and women in all theaters in this struggle who are serving our country with humanity, with decency, with professionalism, and with courage in the face of continuous provocation. (Applause.)

And that is important in any long struggle or long war, where any kind of moral or intellectual confusion about who and what is right or wrong, can weaken the ability of free societies to persevere.

Our enemies know this well. They frequently invoke the names of Beirut or Somalia -- places they see as examples of American retreat and American weakness. And as we've seen -- even this month -- in Lebanon, they design attacks and manipulate the media to try to demoralize public opinion. They doctor photographs of casualties. They use civilians as human shields. And then they try to provoke an outcry when civilians are killed in their midst, which of course was their intent.

The good news is that most Americans, though understandably influenced by what they see and read, have good inner gyroscopes. They have good center of gravity. So, I'm confident that over time they will evaluate and reflect on what is happening in this struggle and come to wise conclusions about it.

Iraq, a country that was brutalized by a cruel and dangerous dictatorship, is now traveling the slow, difficult, bumpy, uncertain path to a secure new future under a representative government that will be at peace with its neighbors, rather than a threat to their own people, to their neighbors, or to the world.

As the nature of the threat and the conflict in Iraq has changed over these past several years, so have the tactics and the deployments. But while military tactics have changed and adapted to the realities on the ground -- as they must -- the strategy has not changed, which is to empower the Iraqi people to be able to defend, and govern, and rebuild their own country.

The extremists themselves call Iraq the "epicenter" in the War on Terror. And our troops know how important their mission is.

A soldier who recently volunteered for a second tour in Iraq captured the feeling of many of his peers. In an e-mail to some friends, he wrote the following, and I quote:

"I ask that you never take advantage of the liberties guaranteed by the shedding of free blood, never take for granted the freedoms granted by our Constitution. For those liberties would be merely ink on paper were it not for the sacrifice of generations of Americans who heard the call of duty and responded heart, mind and soul with 'Yes, I will.'"


Some day that young man very likely will be a member of the American Legion attending a convention like this. I certainly hope so. And I hope he does that and that we all have a chance to meet. And one day a future speaker may reflect back on the time of historic choice, remembering the questions raised as to our country's courage, and dedication, and willingness to persevere in this fight until we prevail.

The question is not whether we can win; it's whether we have the will to persevere to win. I'm convinced that Americans do have that determination and that we have learned the lessons of history, of the folly of trying to turn a blind eye to danger. These are lessons you know well, lessons that your heroism has helped to teach to generations of Americans.

May God bless each of you. May God bless the men and women in uniform, and their families. And may God continue to bless our wonderful country.


Posted by: Donald Rumsfeld | August 30, 2006 04:17 PM

GO AKIN ! --check out the Carlyle Group. composed of ex high ranking government people-and the father of Osama Bin Laden. One of its members helped Bush win in Fla. Llike the Mafia,-they are now attempting to aquire public companies to improve their image. Did own the fourth largest weapons producers in America. Be careful--you might lose your job --

Posted by: clinton warner | August 30, 2006 04:13 PM

Thank God for Donald Rumsfeld
I'll comment on point.
Mr Arkin says, "The Saddam regime is gone; that's true. But given what has taken its place, it would not be an irrational choice for many Iraqis to prefer the Iraq of 2002 rather than the Iraq of 2006."
When Sadaam was in power 78000 Iraqi's were dying each year; killed by Sadaam. Where is the headline saying Bush has saved the lives of 58000 Iraqi's who Sadaam would have killed.

Posted by: Anthony Weston | August 30, 2006 04:05 PM

Sitting here in England it's wonderfully heartening to see so many Americans who do not belong to the persistent (English) media image of gung-ho, yee-ha, nuke-em rednecks.
Bush, and his lap dog Blair, have sufficiently demonstrated that their arrogant demonizing of Muslims has no basis in reality and that they are the ones we should be scared of.
Your constitution is something to be rightly proud of. How DARE individuals of proven negligible intellect try and change it with threats and coercion? It is your right to challenge their assumptions and you are more, not less, of a patriot if you stand up to them.
Rumsfeld is the traitor to the American way of life.

Posted by: Neil | August 30, 2006 04:00 PM

the Defense Secretary needs only to realize that terrorism has emerged from every society, every epoch, utilizing every conceivable methodology......it is here like the the wind is here...it is not going anywhere....you just contribute what you can to improve the lot of as many human beings as you can...and know beforehand it will still not be enough. does knowing this dissuade you?..absolutely not. and while we're at it, why get apoplectic about Iran going nuclear...the realization by them at that future point, that if ever used, in any situation, that usage will bring reprisals of such horror that Iran will likely be no more....it is a fool's errand....and Iranians are no fools.

Posted by: Mr.F | August 30, 2006 03:57 PM

So Rumsfeld has learned the word "fascism". I don't expect him to care one iota about what the word actually means, as long as he can use it as a bludgeon against anyone that seems to disagree with him. However, for the rest of us, Dr Lawrence Britt's "Fourteen Defining Characteristics of Fascism" are quite interesting, especially when read together with one of Rumsfeld's harangues:

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism
2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights
3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause
4. Supremacy of the Military
5. Rampant Sexism
6. Controlled Mass Media
7. Obsession with National Security
8. Religion and Government are Intertwined
9. Corporate Power is Protected
10. Labor Power is Suppressed
11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts
12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment
13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption
14. Fraudulent Elections

Let's leave the name-calling to Rumsfeld, but how many can the current administration check off? And how many extra points do they get if Rumsfeld gets his way?


Posted by: A Bonvik | August 30, 2006 03:56 PM

If the same news media today had been around in WWII, the results of that war would have been substantially different. Any battle that would have gone poorly would be all over the front page news as US failures while battles won would be mere backpage footnotes. And the US may not have even entered WWII, Congress and the media would have been to busy trying to determine internal blame for Pearl Harbor while Germany took over the world.

Posted by: Russell C. | August 30, 2006 03:55 PM

I can't improve on Mr. Arkin's article, which was one of his best. However, I will comment on a few things on the Blog. First, while George Bush disliked Saddam Hussein, the origins of the Iraq War and the "Axis of Evil", can be found on the web under the Neoconservative paper, "Clean Break", originally designed for the Netanyahu Government in 1996. It will pop right up under "Clean Break". The Washington Post pointed me toward that paper before the iraq war.
Second, While decimated by WWII, both Germany and Japan were experienced industrial states, and there was no reinventing the wheel with regard to industrial and economic management. The major change was political, but the concepts behind those changes were not unknown to either country.


Posted by: P. J. Casey | August 30, 2006 03:53 PM

America's true power from it's conception until Bush, with the exception of the Vietnam Era, to which this era is comparable, hasn't been it's military. America's power has come from it's moral high ground.

America was strong because Americans believed we were on the right side.

I live four miles away from the Lincoln Memorial. Republican or Democrat or Wigg or Federalist, you go to the Lincoln and stand under him and you read the Gettysburg Address stenciled on the wall in front of you about three stories tall. THAT, is America.

For all his faith, which I don't question, I hail in fact, ironically, Bush's legacy will be the destruction of our morality in the world. Unprovoked pre-emptive destruction is by definition, immoral.

Fear of being hurt is not a good enough reason to exterminate.

For the first time ever, with the exception of Vietnam Era, to which this era is comparable, Americans are on the wrong side. For the first time ever Americans are learning how to lose. And we're bad losers. And I'm not talking about the war.

Posted by: Matt Jarvis | August 30, 2006 03:39 PM

" Iraq has become one of the biggest hornets' nests in history"

Has become?

Just Iraq?

What strikes me as strange is this statement's inherently incorrect view of the ME. A view, I might add, that Arkin shares with quite a few people on this board and around the country. That view being that the ME was this idyllic, happy, and peaceful place until the evil Americans and/or Westerners showed up and crashed the party. Consequently, this view holds that the real way to solve the problems in the ME is for the Americans/Westerners to get out and let them get on with their utopia. For all his many faults, at least Rumsfeld knows enough to reject this silly and misguided characterization. The ME, especially Iraq, was not an idyllic paradise. Theirs is a long history, a history which predates colonialism, of brutal monarchies who killed dissenters and apostates and waged war on their neighbors. Iraq especially trumps this silly utopian view. True, crime rates were very low and civil unrest was virtually nonexistent. Both of these, however, were due to the fact that Saddam killed anyone who even thought of disagreement or protest against his regime. It was Saddam's brutality that kept the Shiite, Sunni, and Kurdish factions from fighting, not some idyllic and peaceful tendencies on the part of the general public. Just look at what is happening now, loosely organized hit squads from both sides wantonly kill members from other sects. These are "ordinary" Iraqis murdering one another, not trained secret police. The same type of thing happens in other ME countries. Need proof? Publish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed and let it hit the fan. In America and the West, when religious fundamentalists are offended they have telethons and protests and revivals, they don't burn embassies or newspaper buildings, they don't riot. Here is a good example of what I am talking about: when Dan Brown published The DaVinci Code, the Vatican didn't damn him, they didn't offer anyone a free trip to heaven for killing him, all they did was say he was wrong and urge their followers to boycott his movie and book. When Salman Rushdie published The Satanic Verses, Iran's religious leaders did exactly what the Vatican did not do, except ask their followers to boycott the book. This is the type of environment that the ME has been for centuries. Arkin's inherent characterization and the conclusions he draws from that characterization are sadly misguided. They would be dangerously misguided if weren't just a blogger. As arrogant, pugnacious, and intolerant as Rumsfeld most certainly is, at least he understands that the ME was a hornet's nest long before we got there. Hopefully we can keep from getting stung by swatting as many hornets as we can.

Trust always in Reason

Archimedes

Posted by: Archimedes | August 30, 2006 03:23 PM

When I was temporarily out of the country during the election season of 2000, I had some doubts about the administration that looked like it was about to get elected.

In retrospect, I had no idea how bad it was going to get, so much so that I feel kind of stupid now.

Mr. Arkin has brought something very important to light, and that is that hardliners within the current administration like Rumsfeld are what's really wrong with the United States. I can hardly blame Mr. Arkin for his admittedly cynical, crass, and world-weary attitude regarding the issue. Why? Because after six years under this administration and watching with Mr. Arkin and 250 million fellow Americans the endless procession of blunders this power-bloc has committed, I want to give myself the axe too. You can't help but laugh at how utterly nonsensical the situation has gotten.

I'm a centrist with liberal leanings, but this doesn't mean I want to send the Care Bears for some psych-therapy for people like Osama bin Laden. I'd like to see them eradicated like any other person here, I bet. But lets face it, when your own Secretary of Defense is able to belittle the entire segment of America that disagrees with him--and be taken seriously enough for journalists like Mr. Arkin to write about it--and to BOOT, inspire this much hatred and invective between readers as result, your situation has crossed the line from 'frying pan' to 'lava pit'.

I have to agree with all the elder statesmen on both sides of the aisle who say they feel American politics has become an ugly parade of monsters where Democrats, Republicans, and Independents are only too happy to call each other "Cut and Runners/Terrorist-huggers" "Jesus freaks" and (yes! it returns) "nattering nabobs of negativism".

When will our leaders (and some of our populace, it seems, from a few posters here) stop living in Crazy Base Land and realize that America is doing more harm to itself than any jetliner inserted to a building ever could?

Good job people. I think I feel sick.

Posted by: Kaz | August 30, 2006 03:21 PM

Self-serving Praxis...coming from self-serving Hard-Headed Ideologues!

That is what I see... It is my understanding that Mr. Rumsfield, Cheney's protégé, Wolfowitz and others began working on their form of political pragmatism/praxis all the way back to the Reagan years, just about a couple of decades ago.

Like religion and religious people, these folks have taken a few unproven ideas made them sacrosanct and now they are going around spreading instead their form of division and destruction around the planet. These folks have concluded that their entrenched ideas are the only correct ideas, and therefore they are intolerant and impatient with any ideas that are contrary to their own.

As far as they are concerned, even when proven wrong, anyone who does not see things as they do are on their way to Hades anyway; and as I heard them boast at one time, with regard to some of their dissenters, perhaps we can help you to get there. Unfortunately, as we do many times with religious dogma in our various Faiths, using a similar dogmatic style these peripatetic and didactic closed minded teachers repeatedly rehearse and regurgitate their unproven ideas over and over to their converts as they look out into the world and seek to proselyte others into their Political Faith. For speculation, although without proof has unfortunately become truth, even in the face of evidence to the contrary. My mom used to call people like these 'Hard Heads'.

For much like a black hole in space there is no light source that can penetrate the darkness of their closed minds. Not just Mr. Rumsfield, many curmudgeons get set in their ways. They refuse to change and they get defensive about what they believe that they will strike out against those who oppose them, just as this group is doing around the world in Iraq and with Korea and Iran. All we can hope for is that someday they will resign, otherwise there is no telling how much more damage these political evangelical warhawks will do, as they are being led along by their Apostle and Right Reverend, George W. Bush!


Posted by: The Rev | August 30, 2006 03:17 PM

Justin, the one who referred to us "Bush-haters" as stupid and out of touch with the "way things truely [sic] are" should first learn proper use of pronouns and work on his spelling and grammar skills, considering that he has so much to say. First rule of political dialogue, debate, discussion: don't make it personal by calling people who don't agree with you "stupid" and out of touch with how "things truely [sic] are", it's all a matter of opinion and we're all entitled to one. To blame "us" for the possibility that the terrorists won't be "stopped" by Bush, due to our being brainwashed by the terroristic information/propoganda war, is absolutely preposterous, in my opinion -- truely.

Posted by: Lori | August 30, 2006 02:56 PM

Eric Marshall is spot on--we might not have needed a draft to deal with 9/11, but the years of screw ups in Iraq have left us with only two options: stop throwing U.S. lives away by pulling out or stop throwing U.S. lives away by instituting a universal draft that will give us the troops we need to control the territory of Iraq.

Funny, the first lesson I got in Army ROTC was that the function of the Army is "to control the territory on which is it deployed." Not to destroy infrastructure, not even to simply kill the enemy, but to CONTROL the enemy's territory. I guess Rumsfeld missed that class.

This sorry debacle in Iraq needs to stop right now. Winning is the preferable exit strategy, which will require a draft to staff the military as it should have been from the beginning.

Posted by: Sage Thrasher | August 30, 2006 02:52 PM

Justin -- We dropped atom bombs two Japanese cities, conventionally bombed many more in Germany and Japan, destroyed lots of stuff, and killed and injured many people. We also did spend lots of money and provide many resources in helping them to rebuild.

My point ccncerned rebuilding their societies and governments from scratch. We did not do this. The Germans and Japanese largely rebuilt themselves on the basis of societies and structures that had survived war.

It does not appear that the Iraqi state and Iraqi society have survived Saddam and the war intact. This means that we need to rebuild it if we really care about the future of the Iraqi people. My point was that we do not know how that should be done.

Call me all the names you wish (in whatever font you choose). In doing so, however, please let me know just what our knowledge base is for rebuilding an entire society. We know how to destroy things very well. What do we know about building new societies or repairing broken ones? Who are the experts? Where are the books, journals, position papers? My point before is that we do not know much at all about this and I dare you to show me something besides invective to the effect that we do know something.

Posted by: Mark | August 30, 2006 02:47 PM

James Madison had it right...."If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."
And...
"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home."

It is surely no accident that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al., have taken us down this road.

Posted by: DRussell | August 30, 2006 02:43 PM

First off I would like to comment the guy who said "As a country, we have never done this. We did not "rebuild" the German or Japanese states and society after WWII since they had not been destroyed by the war." That's funny I thought we droped two nuclear bombs on Japan and Germany was considerably destroyed. The US spent a lot of Money and effort helping to rebuild both countries. You Sir are an IDIOT.

You all point fingers and say Bush is the worst thing to happen to America and the world in centuries yet I don't see many of you citing anything other than the same vague criticisms over and over.

Most of you have contempt for the Bush Administration show not only your stupidity but your inability to see current issues in the world as they truely are. I have heard conservatives concede and admitt Bush's plan for Iraq may have been the wrong one, and compromise on many other issues. Yet in these posts People can say they absolutely disagree with everything the Bush administration has ever done. How could that be? Do you truly believe were the Democrats in office we would have done the exact opposite of everything the Bush Administration has done so far. The fact that you just hate everyting shows your basing the wellfare of our nation on ideas you haven't really thought out.

Bush is correct to go after these Muslim Radicals. With technology getting cheaper and more available to anyone their hatred of the West is becoming easier for us to see and understand. Intercontinental missils are easier to get that they were 10 or 20 years ago. If you have not noticed anyone who believes and lives by the Qu'ran is an enemy of the United States and our Allies. That book perscribes the opposite of everything we hold sacred and important here in the US. Looking through history we see we have been at conflict with Muslims for some time, though perhaps the names of the countries have changed.

We must stop them while we still have the advantage.

Radical and so called "moderate" muslims have become masters at fighting a different war. An information war. They publically claim victory when their defeat was obvious to everyone but them. They scream attrocity when poor innocent muslims are killed because a bomb was droped on a house that was being used to harbor terrorist and fire mortars. Their are no punishments by Muslim countries for these Guerilla fighters who are putting innocent people in danger. How do we fight them then, unless we assume all are the enemy until each respective goverment takes it upon themselves to stop their own citizens from doing these sorts of things.

I do believe we should have initially put more troops on the ground in Afgh and Iraq, but you will not fool me, we must stop them. If Bush fails to stop the Terror threat it will be because Americans like the guy who wrote this article and others who believe it have allowed terrorist to win the Information/propaganda war.

Posted by: justin | August 30, 2006 02:29 PM

==The problem is, beyond that, Rumsfeld is turning to us like a bad father and saying, "Son, if you disagree with me, if you don't kill them, and if you question how those bees got there in the first place, you're not my son anymore." You're not an American. And as of yesterday in his speech, 'You're a traitor. A dissident. An appeaser to a new world fascism. An obstacle to security.'==

I like your piece.

The answer is that rummy, bush and cheney are not our parents and we are not children. They have no special insight, just power. And even passive resistance will relieve them of that. Sure, the war they started will take a long time to quiet down. But it is not an existential threat.

Posted by: dimitry | August 30, 2006 02:22 PM

I am enjoying reading this open debate, although I think we can exchange ideas without name calling and attempting to demean those who have a different opinion from our own. I am a Vietnam Vet Against the War in Iraq for a multitude of reasons.

One of my greatest concerns is what we are doing to our military. We are fighting the War on Terrorism on at least two fronts and seem to shaking that hornet's nest with our military and political sticks all over the globe. Our military is over extended with little apparent success in keeping it strong. Those men and women who feel called to serve are routinely being asked to serve beyond whatever has been the case previously. My son is in the Navy and has served in four combat assignments in 5 1/2 years--two on board ship and two on the ground. In his most recent tour, he is on the ground in Iraq. He is part of a unit that was sent over to replace an Air Force unit. These units have been assigned what would normally be considered a mission of the Army, but the Army doesn't seem to have the personnel to do the job.

Mr. Rumsfeld and his managers have been doing 6 month turn arounds with our troops--National Guard, Reserves, Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. Tour extensions are so commonplace, they are expected. Stop loss programs punish those who have served willingly and faithfully. Men and women who have served honorably and who have left the military honorably are being recalled to active duty. Men and women who considered a career in the military are planning to get out as soon as possible.

The damage being done to the stability and strength of our military is considerable and long lasting. The officer corp and enlisted force is becoming smaller in all services. It will take years or decades to repair this damage and earn the trust of our citizens.

Our military's primary mission is to protect our country. Attacking third world countries with other people's children doesn't make me feel protected. We need rational leadership who can demonstrate success in accomplishing their personal missions. Instilling fear and calling names is not part of Mr. Rumsfeld's military mission. Apparently, it is part of his political mission.

I have a sign in my office: "People may doubt what you say, but they will always believe what you do." We have a President who was too busy with politics to even serve out his commitment in the Guard, a Vice President who had "better things to do" than serve during the Vietnam War, and we have Mr. Rumsfeld.

My son is due home shortly--if he is not extended again.


Posted by: Vietnam Vet | August 30, 2006 02:20 PM

There is a mud dauber's nest in my bathroom window outside the screen. I hate bees. I'm allergic to them, and so I'm afraid of them.

Earlier this summer, I wanted to open the window and douse them with Raid. Kill them all... but I didn't. I remembered back to when I was a kid and my mother was beside me. I imaged her kneeling down beside me, pointing her finger up at the screen and saying to a very nervous but very excited and inquisitive six year old, "Look at that! Look at her build that nest out of mud! Isn't that interesting...?" She was a good parent. She always taught me things about the world, even if they were scary, And then I was smarter than I was before.

So I let the mud dauber be. I and let her build her nest, I watched her every day.

The summer was hot, too hot it seems to build a good nest. It cracked and came apart in August. no mud dauber every emerged from it. The mud dauber that built it, after spending two months constructing the nest never came back to it. I wonder what happened to her.

I was glad I didn't Raid the nest, and I actually miss the bee, even though we were eneasy neighbors.

See the problem is that not all parents are good parents. The problem is that Rumsfeld, Bush, are bad parents. The worst kind of parents. What they've done, is they've brought the bees. They brought the bees in the night to the nest and they knelt down beside us and they pointed their fingers up and said, "Look, bees! They'll hurt you. Fear them. Smoke them out of their holes and kill them." Iraq was never the enemy. There are real dnagers outside my window, but that nest was never one of them. It's the worst kind of lie, from a parent. To lie when you have absolute trust.

The problem is, beyond that, Rumsfeld is turning to us like a bad father and saying, "Son, if you disagree with me, if you don't kill them, and if you question how those bees got there in the first place, you're not my son anymore." You're not an American. And as of yesterday in his speech, 'You're a traitor. A dissident. An appeaser to a new world fascism. An obstacle to security.'

This man is dangerous.

He is playing the most dangerous game ever played.

The threat wasn't real. We created it. He brought the bees. And now it's a real hornet's nest and now it's dangerous, and we're confused because we don't understand how it happened.

My God! Rumsfeld isn't interested in peace or security. He wants to, and is in a position to, remake American into the image he would like it to be with only himself at it's head. To rule in fear and silence his enemies before they cab breathe. It's insane. It's mad.

The truth is, he's drugged us all and he's brought us to the hive. Now he's standing back and pointing AT US and saying, 'It's your fault America. Kill the bees. Destroy yourselves, for your own good. Make this place safer.'

Posted by: Matt Jarvis | August 30, 2006 02:07 PM

All Mr. Arkin is saying is that Rumsfeld screwed up, either doesn't know it or refuses to admit it, and has no intention of changing course. In the real world vs. the unreal world governments seem to inhabit, when someone screws up, he's out. Judging by Mr. Rumsfeld's latest speech, his use of invectives, name-calling, and labelling more appropriately model the behavior of a cornered animal fighting for its life.

Posted by: felicity smith | August 30, 2006 01:59 PM

Arkin is a Democrat and this is an election year.

Posted by: Seamus | August 30, 2006 01:55 PM

I believe it is Rumsfeld who is not taking the history lesson. If I remember rightly, it was the Nazis who attacked, not us that attacked them. In all of history, there has never been a successful attack to bring peace to a country, it has always been a successful defense. This would seem to put history on the side of the Iraqi's as victors!

Rumsfeld also claims that those who are not prepared to "stay the course" in Iraq are cowards. I would put it to Rumsfeld, and Bush, that the cowards are the ones who are not prepared to do the job properly. Unfortuantely, that means more troops, and a draft to get those troops. Draft seems to be a word they are universally afraid of - maybe because they know the population of this country will not support it - because, they really know, the population does not support an unwinnable war.

Posted by: Eric Marshall | August 30, 2006 01:55 PM

The only good from reading these comments is that most people are on to the deceptive practices of this administration. I've always voted Republican but would feel anti-patriotic if I continued. I even voted for this President which is the biggest mistake voting I have ever made. Don't really like Democrats either but we must make a change if are to survive. Didn't this President say we can not let the terrorist win by changing our life styles. What has changed ? Nothing for the better and much for worse. My main fear now is our voting machines are easily hacked none have passed a single compliance test.Why isn't that front page news ? Our in cahoots media ?

Posted by: Realist HDB | August 30, 2006 01:52 PM

I had to laugh at some of the (obviously) conservative comments. "Radical" Islam is just that because the US has so often interfered in Muslim-predominant regions purely for monetary (read OIL) profits and access. "Powder-puff" intellectuals? I would guess that might include anyone who doesn't think like the author of that comment. Critical thinking is something I teach to college students. I don't see much critical thinking happening in this country; thus enhancing the popularity of the bumpersticker - "I think, therefore I'm dangerous!" The sooner our nation realizes we've been duped by our government and been led down the path to global destruction and war, and make serious changes through our votes at the polls (if this dictatorship lets us), the sooner we will again be respected worldwide for more than our capacity to wage war.

Posted by: Dr. Brown | August 30, 2006 01:49 PM

The only good from reading these comments is that most people are on to the deceptive practices of this administration. I've always voted Republican but would feel anti-patriotic if I continued. I even voted for this President which is the biggest mistake voting I have ever made. Don't really like Democrats either but we must make a change if are to survive. Didn't this President say we can not let the terrorist win by changing our life styles. What has changed ? Nothing for the better and much for worse. My main fear now is our voting machines are easily hacked none have passed a single compliance test.Why isn't that front page news ? Our in cahoots media ?

Posted by: Realist HDB | August 30, 2006 01:45 PM

Rumsfeld is right.
Islam's goal is world domination. The Koran requires that infidels be conquered and then enslaved. Conquered men will have their throats slit, and their women will be raped. Notice that kidnap victims like the Fox news reporters and Jill Carol of Christian Science Monitor are forced to convert at gunpoint on threat of death. Some like those Christian relief workers and Daniel Pearl, are simply beheaded.
Heed Rumsfeld's warning you fools, or start bowing toward Mecca.

Posted by: insul8ed | August 30, 2006 01:44 PM

How people can continue to back this "regime" in Washington is beyond me. This administration continues to wipe it's butt with the Constitution. And if I speak out against it, I'm a terrorist. He lied to get us into the war, and now we are stuck. I have two freinds that will never come back from Iraq, and they died for nothing but a personal vendetta, just because someone threatened the President's dad. Just great.

Posted by: | August 30, 2006 01:39 PM

I have to agree with some of the earlier posters who said the problem is the lack of civilized debate within our country. How do you begin to communicate with people who allow their hatred to totally blind them to any viewpoints but their own? I hear people on both sides rant that their opponents are crazy or immoral; but who gave them the wisdom, or power, to determine exactly what the correct path should be? Like everyone else, I have my own ideas, but who cares to hear them?

Posted by: Jack Snit | August 30, 2006 01:38 PM

1 terror cannot be fought with armies

2 a muslim country would never invade the us, ever

3 the foundation of the present conflict is global economic inequality

4 we should not have invaded iraq, its people will never accept our ways, they are worse off now than they were under saddam, we will pull out after the 2008 election and leave a bleeding shambles (but obfuscate the point, of course)

5 if we want to fight terror we need muslim field agents who speak the language giving us an accurate portrait of the conspirators in question WE DO NOT HAVE THIS

Posted by: itiot | August 30, 2006 01:30 PM

There is no plan. There is no "course" to stay. Rumsfeld's idea of our goal for Iraq as expressed in the speech "to empower the Iraqi people to defend, govern and rebuild their own country" is a restatement of the problem in Iraq in the form of a solution.

Why? Because we do not know how to rebuild states and societies, as we must do in Iraq and Afganistan. As a country, we have never done this. We did not "rebuild" the German or Japanese states and society after WWII since they had not been destroyed by the war. When we, as a nation, tried to build our own state, it took nearly a hundred years (four score and seven) and culminated in a bloody civil war costing hundreds of thousands of lives. What do we really know about rebuilding damaged societies?

If we do not know how to rebuild Iraqi state and society, how can there be any realistic talk about a plan or a course to stay? If we don't know what we are doing, then how will we know when it is done?

As to charging his critics with weakness in the face of fascism, Rumsfeld might note that some might view resistance to a government that is actively engaging in "regime change", occupying large areas of the world by force of arms for an unlimited future, and spying on its own citizens in defiance of legal restrictions as squarely in the tradition of defending freedom and resisting fascism.

Posted by: Mark | August 30, 2006 01:28 PM

Crazy talk aside, Rumsfeld has lost a war in Iraq, is on the verge of losing Afganistan, and spreading his "Islamo-Fascism" to take over Pakistan. Why Bush has clung to this albatros for so long is the greater mystery--is Bush so blind???

Posted by: Sage Thrasher | August 30, 2006 01:27 PM

Can someone tell me why Republicans are always so ANGRY, PARANOID, and so adept at LABELLING, NAME-CALLING and DEMONIZING their adversaries? Has anyone noticed how much more polarization has occurred since they took over the Congress in '94?........Mr. Aekin's article is well-writtrn, and appropriately descriptive.

Posted by: T.J.CARR | August 30, 2006 01:27 PM

"McVeigh was the exception too?" Maybe so, but you fail to realize there are a lot of "exceptions" in the Muslim world. A LOT. Please read my other post for more details. You can find it by doing a page search for such keywords as "stick head in sand", "weak", spineless". Oh, I'm not suggesting YOU are this, sir/ma'am. I am just suggesting it is your almost miraculously blind attitude which is leading our nation toward those things.

Hey, call me a xenophobe, but it's a badge I'll wear proudly when the opposing culture produces a fiasco like Musharraf faced a few days ago by having the audacity to attempt to reform rape and age of consent laws in his country. http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0302/p06s01-wosc.html. Or where armed gunmen attack a Danish embassy (among many other attacks against free speech) because of a few cartoons. http://supportdenmark.com/ (Now, someone get on here and tell me how those cartoons were such an "atrocity" to Islam and I'll tell you how Muslim responses worldwide are an atrocity toward my own religion and faith of free speech!)

Demonize Islam? I don't need to. They demonize themselves just fine. I merely enjoy sitting back watching the left defend them tooth and nail, while editorialists like Arkin pretend we should act as if this isn't an extremely explosive clash of cultures that requires a united West if we are to survive (yes, survive --- those aren't popguns and peeshooters they want to use against us). What a dangerous geopolitical game of Russian Roulette he plays.

(And please, for the love of God, don't use the old "All Muslims are not bad" argument. Gunter Grass and the Pope turned out to be pretty nice fellows, but that didn't stop nine million Jews from dying. Nor do the few "nice Muslims" negate the sizeable percentage of a billion who wage war against us as we sit here cheerfully debating Rumsfeld's intent, among other frivolities.)

Posted by: Q | August 30, 2006 01:22 PM

Your stupidy is showing! Spend some time in the library studying history... then do some study of current events... say from Jimmy Carter's presidency on. You have missed much.

Posted by: Bob Arkin | August 30, 2006 01:18 PM

David Bown wrote:
"Just listen to all the hate that exists on this blog. This is what divides our country. This is the real accomplishment of the terrorists."

Uh, it was Bush's breaking of laws, giving medals to those who failed, vacationing while a city was destroyed, an increased body count AFTER the mission was accomplished, and just pure stupidity and negligence that created the hate you hear. The terrorists had nothing to do with it.

"terrorist are real. Lets focus on the real issues at hand."

Right, lets fire Rummy for failing in his job and replace him with someone who can get it done right. Lets get out of the Iraq civil war and send some troops back to Afganistan where the terrorists are and find that s.o.b Osama and kill him this time. Rummy has failed over and over and the hate you hear is anger at Bush continually saying what a heck of a job he's doing. Rummy's false logic of supporting this administration or you support the terrorists (with us or against us) just shows how stupid he and the administration really are.

Posted by: Sully | August 30, 2006 01:15 PM


Beginning particularly with the Iran hostage crisis of 1979, a global shift in world power configurations began with the ascendancy of an Islamic regime that was willing to reject American hegemony in the Middle East. The 444-day standoff saw 66 Americans held inside the American embassy in Tehran by revolutionary students under the new regime. In the aftermath, the American right discredited President Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan was installed as the new US President, and a systematic and methodical dismantling of FDR's social safety net of programs to ameliorate some of "free enterprise's" more glaring inequities was initiated. Ronald Reagan set his union-busting sights on the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO), the majority of whose members he fired in the summer of 1981. It was to spell the death knell of collective bargaining as a legitimate device for working people to ensure themselves some modicum of control over their own economic destiny.

Over the course of the ensuing 25 years, America has seen corporations close thousands of manufacturing facilities and relocate them in underdeveloped nations, where there were no troublesome regulatory constraints and labor was plentiful and dirt-cheap. The US citizens who used to work in those facilities saw their livelihoods disappear before their very eyes. McDonald's, Wal-Mart, Target and a host of minimum-wage employers moved adroitly to fill the vacuum, further marginalizing American workers and creating a huge permanent underclass of "working poor", people who labor 40-plus hours per week and still find themselves barely able to survive economically. All this was done in the name of "free enterprise" and "globalization". Basically, these code words connote massive shifts of wealth to the upper stratum of the elite, always at the expense of the mass of the population. Always these ploys are couched in terms of promoting "free trade".

By June 1990 the East German Government had officially dismantled the Berlin Wall and a year later, on Christmas Day of 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned from power and the USSR officially dissolved. These events were to have a significant impact upon the American population, but not the one they expected. The projected windfall that, by right, ought to have accrued to the citizenry of the USA never materialized. Americans felt that, finally, the financial and material resources that had for 75 years been diverted to "fighting communism" would now be applied towards improving living conditions for millions of American citizens. They were about to be bitterly disappointed.

The reality of "politics" in the USA today, a quarter century later, is that there has been a massive rightward shift in public discourse that significantly predates 9-11-01. It started with Clinton's attacks on welfare "cheaters" and has continued unabated ever since. Clinton immediately abandoned most of his progressive agenda as soon as his "handlers" convinced him he needed to move to the right in order to win re-election in 1996. The vicious and unrelenting Republican hatred for Clinton notwithstanding, the two "sides" were not then and are not now substantively different in their views on how to "govern" the nation.

Basically a new external enemy has been created, cultivated and proliferated...a much-needed distraction to supplant the COMMUNISM that so effectively served wealthy elites for 75 years until the demise of the USSR. After all, nothing would anger the wealthy more than having to direct such massive budget surpluses as existed before 9/11 towards the health and welfare of the American general public. War always enables those in power to usurp democratic freedoms and aggrandize executive power. A cursory review of presidential behavior during every American war will point this out. One of many examples from the George W. Bush Administration is highlighted below:

On August 17, 2006 a Federal judge ruled that the government's warrantless wiretapping program is unconstitutional and ordered an immediate halt to it. The judge, U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit, ruled that the National Security Agency's program violates the rights to free speech and privacy as well as the separa

More Blog Entries to the Washington Post Arkin article:


Beginning particularly with the Iran hostage crisis of 1979, a global shift in world power configurations began with the ascendancy of an Islamic regime that was willing to reject American hegemony in the Middle East. The 444-day standoff saw 66 Americans held inside the American embassy in Tehran by revolutionary students under the new regime. In the aftermath, the American right discredited President Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan was installed as the new US President, and a systematic and methodical dismantling of FDR's social safety net of programs to ameliorate some of "free enterprise's" more glaring inequities was initiated. Ronald Reagan set his union-busting sights on the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO), the majority of whose members he fired in the summer of 1981. It was to spell the death knell of collective bargaining as a legitimate device for working people to ensure themselves some modicum of control over their own economic destiny.

Over the course of the ensuing 25 years, America has seen corporations close thousands of manufacturing facilities and relocate them in underdeveloped nations, where there were no troublesome regulatory constraints and labor was plentiful and dirt-cheap. The US citizens who used to work in those facilities saw their livelihoods disappear before their very eyes. McDonald's, Wal-Mart, Target and a host of minimum-wage employers moved adroitly to fill the vacuum, further marginalizing American workers and creating a huge permanent underclass of "working poor", people who labor 40-plus hours per week and still find themselves barely able to survive economically. All this was done in the name of "free enterprise" and "globalization". Basically, these code words connote massive shifts of wealth to the upper stratum of the elite, always at the expense of the mass of the population. Always these ploys are couched in terms of promoting "free trade".

By June 1990 the East German Government had officially dismantled the Berlin Wall and a year later, on Christmas Day of 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned from power and the USSR officially dissolved. These events were to have a significant impact upon the American population, but not the one they expected. The projected windfall that, by right, ought to have accrued to the citizenry of the USA never materialized. Americans felt that, finally, the financial and material resources that had for 75 years been diverted to "fighting communism" would now be applied towards improving living conditions for millions of American citizens. They were about to be bitterly disappointed.

The reality of "politics" in the USA today, a quarter century later, is that there has been a massive rightward shift in public discourse that significantly predates 9-11-01. It started with Clinton's attacks on welfare "cheaters" and has continued unabated ever since. Clinton immediately abandoned most of his progressive agenda as soon as his "handlers" convinced him he needed to move to the right in order to win re-election in 1996. The vicious and unrelenting Republican hatred for Clinton notwithstanding, the two "sides" were not then and are not now substantively different in their views on how to "govern" the nation.

Basically a new external enemy has been created, cultivated and proliferated...a much-needed distraction to supplant the COMMUNISM that so effectively served wealthy elites for 75 years until the demise of the USSR. After all, nothing would anger the wealthy more than having to direct such massive budget surpluses as existed before 9/11 towards the health and welfare of the American general public. War always enables those in power to usurp democratic freedoms and aggrandize executive power. A cursory review of presidential behavior during every American war will point this out. One of many examples from the George W. Bush Administration is highlighted below:

On August 17, 2006 a Federal judge ruled that the government's warrantless wiretapping program is unconstitutional and ordered an immediate halt to it. The judge, U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit, ruled that the National Security Agency's program violates the rights to free speech and privacy as well as the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution.


Exacerbating these usurpations of power by the executive branch of government is the unfortunate demise of a truly independent free press. In a modern first world democracy, the function of the vaunted Fourth Estate (the press) is to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. American history is replete with examples of genuine muckraker reporting that exerted a restraining influence upon otherwise unbridled corporate greed and abuse. The population was at least minimally protected by the media's willingness to expose particularly heinous abuses of power and public trust. Not so any longer. Especially since 1979 and the Iran hostage episode, the media has assumed a particularly obsequious and subservient role in the political arena.

If there is any question about media bias, one need only ask oneself this: "Is there any difference between (A) the manner in which the media treated Bill Clinton over a sexual dalliance with Monica Lewinsky and ( the manner in which the media treats George W Bush over his lies to the nation about weapons of mass destruction in order to drag the country into a war with Iraq?" One offense did no harm to the nation. The other offense has caused ongoing, possibly irreversible damage to the USA as well as Iraq. Yet the Republicans appointed Kenneth Starr as special prosecutor and spent over $40 million to investigate and try to impeach Bill Clinton. No such outrage is being directed at George W. Bush and his Administration even though thousands of civilians have died since Bush's decision to take the path to war with Iraq based on lies. Let the reader be the judge. Is the media really "Liberal"?

Attacks on "liberal media" are a convenient ploy by the elite who run the nation. After all, one need only consider that the "media" are owned by, and completely serve the interests of, very large corporate structures, which are, in turn, owned and controlled by very wealthy elites within American society. Nevertheless, labeling the "media" as "Liberal" creates a sham debate among the general populace...a debate in name only, never in substance. In fact, the terms "Liberal" and "Conservative" no longer have any substantive meaning in American political discourse.

Just as both major parties marched in tragic lockstep towards the horrendous misuse of American power in Southeast Asia from 1957 to 1975, so now also have they done vis a vis the Middle East. Then the external enemy was Marxism. Now the external enemy is Terrorism. The current "ISM" is a far more effective tool for focusing the attention of the masses. The "threat" is ongoing, ubiquitous and ever changing. An example is this story headlined on CBS News:
Bush: America Safer, But Not Yet Safe
US will be fighting terrorists for years to come - Bush
WASHINGTON, Aug. 15, 2006

First of all, this "ISM" is not confined to any one readily identifiable nation state. This enables the elite to project its military power with impunity wherever it sees fit.
Secondly, this "ISM" lends itself to constant change in definition, depending on the current needs of the elite. Thirdly, it can just as easily be applied against internal as external "undesirables". An impervious assault upon long cherished Constitutional rights and liberties is being aggressively pursued. Unwarranted wiretaps, the questionable election results from 2000 and 2004 (the first of these having predated 9-11-01 argues in favor of elite scorn for democratic practices BEFORE terrorists gave them a convenient bogey man), and "rendered" prisoners are only the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

Michigan men released from jail; terrorism charges dropped Columbus Dispatch
US Drops Terrorist Charges Linked to Cell Phone Purchase
Voice of America

Fourth, new "terrorists" are easy to "create", based on the definition fed to the populace. There are many more parallels between the two "ISM"s that have dominated public discourse since 1917. I will not bore the reader with further detailed enumeration. Suffice to point out that, once again, the elite has effectively found a "cause celebre" to distract the masses and allocate society's wealth and nature's resources in such a way as to massively benefit the few at the expense of the many.

Historically this is not new. What IS new is the degree to which the powerful can get away with outright lies to justify what they want to do. Witness the article by David Corn included below:
Better Saddam Than Dead
David Corn
August 16, 2006
David Corn writes The Loyal Opposition twice a month for TomPaine.com. Corn is also the Washington editor of The Nation and is the author of The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception (Crown Publishers). Read his blog at http://www.davidcorn.com.

Better dead than Red. During the Cold War, that was the rallying cry of the diehard anti-communists, many of whom never had to face the choice. During those years, hundreds of millions of people--in the Soviet Union, in China and elsewhere--did not adhere to such an extreme slogan. They may not have fancied living in lands without freedoms, but they believed it was preferable to reside under repression than to die trying to topple tyranny.

There have always been brave souls--the rebels of Hungary and Czechoslovakia, the members of Solidarity in Poland, the dissidents of the Soviet Union, the champions of Tiananmen Square--willing to sacrifice their own existence to achieve freedom for their fellow citizens. But let's face it; most of us would rather be red--or any other color--than dead. And that's hardly an irrational choice, for even in a dictatorship, one is often free to enjoy family and friends and some of the mundane pleasures of life.

Which brings us to Iraq. The chaos and mayhem there has reached (or surpassed) a point when it may not be unsound to say that Iraqis were better off under Saddam Hussein. Think of it this way: in the years since George W. Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq, tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed. The most recent statistics are staggering. In May and June, according to the United Nations, six thousand Iraqis were slain. Recently, the health ministry noted that 1,850 Baghdad residents were killed in July alone and 3,438 civilians were killed throughout the country. That is, in a three-month period, about 10,000 Iraqis have lost their lives in the troubles the invasion--and the poorly planned occupation--gave birth to. Yet despite these harrowing numbers, President Bush, according to The New York Times, is befuddled by the lack of public support among Iraqis for the American mission in their country.

As we all are aware, pre-invasion Iraq was a nasty place in terms of human rights and political freedoms. But in the years prior to the invasion, there was not this level of slaughter. Amnesty International's 2002 report (PDF here ) notes that "scores of people, including possible prisoners of conscience and armed forces officers suspected of planning to overthrow the government, were executed." Scores of suspected government opponents were arrested, and their fates and whereabouts were unknown.

Scores of people killed--that's what now happens on a daily, rather than annual, basis. Of course, there were brutal and horrific acts of mass murder during Saddam Hussein's reign. The Anfal campaign of the late 1980s--which included chemical weapons attacks on Kurdish villages--led to the deaths of tens of thousands and the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands. Saddam's repression of the Shiite rebellion of 1991--which came at the end of the first Persian Gulf war after President George H.W. Bush called on Iraqis to overthrow the dictator and then did nothing to support the uprising--resulted in about 30,000 Shiite deaths. Since the invasion, the discovery of mass graves has reminded the world of these atrocities.

But the United States took no action at the time of these nightmares to stop the killings. And in the years since the Gulf War, a weakened Saddam had not repeated such genocidal acts. That is hardly praise. But let's be blunt: Far many more Iraqis have died due to the war Bush started than were killed by Saddam in the years prior to the invasion. The total number of civilian Iraqi deaths may well be more than 100,000. (The equivalent loss for the United States would be more than 1 million people.) This is much more than the recent death counts in Lebanon and Israel--which spark justifiable outrage on each side.

I imagine that hardheaded advocates of the war will say that such is the price of liberty, that eggs must be broken. Yet here's the rub: The Iraqi people did not decide that such a cost was worth bearing. They had it imposed upon them. In the examples of anti-communist rebellions cited above, freedom fighters in those countries were willing to take the risk and put their own lives at stake. They could determine if they wished to be dead rather than red. In Iraq, there was no such indigenous calculation. People in another country decided they knew what was best for Iraqis. And they then botched the job.

The Saddam regime is gone; that's true. But given what has taken its place, it would not be an irrational choice for many Iraqis to prefer the Iraq of 2002 rather than the Iraq of 2006. Think about it. Most Iraqis before the invasion--like most citizens in most repressive states--managed to get by. They may not have had freedoms, but they had their friends and relatives. They still fell in love, had sex, had families, played with their kids, followed sports. The lucky ones--like the lucky ones in all countries--had meaningful work. Now millions of Iraqis have lost a loved one. And in return, they have a country that is unstable and on the brink of collapse, and their daily lives are marked by crime and deep uncertainty involving life and death. It's a different sort of terror than what George W. Bush speaks of.

Is it better to be free in an environment of violent chaos than safe in circumstances without freedom? I'm not arrogant enough to say that I know the answer. I might well choose a life without political freedoms rather than lose my wife or children. Live free or die, they say in New Hampshire. But how many people really believe that? In any event, that choice should be left to those who are actually willing to die to make the point. The 100,000 or so dead Iraqis cannot tell us what they would prefer.

Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, and the other supporters of this war are responsible for the consequences of their actions--or they ought to be. One result is that tens of thousands of Iraqis are now dead who would not have been had the invasion not happened. Given that Bush hails the preciousness of each life when the subject is embryonic stem-cell research, I wonder why the Iraq war is not judged--and acknowledged--an abysmal failure by its creators. Do they not believe Iraqi lives are as valuable as frozen embryos?

Before the war, Bush and his aides said the primary rationale for the war was neutralizing a direct WMD threat to the United States. That turned out to be bogus. They also claimed that bringing freedom and democracy to Iraq would have a positive effect on the entire Middle East. Strike that, too. Additionally, they claimed the war would save the Iraqi people. Instead, it has created a hell for many Iraqis. The carnage that has come about due to Bush's invasion is unforgivable. In defending the war, Bush often points to the fact that a brutal dictator has been removed from power. But so profound is Bush's failure in Iraq that there is increasing merit to the argument that this single positive achievement was not worth the cost.

Let's ask all the dead Iraqis what they think.


The total lack of American leadership accountability is extremely blatant and obvious. The weakened condition of democracy within the USA has been an ongoing process. One might easily argue that this process is a direct outcome of elite rule. After all, power hates accountability or restraint, and privilege disdains oversight. Democratic principles are inconvenient to those who wield enormous power and privilege. Witness the concerted propaganda campaign that was unleashed upon the American citizenry to justify military attack and invasion of Iraq. Witness the massive discrepancy between what the Bush Administration said about the likely duration of that "war" and the bleak reality of what the world sees now in the Middle East. Of course, both American political parties fully supported Bush's march into the current military insanity. No entity seems willing or capable of holding the Administration accountable for its actions.

In the meantime, the powerful in the USA have contributed mightily to massively destabilizing the Middle East and, therefore, the entire world. Such destabilization, of course, plays directly into their hands and serves their interests. After all, if enough people can be significantly terrorized and frightened, they will grant any and all power to the "authorities" that hold out a promise to "protect" them. How convenient that these "authorities" have not been able to find, capture or kill Osama Bin Laden or his lieutenant, Ayman al Zawahiri. How convenient that, only when Bush suffered a huge decline in his "approval" ratings, suddenly the "authorities" were able to find and kill Abu Musab al Zarqawi. The list of outrageous crimes committed by the powerful in America, in the name of a powerless citizenry, has earned scorn, ridicule and hatred worldwide.

On August 11, 2006, headlines regarding the terrorist plot to explode several airplanes uncovered by the British government have been accompanied by additional headlines that read:

Democrats assail GOP fundraising effort Jordan Falls News
Terror Plot Could Have Impact on US Elections Voice of America
Politically, a chance to score points Boston Globe
By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writer 6 minutes ago. WASHINGTON - Democrats assailed the Republicans Friday for e-mailing a fundraising appeal mentioning the war on terror hours after British authorities disclosed they had disrupted a plot to blow up aircraft headed to the United States. "In the middle of a war on terror, we need to remain focused on furthering Republican ideas more than ever before," former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani said in a letter that asked for donations to the Republican National Committee. "Once the RNC learned of this error we ceased distribution of the e-mail," said Tracey Schmitt, a party spokeswoman.


The point here is not to deny that groups exist in the world at large, groups that are willing to resort to dastardly, heinous acts to inflict harm on innocent citizens to achieve their goals. Terrorism exists, to be sure. One must bear in mind, however, that one group's terrorists are another group's freedom fighters. The ability to define the terms dictates how these different groups are perceived. When the first world nations perpetrate a bloodbath against less powerful states, the perpetrators invariably couch such actions in terms of promoting "freedom" and "liberation". When the much less powerful states respond with suicide bombings or other equally pathetic attempts at redressing the massive grievances they have, these people are labeled "terrorists". When the USA bombs and slaughters millions with impunity, this is "liberation", whether in Vietnam or Iraq. When 2 planes kill 3000 American citizens, this is "terrorism".

This is only one small example of how the elite create the world they want and then use what they have created to further their interests, always at the expense of the masses. The one thing that they cannot do is control events globally. Once having unleashed the insanity of global military conflict, the powers in Washington now are at a loss to rein in what they have started in motion. Witness the total unpredictability of events in Iraq, followed by more of the same between Israel and Lebanon. The world may now be witnessing the opening battles of what might very well become WWIII. Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Andrew Card, Karl Rove, Karen Hughes, George W Bush, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice and all the other people who have played a significant role in these developments will be held to account only by a distant history written by minds that have perspective. Meantime, we all have to live with the results these people have given us. Whether the human species can survive what has been set in motion remains to be seen.


Posted by: Liberty & Responsibility | August 30, 2006 01:12 PM

Having done their utmost to make damn sure that political support for the war at home ebb as raidply as possible (nothing like good ol' incompetence for that), they are now panicing that they are about to lose political support at home.

No, Mr. Rumsfeld, the analogy would be the US declaring war on Japan and Germany, winning a couple of battles early, screwing up everything -- and I mean everything -- thereafter, and then suddenly wondering why people no longer support the war.

People have not lost confidence in America. They have lost confidence in YOU. You want to make something happen? Don't leave it up to Bush -- just resign already.

It's the single most effective step you could take to preserve an opportunity to get it right over there, even at this stage.

Posted by: Heel1990 | August 30, 2006 01:11 PM

Good God Arkin grow up! I must say that I have grown tired of your adolescent whining. Rummy this, Musgrave that...we hate Bush and don't know why.

If this diatribe is what endears you to the DemoLeft, I suppose you have to go with job security over substance, but then again being able to look yourself in the mirror has value too.

Posted by: Montey - Colorado | August 30, 2006 01:10 PM

It is interesting that Rumsfeld attributed a winning communication strategy to the enemy. In other words, Rumsfeld is implicitly acknowledging that he is losing the fight for the hearts and minds of the U.S.A.. And he is expressing his frustration and disappointment, since, in his own mind, he has been fighting against the evildoers to protect us from terrorism.

Unfortunately, the Secretary does not communicate openly and honestly. If he did, he would realize that the rhetoric of this administration simply shifts in appeasement of its own incompetence and errors. If Mr. Rumsfeld were a true leader, he would present us with a scorecard of results and failures that have resulted from his decisions. Then he would stop appeasing himself and simply resign.

Posted by: AgentG | August 30, 2006 01:06 PM

Rumsfield is an absolute idiot. He displays more facist, I'd argue Communist, behavior than anyone I can think of - alive or dead. He does not care for the people of the United States, he appears to loathe most of us. He has no respect for government. He is, with the only exceptions being Cheney and Monkey Boy, the most destructive person we have in the US government today.

Given the generally of terrorists, there is no bigger terrorist alive than Rumsfeld.

Posted by: mik | August 30, 2006 01:04 PM

Unfortunately everyone has an opinion some more or less powerful than others. Mr. Rumfeld is doing a difficult job under tremendous stress. Mr. Arkin is doing a difficult job under tremendous stress. Heck everyone working is under stress. No one has all the answers. Iran, Irag, Israel, Libya, Jordan, Egypt, China, North Korea, etc., etc. The world won't end because of Mr. Rumfeld doing his job nor will it end because there are those who don't agree with him. The beauty of it all is that ain't America great to allow such diverse opinions without it resulting in arrest or death. I say to all the Rumfelds and Arkins. Keep doing your job. Someone has to do it. God is blessing America.

Posted by: Josh | August 30, 2006 01:02 PM

OF COURSE MR.AKRIN WHEN AN HONEST MAN LIKE YOU SAYING THE TRUTH OUR ENEMIES WITHIN WOULD NOT LIKE THAT.HERE THIS SO CALLED GUTHERIN DESCRIBE YOU AS A USEFUL IDIOT BUT HE DOESN'T KNOW THAT ALL OUR COUNTRY UNDER THIS WARMONGERS ADMINSTRATION ARE IDIOTS WHO STANDING BY AND LET SMALL COUNTRY IN THE MIDDLE EAST TO TAKE US TO IRAQ AND THEN LEBANON AND THEN IRAN AND THERE IS NO END TO THE LIST,MAY BE OUR ENEMY NO ONE "RUMSIFELF" KNOWS THE UNKOWN...MR.AKRIN KEEP PREACHING THE TRUTH EVEN AFTER THE APOCALYPTIC AND THE COMING BABE ...BABE WHO?DERANGED PEOPLE WITH ...

Posted by: mo | August 30, 2006 12:57 PM

Talk about intellectual confusion - these postings display it to the maximum. Can we stipulate that Rumsfeld has the right to say of me (who disagrees with his strategies) that I am like the pre-war appeasers of the nazis, and that I have the right to say that I think he is displaying his arrogance and narcissistic tendency to believe that only he can be the arbiter of what is right? Of course we both have the right to say these things - we are American citizens. Why, then, do these words get us so upset, when what we really should be debating are actions?

The 'right' has mis-read the 'left' in assuming that they do not take the terrorist threat seriously and that they are not authentically trying to think through appropriate and effective solutions to the problem. The 'left' has mis-read the 'right' in assuming the same. These mistaken assumptions, and the incendiary diatribes that follow from them, make our entire national debate ineffective. The 'right' and 'left' have become a microcosm, or a fractal, of the current international/intercultural mess, where the west is unable to speak with its enemies (the term 'Islamofascists' is an example of the incendiary devices that render actual problem-solving impossible) and even many of its non-enemies (remember the administration's snubbing of our allies who didn't agree with the war strategy?) to find effective strategies for managing terrorism.

Some of you will say you can't speak to terrorists. You might be right. But we as a country haven't tried the strategy to see if it might work. More to the point, though, is the fact that we haven't even tried to speak to our own fellow citizens - to open up a debate about actions, in which each side recognizes that the other side is trying to accomplish the same pivotal goals. We have been too captured by the injuries their insults have caused us, and by trying to formulate new and piercing ways to sling even more insults.

Let Rumsfeld call me a fascist appeaser. Let 'Vette' say I should die like the rest. Let the 'left' say Rumsfeld is himself the fascist. Fine. But can we stop this silly obfuscation with words themselves, and get down to the actual business - the business that democracy requires of us - of debating the future course of our country and this world?

Please don't respond to this posting by saying I haven't proposed any solutions. I'm not a military genius. I have ideas about what to do (doesn't everyone?) and I can speak them at another time. But what I've said seems to me to be the necessary first step. Respect for pragmatic debate is what we have misplaced in this country, and it is what we need to regain.

Posted by: J Poulton | August 30, 2006 12:57 PM

Want your wife and daughter in a burka?

You must choose sometimes; the world is not a friendly place sometimes.

Your culture, for all its problems, works for good: justice, health, equality, a future.
Contrast that with a thousand past years of darkness, dirty clothes, and stonings.

Sometimes you have to choose.

Posted by: Joe | August 30, 2006 12:56 PM

I think you are dead right. Rummjy is loco.

Posted by: WWW | August 30, 2006 12:55 PM

TODAY ON MSNBC "AMERICAN CITIES ARE PLAUGED WITH BLOODY VIOLENCE" GUESS WHAT IS THE REASON?THOSE PEPOLE LIKE BUSH AND RUMSIFELD WHO EXPOSE US TO TOO MUCH KILLING AND DESTRUCTIONS AND MADE HUMAN LIFE VERY CHEAP.WE CAN SEE NOW WHAT WE DID OVERSEAS IS COMING TO HUNT US WITHIN.TIME TO CHANGE LEADERS AND HAVE SEPARATE POLICIES THAN ISRAEL.

Posted by: mo | August 30, 2006 12:55 PM

I get so damn hopeless, frustrated , and at times so frightened about the lunacy of our governments ( from the people, by the people and, LIKE THE PEOPLE), that I am prepared to throw my up hands, and say, who cares? We are going to be like the majority of the world's nations: Dictatorial government.

Posted by: Mark | August 30, 2006 12:50 PM

Mr. Arkin -
You are a morally confused person described by Lenin as a useful idiot.

Posted by: D. Guthrie | August 30, 2006 12:41 PM

Just listen to all the hate that exists on this blog. This is what divides our country. This is the real accomplishment of the terrorists. To create a divission through hate. This war is already won if we as Americans are divide. The enemy knows that he does not need to fight as long as we are doing the fighting amongst ourselves. All I hear is hate Bush etc.. or hate the Dems or Rep. This is getting totally out of hand. The authors of news are really getting rich from us through hate. Come on, give it a rest. terrorist are real. Lets focus on the real issues at hand.

Posted by: David Bown | August 30, 2006 12:37 PM

Bob in NJ wrote:
"Our Government is much like any corporation where the guy at the top surrounds/insulates himself with his loyalists. The sad thing is that we Americans demand such structures -- it puts our minds at rest knowing that the guy at the top is on-course and in-charge."

Now I know a lot of companies where shareholders vote on the makeup of the board and the board hires/fires the CEO. When a company is not doing well those elections become very important to shareholders and no one can insulate the CEO from a new board voted in by angry shareholders. If Americans cared as much about their government as they do about companies they hold stock in, this current administration will be under heavy congressional investigation this fall after the republicans are voted out and replaced by democrats eager to change this country's direction, find out how many laws this administration has broken and how much has been wasted by cronyism and neglect.

Posted by: Sully | August 30, 2006 12:37 PM

The press and half the Senate doesn't get it.
We are at war and we have been since at least the Jimmy Carter regime. Now his son wants to win in Nevada--he is a milquetoast like his dad.

Las Vegas

Posted by: derf | August 30, 2006 12:32 PM

You didn't like my comments from yesturday?
All the critics of the governament are involved in something that nobody ask them to be involved.
American people,have chosen their gover-nament. You are against the majority?
Do you beleave that you,can do it better? Go and do it.Everybody can talk.

Posted by: Mike | August 30, 2006 12:28 PM

The war on terrorism is not an occupation of a nation like Iraq! Not many have criticized our Afghan venture since al Qaeda and Osama were there and supported by that regime. The war against terrorists is more a "police activity' against individuals, not the occupation of a nation. Attacks against Madrid, London and Bali happened while we were in Iraq! I support the fight against terrorism: I do not support the occupation of Iraq!

Posted by: Pogo | August 30, 2006 12:27 PM

WHO CARES?

Posted by: Doobie | August 30, 2006 12:25 PM

As much as I hate to admit it Rumsfield does have a point when he says, "any moral or intellectual confusion about who and what is right or wrong can weaken the ability of free societies to persevere." More than 50% of this country question the direction that this country is headed in. However, he fails to properly address the fact that he and this Administration are the causes for the state of moral or intellectual confusion that the People of this country are in. If he and this Administration have so polarized this country as to make it ineffective in carrying out whatever policy direction they chose to take this country in, they should accept that responsibility as ineffective leaders, and offer to resign to make way for leaders who can do the job. The test of a free society is not having leaders that are so certain of their rightousness that they create a structure of power where their critics have no influence, it is being able to influence your critics. And like a spoiled child, this Administration sees criticism as a hinderence to their agenda and something that is dangerous and needs to be silenced. So Rumsfield is right and should demand the President accept his resignation because according to him, he is endangering our country's preservation.

Posted by: Atlanta Joe | August 30, 2006 12:19 PM

I'm thinking about those posters here who demonize Muslims and Arabs and feign pity for ignorant libs who want to talk to the sword as it cuts their heads off. And I'm wondering if these screaming souls are the same ones who back in the 80s demonized "reds," commie sympathizers (should be tried and given the death penalty for treason), and every citizen of the ex-USSR. Those fruit loops thought they had a monopoly on the right to run the cold war as "peace through superior firepower" and NO engagement with the evil empire. It turns out some of the libs advocating less militaristic policies were not trying to Che Cheveraize the US. And it turns out that not everyone in the ex-USSR had horns and carried Mao's little book. Yeah, these fanatics like to leer at Sharapova posters and enjoy Stoli martinis. My question: can we keep these fanatics away from the steering wheel while we average Americans familiarize ourselves with Muslims and Arabs enough to treat them as humans? Yes, of course some Muslims and Arabs are fanatical, but McVeigh was the exception too.

Posted by: solidstate | August 30, 2006 12:19 PM

Let me just repeat the Presidents own words, and perhaps that will offer some comfort:

"The final history has yet to be written..."

Comforting, no? Rumsfeld and the Presidents men, they all