Appeasement à la Rumsfeld

Secretary of Preemptive Defense Donald Rumsfeld thinks that questioning his handling of the war in Iraq is basically the same thing as appeasing Hitler.

Speaking Tuesday to the American Legion in Salt Lake, Rumsfeld said that in facing this “new type of fascism” (i.e., the Iraqi insurgency), we must understand that we can't "afford to believe that somehow, some way, vicious extremists can be appeased."

This adds to Rumsfeld's (and Bush's and other Bush appointees') earlier claim that opposing the Iraq war also appeasement.

I’m expecting to hear, any day now, that Bush has changed his name to Franklin W. Truman and that Rumsfeld is Eisenhower D. MacArthur.

How long are Bush, Rumsfeld, and the other loyalists going to keep trying this inapt, embarrassing, and offensive tactic of pretending that they’re leading the country against the Axis powers?

Unser Kampf notwithstanding, the Hussein = Hitler analogy was always a lousy one because the dumb appeasement of Hitler before World War II took place while Hitler was becoming war-ready. Hussein in 2003 was way more boxed in economically and militarily than Hitler was in 1938. The insurgency = Hitler analogy is just about as goofy. Hitler had a state, a growing army, and a unified (or imprisoned) populace. The insurgents have no state, a radically divided populace, and we have no idea whether their army is growing. (Bush, Cheney, & Rumsfeld keep telling us it isn’t.)

As long as we’re making half-witted historical analogies, why don’t we at least make one with some photographic evidence to back it up? To wit, actual photographs:


Rumsfeld & Hussein, 1983

Neville Chamberlain & Hitler, 1938