Donald Rumsfeld invoked Hitler yesterday in clear violation of Godwin's Law. I was all set to mock, then I did a quick Google. As of this moment, 35,300 pages mention them together, so I guess Don has been beating the ol' Nazi horse for a little longer than a day.
Speaking to the American Legion's annual convention in Salt Lake City, Rumsfeld warned against "moral and intellectual confusion." He said that "some seem not to have learned history's lessons" as the nation confronts new threats. He did not mention any names.
"It seems that in some quarters, there is more of a focus on dividing our country than acting with unity against the gathering threats."
Rumsfeld recited what he called the lessons of history, including the failure to confront Adolf 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.
If the right thing to do in the 1930's was to fight Hitler instead of negotiating, then clearly that is the right strategy for all situations in all times. Woe to the next motherfucker who cuts me off in traffic. I'm going D-Day on his ass.
Also according to the Trib article, Dick "Dick" Cheney "[accused] unnamed critics of 'self-defeating pessimism,' the second time in two days he used that description."
So the administration that had been looking for an excuse to invade Iraq at least since they took office in 2001 used the 9/11 attacks to give them political cover to cobble together a bullshit link between Saddam and bin Laden, then with virtually no international support* invaded and occupied the country with apparantly no plan on what to do after the first two weeks, committed an enormous but still-not-large-enough slice of our military might to a protracted, expensive, and bloody exercise in nation building to try to make a democracy out of a bunch of people who hate us and each other - that administration is not responsible for any bad outcomes from what they did. It's the self-defeating Nazi-sympathizing critics who are to blame.
If you don't agree with every unnecessary war the neocons want to get us into, then you're a Nazi appeaser. And if you ever criticize that war, you're responsible for it's failure.
But the Republicans aren't questioning anybody's patriotism here.
* I didn't forget Poland.
Posted by Mr Green at August 30, 2006 07:52 AM | TrackBack