Et tu Rumsfeld?

This week Donald Rumsfeld said that critics of the Administration's policies in Iraq were no different than the people who ignored the rise of Hitler's Nazi party in Germany and supported Neville Chamberlain's policy of Appeasement towards the Reich.

The irony is palpable. As Frank Rich reminds us. Donald Rumsfeld's Dance with the Nazi's, NY Times, Sept. 3, 2006. Pictures are worth 1000 words though, so I will save 2000 of them:



Adolf Hitler greeting the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, in Munich. (September 29, 1938)











Saddam Hussein greeting Donald Rumsfeld in Baghdad in 1983








Now, once again, who is the appeaser? Iraq had severed relations with the United States in 1967 in response to the Six Day War. Frank Rich reminds us that:

Well before Mr. Rumsfeld’s trip, Amnesty International had reported the dictator’s use of torture — “beating, burning, sexual abuse and the infliction of electric shocks” — on hundreds of political prisoners. Dozens more had been summarily executed or had “disappeared.” American intelligence agencies knew that Saddam had used chemical weapons to gas both Iraqi Kurds and Iranians.

Did Rumsfeld raise these issues in his meetings with Saddam in 1983? No he did not. But the US did restore relations to Iraq as a result of these meetings.

How soon they forget.

So who is the appeaser?

Frank Rich also points out the new word in the Administration's vocabulary "Islamo-Fascism". We've gone from a war on WMD's to a Global War on Terror to "Islamo-Fascism"

I would be surprised if the administration can find (or create) a meaningful definition of "Islamo-Fascism" - I'm going to leave off on that mostly for another post, but I will leave this question dangling: "“Who are the ‘Islamo-fascists’ in Saudi Arabia — the current regime or its religious-fanatical opponents?”" (from Wrong War, Wrong Word by Katha Pollitt in the Sept 11 issue of The Nation).