Bush, Rumsfeld and the Nazis

In Donald Rumsfeld's August 29 address to the American Legion¹, he likened critics of Bush's War to those who “ridiculed or ignored” the rise of the Nazis in the 1930’s and tried to appease Hitler. He said they suffer from a “moral or intellectual confusion.”

In the photo, Saddam Hussein greets Donald Rumsfeld in Baghdad in 1983. As a result of his visit with Nazi Hussein, within a year Iraq and the United States resumed diplomatic relations for the first time since Iraq severed them after the U.S. backed Israel in the Six-Day War (1967).

Could Rummy be a bit confused?

Thursday night, at the same (friendly) American Legion convention, Karl Rove (disquised as "president" George W. Bush) said that we're engaged in the “ideological struggle of the 21st century.” "One more drop in the polls," wrote Frank Rich in Sunday's New York Times, "and he may yet rebrand this mess War of the Worlds."²

Or, as Rami G. Khouri wrote on Friday at TomPaine.com:

There is something sad about a grown man playing children's make-believe war games in a tree-house in grandpa's back yard—which is how George W. Bush came across Thursday night in his speech on the importance of winning the war in Iraq in the global battle against terrorism. Rarely does a leader of a great country like the United States malign history, his people's intelligence and the dignity of over a billion Muslims in one speech. But Bush did that Thursday night and will probably keep doing it for a while.³

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1. Address at the 88th Annual American Legion National Convention, Salt Lake City, Utah


2. "Donald Rumsfeld’s Dance with the Nazis"


3. "Bush's Terror Tales"