It seems I have upset my friends at Hot Air with my Rumsfeld post and my "unwarranted snarkiness."Hot Air: NYT suckers KP by carving up Rumsfeld's speech". I'm certainly no defender of the NYT's (after all, I have worked in NY politics so I've had more than my fair share of run-ins with them over the accuracy of their reporting). So, I took another look at the Rumsfeld transcript.

The Times reported:

Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said Tuesday that critics of the war in Iraq and the campaign against terror groups 'seem not to have learned history's lessons,' and he alluded to those in the 1930's who advocated appeasing Nazi Germany.

After correctly stating that 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, Rumsfeld said:

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?

So, while it's true that Rumsfeld never says "the critics of the war in Iraq," if Iraq is the central front on the war on terror, then is it really a stretch to think that he was referring to war critics? And if he really isn't talking about the critics of the Iraq war, then who is he talking about?

The reality is that Rumsfeld got a lot of it right in this speech -- something you frankly will not hear me say very often, since he too frequently offers analysis (no insurgency, war will last six months etc.) that is questionable at best -- but he goes too far with the appeasement argument, which has become a staple of Sean Hannity in recent weeks. I believe there is a war on terror; I believe it's the greatest threat of our time; I believe it's akin to Nazism. And I believe the threat is grossly underestimated by many people. But I would be hard pressed to come up with a list of names of elected officials or opinion leaders who are "appeasers." That's a pretty serious accusation.

I'm also happy to be wrong if Rumsfeld really wasn't talking about war critics, but considering how regularly Democrats who are outspoken about their criticism of the war on Iraq are accused of not supporting the war on terror, it's hard to believe that he wasn't at least in part talking about war critics.

Dated: Thursday, August 31, 2006

"Kirsten Powers: SNARKINESS? MOI?"   User Opinions

No opinion

Share you opinion about   "Kirsten Powers: SNARKINESS? MOI?"

Your name :
Your Opinion: