This isn't WWII

He's just a plan old fascist, not an
islamofascist.

Rumsfeld Says War Critics Haven’t Learned Lessons of History

By DAVID S. CLOUD
Published: August 30, 2006

SALT LAKE CITY, Aug. 29 — 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.
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Comparing terrorist groups to a “new type of fascism,” Mr. Rumsfeld said, “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?”

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“This is not an enemy that can be ignored, or negotiated with, or appeased,’’ he said. “And every retreat by civilized nations is an invitation to further violence against us. Men who despise freedom will attack freedom in any part of the world, and so responsible nations have a duty to stay on the offensive, together, to remove this threat.”

Mr. Rumsfeld’s speech on Tuesday did not explicitly mention the Democrats, and he cited only comments by human rights groups and in press reports as evidence of what he described as “moral or intellectual confusion about who or what is right or wrong.”

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While he did not directly compare current critics of the war in Iraq to those who sought to appease Hitler, his juxtaposition of the themes led Democrats to say that he was leveling an unfair charge.

Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, a former Army officer and a Democratic member of the Armed Services Committee, responded that “no one has misread history more” than Mr. Rumsfeld.

“It’s a political rant to cover up his incompetence,” Senator Reed, a longtime critic of Mr. Rumsfeld’s handling of the war, told The Associated Press.

Mr. Reed said there were “scores of patriotic Americans of both parties who are highly critical of his handling of the Department of Defense.

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For some reason, the White House wants to call on the spirit and unity of the Second World War without any of it's sacrifices, no rationing, no draft, no restriction on travel, even a refusal to mention the war in any serious way, much less having their families participate in it.

Osama Bin Laden doesn't have Grossdeutschland and 2nd SS Panzer in some cave. He isn't enslaving a continent, he's not sinking the US fleet at Pearl Harbor.

He is not a threat to the stability of the United States. He cannot conquer the US. He is, at most, a threat to US interests. Yet, to beat Osama, the microchip militia and friends want to toss out the consitution and call anyone who questions them appeasers. It isn't us who is hosting Central Asian dictators who boil their opposition alive, or turn our back on repressive regimes or who has built a network of secret prisons.

If this was WWII, Barbara Bush would be in a uniform and not conducting tours of the Cooper-Hewitt Museum. Bush's bodyman would be training at Quantico or Benning for deployment overseas, not going to Harvard B School without the benefit of a BA. Jenna's boyfriends would be in uniform and not drunken louts working for daddy.

It's a pathetic comparison to the national sacrifice of World War II, and the only one which can be made by people who's knowledge of history doesn't go beyond a textbook.