In today’s Los Angeles Times, Donald Rumsfeld has written an OpEd that seeks to “expand” and “clarify” his recent comments likening critics of this administration to Nazi appeasers. And once you read this piece you will see how misunderstood and taken out of context his remarks were. For example, during his infamous American Legion speech, Rumsfeld said:
The struggle we are in — the consequences are too severe — the struggle too important to have the luxury of returning to that old mentality of “Blame America First.”
Today, Rumsfeld explains that what he really meant was:
We also should be aware that the struggle is too important — the consequences too severe — to allow a “blame America first” mentality to overwhelm the truth that our nation, though imperfect, is a force for good in the world.
Damn the Islamofacist-appeasing media for distorting his remarks!
Earlier this week, Rumsfeld said:
…a sentiment took root that contended that if only the growing threats that had begun to emerge in Europe and Asia could be accommodated, then the carnage and the destruction of then-recent memory of World War I could be avoided.
It was a time when a certain amount of cynicism and moral confusion set in among Western democracies. When those who warned about a coming crisis, the rise of fascism and nazism, they were ridiculed or ignored.
Now, some took issue with this remark, not only objecting to the obvious comparison to Neville Chamberlain ignoring the growing threat from Nazi Germany prior to World War II, but also the hypocrisy of doing exactly what Rumsfeld was denouncing…demonizing critics. But as Rumsfeld clarifies for us today, what he was simply saying was:
In an effort to avoid repeating the carnage of World War I, much of the Western world tried to appease the growing threats in Europe and Asia in the years before World War II. Those who warned against the rise of Nazism, fascism and communism were often ridiculed and ignored.
Well I’m glad he cleared that up.
During his American Legion speech, Rumsfeld laid out the “central questions of our times,” namely:
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?
Can folks really continue to think that free countries can negotiate a separate peace with terrorists?
Can we afford the luxury of pretending that the threats today are simply law enforcement problems, like robbing a bank or stealing a car; rather than threats of a fundamentally different nature requiring fundamentally different approaches?
And can we really afford to return to the destructive view that America, not the enemy, but America, is the source of the world’s troubles?
Today he said…well, he said the exact same thing. But I must admit that even with this mightly effort by Rumsfeld to clarify and expand, I’m still not sure how these “central questions” relate to…anything. Because in another apparent victory for the terrorist PR machine, I missed the scores of politicians and pundits calling for the appeasement of terrorists and the countries beating a path to negotiate with terrorists. Perhaps I was too busy reading about the terrorist plot uncovered through law enforcement efforts by British officials.
Rumsfeld’s “clarification” is nothing but a rehash of the ugly speech he made to the American Legion earlier this week. Insulting comparisons, baseless accusations against any critic of this administration and strawmen galore. As a matter of fact, in both of those speeches there was only one grain of truth, and that was when he said:
Those who know the truth need to speak out against the myths and distortions…
Indeed.
