posted September 06, 2006 06:05 PM              

Leonard Pitts, a syndicated columnist based in Washington: McClatchy/Tribune newspapers
Published September 5, 2006

On Dec. 7, 1941, Japan launched a sneak attack that devastated a U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. And the United States rose in righteous fury, immediately declaring war on Thailand. Because, you know, it was in the same part of the world as Japan and the people kind of looked alike and besides, those Thais had been getting a little uppity and were due for a smackdown.

Which is not the way it happened, of course, but if Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld wants to use World War II allusions to describe the War on Terror, I submit that my fantasy comes a lot closer to the truth than his. Rumsfeld's fantasy, if you missed it, was shared in a recent speech before the American Legion in Salt Lake City. There, the Sec Def said that critics of the war in Iraq--a designation that now includes most Americans--are like those who thought they could avoid fighting by negotiating with, or "appeasing," the Nazis in the days before World War II.

The war's critics--again, that's the majority of us--need to crack a history book, he thinks. "Once again, we face similar challenges in efforts to confront the rising threat of a new type of fascism. But some seem not to have learned history's lessons."

Rumsfeld's rant was but the shrillest of several recent statements by members of the federal regime--Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the great and powerful President Bush himself--in defense of the war in Iraq. Which must mean--hold on, let me check my calendar--yep, there's an election coming.

The War on Terror has, after all, been this gang's get-out-of-jail-free card for years. High gas prices, a hurricane fiasco, red ink, an overall patina of ineptness overtopped by arrogance, and it's all forgotten the moment they say Sept. 11, 2001. Small wonder they say it loudly now with midterm elections looming and polls suggesting more Americans are seeing through the president like Saran Wrap.

Indeed, there was an interesting exchange between Bush and a reporter at a news conference last month. In the process of answering a question about Iraq, Bush reflexively invoked Sept. 11, leading the reporter to interrupt him.

"What did Iraq have to do with that?" the reporter asked.

"Nothing," Bush said irritably. The reporter somehow resisted saying, "Then why did you bring it up?"

Or maybe that's self-evident. After Sept. 11, the nation needed some Muslims to hit. And the Bush administration, already looking for a pretext to attack Iraq--which once plotted the assassination of Bush's father--gave us some.

Since then, the White House missed no opportunity to falsely conflate Iraq with the terror war. The most recent example came last month when anti-war candidate Ned Lamont defeated Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman in the Democratic primary. Cheney said this rebuke of the war would embolden "Al Qaeda types."

For the record: On Sept. 11, 2001, we were attacked by men directed from a terrorist base in Afghanistan. We quickly knocked over Afghanistan and just as quickly forgot about it, turning instead to the troublesome dictatorship the president just knew in his gut was behind the carnage. Now we find ourselves mired in a poorly defined, poorly designed mission in a nation that, with all due respect to the presidential gut, had no known connection to Sept. 11.

And with more than 22,000 U.S. casualties--meaning dead and injured--and thousands more dead Iraqis, the nation finally begins to question this pig-in-a-poke it has been sold. We're all for killing the terrorists. Heck, after you kill them, dig them up and kill them some more. But people are beginning to see that the only terrorism in Iraq is that which we, by our presence, have helped create.

Rumsfeld calls that kind of talk appeasement. I call it understanding.

And the bad news for the secretary is, it's spreading.

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Leonard Pitts is a syndicated columnist based in Washington. E-mail: lpitts@miamiherald.com

Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune

posted September 06, 2006 06:06 PM              

Katrina vanden Heuvel
Wed Sep 6, 2:37 PM ET

The Nation -- Democratic members of the House and Senate wrote George Bush Monday, urging a redeployment of US troops before the end of 2006 and the firing of Donald Rumsfeld.

Some excerpts from the letter signed by the Democratic leaders, as well as ranking members from key national security committees, include: "... this current path--for our military, for the Iraqi people, and for our security--is neither working, nor making us more secure"; "... our troops are caught in the middle of a low-grade civil war that is getting worse"; "consider changing the civilian leadership at the Defense Department....While a change in your Iraq policy will best advance our chances for success, we do not believe the current civilian leadership at the Department of Defense is suited to implement and oversee such a change in policy."

This comes on the heels of Senate Democrats' plan to offer a resolution demanding Rumsfeld's resignation after the Secretary's incendiary comments in which he compared war critics to Nazi appeasers.

Of course, the Republicans remain in denial--witness Sen. Mitch McConnell (news, bio, voting record) who said on Face the Nation, "I think Secretary Rumsfeld has done an excellent job. He'll be remembered as one of the great secretaries of defense."

Sure, and George Bush will go down as the People's Choice for whom to turn to when a hurricane hits.

And, no surprise here, the Republicans are pulling out their favorite election-year tactics of "scare the hell out of Americans" and "demagogue whenever possible." So that Democrats' calls for a new course represent "retreat" or "waving the white flag," and will "leave Americans more vulnerable."

Here is the truth, separated from the election year spin and hyperbole: This is about Bush's failed policy, not Rummy's incompetence. It's about a fundamental, illegal war and occupation that has killed more than 2,600 American men and women, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. Incompetence does not capture the full horror or tragedy that is the Iraq War and its ethno-sectarian strife.

Instead of calling for Rumsfeld's resignation or pushing through a resolution that may, in fact, allow some GOP candidates to put distance between themselves and the President--without much consequence because this vote will fail--legislators who truly care about learning what to do next and how this occupation is failing should contact members of the platoon profiled in the New York Times on Sunday.

Based in Hit, Iraq, in Anbar Province--a "tough assignment," as the Times puts it--several of the men quoted are unsparingly outspoken. Their words are infused with a kind of despair as they question what they are doing in Iraq. One sergeant talks about how "the great majority [of Hit's people] want us to go home." "No one understands why we are here and what our mission is," another Sergeant tells the Times reporter. "This war is lost. We aren't helping these people. We are just dying and getting injured."

These are the people Rumsfeld needs to listen to; these are the people Congress should listen to; these are the people who deserve a hearing. The resolution on Rumsfeld will occupy center stage this week--and there is indeed a need for a reckoning, for accountability--but it is time to find an exit strategy from this Administration's policies which created this quagmire.

posted September 07, 2006 07:35 AM              

That's pretty funny!