Rumsfeld doesn’t know to quit when he’s behind

September 1, 2006

Donald [tag]Rumsfeld[/tag] certainly is an interesting character. After delivering a controversial speech to the American Legion this week, the Defense Secretary responded to the ensuing hullabaloo with an LA Times [tag]op-ed[/tag] — in which he proceeded to make the exact same points that made his speech controversial in the first place.

In speaking to our veterans, I suggested several questions to guide us during this struggle against violent extremists:

* With the growing lethality and availability of weapons, can we truly afford to believe that vicious extremists can somehow be [tag]appease[/tag]d?

* Can we really continue to think that free countries can negotiate a separate peace with terrorists?

* Can we truly afford to pretend that the threats today are simply “law enforcement” problems rather than fundamentally different threats requiring fundamentally different approaches?

* Can we truly afford to return to the destructive view that America — not the enemy — is the real source of the world’s troubles?

These weren’t compelling questions earlier in the week, and they’re equally unpersuasive now, but let’s quickly take them on, one at a time.

First, no, appeasing “vicious extremists” is not an option. But if I can answer Rumsfeld’s question with a question, I’d ask the Defense Secretary if there’s a third choice other than “appeasement” and “bloody, unproductive war.” He doesn’t seem to think so, which is part of the problem.

Second, Rumsfeld is being deliberately vague when he decries negotiating “a separate peace with terrorists.” If the idea is that we’ll sin down to hash out a deal with bin Laden, that’s absurd. If the idea is that we’ll engage in talks with Iran, then yes, there’s every reason to think free countries can negotiate a separate peace.

Third, it’s hard to believe how annoying the administration is in its ongoing effort to decry “law enforcement” solutions, but I’d remind Rumsfeld that it’s been law-enforcement and intelligence-gathering officials who’ve made nearly all the progress in counter-terrorism measures the last several years.

As Fred Kaplan noted, “Nobody claims that today’s threats are ‘simply’ matters of law enforcement. Obviously, terrorists are not ‘simply’ criminals, and dealing with them requires a mix of approaches, including military. That said, techniques of law enforcement (including police surveillance, border patrol, and international intelligence sharing) have recently broken up more terrorist plots than any military operation.”

And fourth, Rumsfeld is playing fast and loose with the demagoguery when he suggests we might “return” to the notion that the United States is “the real source of the world’s troubles.” (Return? We used to think that?) As Rumsfeld surely knows, no serious person believes the U.S. is to blame for the “world’s troubles” — but we are certainly responsible for many of the problems that plague Iraq. Does anyone in the administration have any ideas as to go about solving them?

Funny, that wasn’t one of the four questions on Rumsfeld’s mind. Pity.

I want Rummy to give names and reasons why these named individuals are appeaser. Until he does so, there are no appeasers.

I assume that the separate peace that he refers to is France and if so he needs to stop with the oblique reference to Old Europe and Vichy France. And talking with Iran or Hezbolla before the situations decend or decend further into clusterf**k is not weak. It is not separate. It is not appeasing.

No Rummy I don’t feel that the fight against terrorism is entirely a law enforcement problem, but unless you are going to kill terrorists in the field, it could develop into a law enforcement issue. Capturing them and detaining the so as to extract information or prosecuting those captured for crimes does rub up in the hated “law enforcement” arena no matter how much you might wish it otherwise.

As for comments about American being the true terrorist state (or some such), those come from the terrorists we are fighting so no one takes such talk seriously, the truly insane and only those on the right take them seriously, or they are harped on by the Rummys’, Coulters’, and Rushs’ of the world with little in the way of proof to back up their claim.

  • Agreed. Fighting terrorism is not simply a matter of law enforcement. When you can, you go and find them and kill the terrorists.

    So, Rummy, when are you going to find and kill Osama bin Laden? We know where he is, after all.

    Until you do, you have not done your job as Secretary of Defense. So stop complaining about everybody else (the FBI, the NSA, the State Department) doing theirs (law enforcement, intelligence and diplomacy).

    Everything Rummy says means that he and only he can fight terrorism. But he is failing miserably. His strawmen are not Democrats, they are the rest of the damn Bushite Administration. And as far as Rummy is concerned, none of them are fit to fight terrorism while he’s around.

    A final thought. Diplomacy is not appeasement. You don’t appease the Iranians by talking to them. If we gave up the rights of the Gulf States to their sovereignity and gave them to Iran, that would be appeasement. But Iran’s ‘demand’, to have a civilian nuclear program as they are entitled to as a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, is not something we would ‘appease’ to because, in the end, it’s their right to have.

    p.s, “If the idea is that we’ll sin down to hash out a deal with bin Laden” that would be a sin but you mean ‘sit’.

  • I guess he figured that we just didn’t hear him the first time and if he said the same things again real slow that would clear the whole thing up. It didn’t.

  • Rummy’s hardline is that the left is too hardline. Interesting. I’m hoping that all teh pre-election stuff we ahve seen, including this nuget from Rummy) is evidence that Rove truely has only a 3 play playbook and all three are a variation on the same idea. Americans are growing tired of being told the same thing for 5 years regardless of circumstance. They are out of options and now they are just going to repeat themselves more loudly and hope.

  • “With the growing lethality and availability of weapons, can we truly afford to believe that vicious extremists can somehow be appeased?” — Do I hear Rummy calling for guncontrol? Doesn’t he sound like Janet Reno on meth commenting on the Koresh compound in Waco?

    “Can we really continue to think that free countries can negotiate a separate peace with terrorists?” — Maybe Rummy’s getting the idea that this so-colled war on terror is really a conflict between a nation and a bunch of idividuals opperating in small groups aroud the world. So why are we attacking other nations?

    “Can we truly afford to pretend that the threats today are simply “law enforcement” problems rather than fundamentally different threats requiring fundamentally different approaches?” — So why is it that when the Dems say that we need to redeploy troops because fundamentally different threats require fundamentally different approaches we’re labeled as America haters?

    “Can we truly afford to return to the destructive view that America — not the enemy — is the real source of the world’s troubles?” — No, the BUSH ADMINISTRATION is the source of a host of the world’s problems, NOT America.

  • Sooo, does Unca Don forget his “appeasement” of “vicious extremists” when he counseled Sainted Ronie Ray-gun to ignore Saddam Hussein’s use of chemical warfare in 1984, and his trip to Baghdad to provide Saddam with the intelligence he needed to stave off the Iranians after his idiot war went south on himn? Does Unca Don remember telling Sainted Ronnie not to mention Saddam’s use of poison gas at Halabja when Sainted Ronnie denounced the use of chemical warfare in 1985?

    Actually, I doubt that moron has the attention span to remember back 22 minutes, let alone 22 years.

  • As Tom Cleaver points out, Rumsfield tried to appease Saddam. And,of course, the anti-war, America First movement which was against confronting the Nazi’s was primarily run by conservative Republicans.

    And what about the way Bush has appeased the Saudis and Pakistanis? These are two nations which have done the most to radicalize the Arab world. Pakistan, after all created the Taliban and the Saudi’s have spent billions of petrodollars to spread its radical and ultra-conservative form of Islam.

  • Don’t get me wrong, in case you hadn’t noticed I am very supportive of all the efforts being made by everyone who wants to restore sanity to American democracy and foreign policy. And like many people these asinine statements of Bumblesfield and Brush get right under my skin and make me fizz. It’s countering such perversity that keeps me at the keyboard. However, I get the impression, wrongly I hope, that I’m often out on a limb in my perception of these absurdities and contradictions. This creates a double problem for me: should I contribute at the risk of stepping on toes, or should I suffer in silence; and if I choose the former, have I the capability to find words to do justice to my perception. Of course I know it’s a tough world in here so I try not to expect any encouragement or reprimand that would help to shape a comment. What keeps me connected is the sense that most readers are sincere, albeit from different points of view, in a wish to see a new, better, healthier direction for the developing American saga.

    I’m too tired right now to be clever with quotes and references, but my recurrent impression, when I read or hear propaganda from the likes of Rumblesfeild is that when they are describing the ‘enemy’ they are actually describing themselves. Does anyone else get this impression?

    It sticks out a mile for me. When he talks about “a new type of fascism” (refering to the ‘enemy’) I hear him talking about himself. When he likens the ‘enemy’ to “the Adolf Hitler regime in the 1930s” I think the likeness applies much more to him. When he talks about “the rising threat of a new type of fascism” (refering to the ‘enemy’) the only new type of fascism I can see is the one in Rumsfeld’s junta; and those who “seem not to have learned history’s lessons” as the ones who have failed to criticize his policies. When he talks about “the growing lethality and availability of weapons” (refering to what, exactly?) I think of the huge arsenal at the disposal of the Pentagon. When he talks of the “struggle against violent extremists” I think of the Iraqis under American occupation. When he talks about “terrorists” I think of the 150,000 Iraqis killed since the American invasion.

    It was the same when the PRC army invaded, occupied and destroyed Tibet. They called the Tibetans “repressive imperialists”, whom they had come to “liberating”.

    Why do we get this mirror-speak every time a superpower goes berserk? Why is it so difficult to puncure it and disabuse the mesmerized masses of its tyrany?

  • Now that I’m looking at the comments I see that I’m not alone. Thanks, petorado, and everyone! I get quite despondent, in a desparate way.. sometimes.

  • “Simply” criminals? Anyone who’s been in law enforcement probably knows that there’s nothing “simple” about criminals– most criminals are profoundly stupid, but some are devilishly clever, and difficult to track down and prosecute.

    It’s a logical fallacy to say “simply” criminals. Terrorists *are* criminals, no question about it, and dealing with them absolutely is a law enforcement issue. The complexity comes from the fact that they are *international* criminals, and it requires *international* law enforcement. This is a difficult task, but INTERPOL in Europe has been doing it for generations now.

    America is the only country that insists on going to “war” against abstract concepts (poverty, crime, terrorism, etc.) and on inert substances (i.e. “some drugs”). It’s ridiculous.

    Must it be a “war” in order to be taken seriously?

  • America is the only country that insists on going to “war” against abstract concepts (poverty, crime, terrorism, etc.) and on inert substances (i.e. “some drugs”). It’s ridiculous.

    Must it be a “war” in order to be taken seriously? — goatchowder (#12)

    As a linguist whose first language is not English, I find goatchowder’s question totally fascinating and remarkably focused.

    Because it’s not just a matter of philosophy (must it be a war to be taken seriously), but of the culture which lies under the structure of the language itself. In Polish, it’s is not possible, linguistically, to declare a war against inanimate objects and remain speaking correct Polish at the same time. Polish is far less flexible than English…

    Poland is one of the “coalitionof the suckers” that Bush managed to assemble when invading Iraq (thus, I have two countries to be embarassed by). And I read a Polish newsletter daily, so as not to lose contact with my mother-tongue.

    It’s amazing, to what contortions the writers subject the language in order to translate Bush’s “war on terror”. And, by the time they’re done, nobody can take it seriously — war or no — because it’s a totally absurd structure. Like a breast implant in the middle of a forehead…

  • Goldilocks said, “…when I read or hear propaganda from the likes of Rumblesfeild is that when they are describing the ‘enemy’ they are actually describing themselves.”

    i thought that too!

    it fits. the enemy “hates our freedoms”, and “liberals are appeasers”, of “new type of fascist”.

    the repugnicans are certainly a new type of corporate political fasces. they certainly hate liberals’ license. and we appease them.

  • It is time for the few in national media with the courage to begin to call the pundits on both sides of the isle, and more importantly those we have elected to positions of power on BOTH sides of the isle, for their obvioius equivocations and lies.

    In the context of this discussion, it is both fair and just to remind Mr. Rumsfeld of his earlier appeasement of Iraq and Saddam Hussein when he accuses his detractors of that behavior. It is time for the news shows who have him on for discussions to queue up the tapes of his own statements, both from his earlier time working for other administrations and the latest six years of his work for the current on, and have them on hand when he tries to say “I never said that” and play them to him on the spot, before he can run for the door and say that his words are being distorted or misinturpretted.

    The same, however, needs to be done for ALL of those we have elected so that NO distortion of previous positions or comments is allowed by them or the pundits that wish to argue with them, REGARDLESS of their political affiliation. Not just now and then, but EVERY time that one of them lies.

    The news shows that are simply discussions by those of the same mind (again, regardless of which side of an arguement they are on), need to have the same standard of truth, complete with actuall transcripts and tapes of earlier statements and positions. We don’t all have perfect memories and this has led to the assumption by those who would lie to us that they can get away with distorting the past by mistating it in the present, so those who maintain archival footage of actual statements need to have them on call to keep the records straight for the rest of us.

    Please, everyone who reads this, write, call, protest, whatever it takes. Tell the media what WE want and need. Insist that they promote truth, not more lies. And, when they continue to promote the lies and rhetoric, QUIT SUPPORTING THEM. Don’t give them legitimacy by boosting their ratings and buying the corporate products that underwrite their lies.

  • Seems to me that the appeasers are those who stand aside and allow Bush & Cheney & Rummy to have their way with the Sudetenland–er, I meant Iraq–in the hopes that that will keep them from wanting Poland…whoops, I meant Iran. And yes, I am close to believing that the U.S. is the source of the vast majority of the world’s current pressing ills: global warming, imperialism, the spread of dangerous weapons, the overuse of anti-biotics that create resistant strains of disease, etc. etc.

  • Democrats are willing to fight for liberty, but not using outmoded policies. We want a credible strategy to use in Iraq, not a reckless squandering of lives and treasure that clearly is not working.

    Fighting terrorism appears to call for an amalgamation of military means and law inforcement tactics. Rumsfeld dismissing out-of-hand the idea of law inforcement demonstrates how close-minded he is; not willing to actually think about any ideas but his own.

    Diplomacy is an ancient art; used properly it works. But it can’t work if he is not willing to try. He just wants to use tactics from the last war. He doesn’t seem to understand that we are fighting a different type of enemy than ever before. He insists on committing the same mistakes over and over again hoping for a different outcome, which is insane. Therefore, we need new strateies. If Runsfeld is unable, unqualified, unwilling to attempt a different course, then he should resign.

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