For his latest trick, in a speech to the American Legion, Don Rumsfeld gives the full wingnut monte. America faces an undifferentiated fascist menace. Bush's critics are appeasers who don't understand the lessons of history who blame America first and hate freedom. The media is treasonous and a free press is a luxury we can ill-afford in this time of crisis. Etc.

This, I think we can assume, is the fall campaign. The idea is to psyche the Democrats out. To make them think they can't win an argument about foreign policy. To make them act like they can't win an argument about foreign policy. And to thereby demonstrate to the American people that even the Democrats themselves lack confidence in their own ability to handle these issues.

It's essential that the debate be joined, and joined with confidence. Rumsfeld is a buffoon. A punchline. A well-known liar. He and his bosses - Bush and Cheney - are running around the country trying to cite the failures of their own policies as a reason to entrust them with additional authority in order to continue and intensify those same failings. We're witnessing the bitter, bitter fruits of the Iraq War. Other nations learned that they must seek nuclear weapons as soon as possible to safeguard themselves from a newly trigger-happy United States of America. Muslim opinion was sharply polarized against us. Iran and Syria were told that their cooperation against al-Qaeda was no longer needed because their governments would topple soon enough. A power vacuum was left on the streets of Baghdad that parties aligned with Iran have rushed to fill. The Arab-Israeli conflict was sidelined as something that would magically resolve itself once Saddam Hussein was out of the way. And America's allies were taught that our government was not to be relied upon - that we operated with bad intelligence and initiated wars of choice without any real plans or ideas about how to cope with the aftermath.

That's how we got here. By listening to Bush. By listening to Cheney. By listening to Rumsfeld. The idea that we should keep on listening to them is absurd.

Never mind the fact that many critics of the administration do not oppose the goals of the administration, merely its methods for doing so. Rumsfeld's criticism, and frankly the view that I have seen repeatedly from the right and specifically the Neo-Cons is that there is One True Path to defeating terrorism and that you either support the President 100% or you must be supporting the terrorists. Which is patently absurd. This type of black and white view is so far detached from the very values they claim to be defending it's almost laughable. Almost, if it weren't so serious.

… Critics of Bush, including myself, do not have a problem with him because we believe that the goal of defeating terrorism is a bad one. No, on that we definitely and most certainly agree. Terrorism is a very real threat. What we DO have a problem with are the means that his administration has used in the past and are continuing to employ.

The best analogy I can think of is two doctors attempting to treat a sick patient. Bush and co. represent a doctor applying, let's say, 18th century medical techniques to the problem. Yes they want to cure the patient, and yes they may even believe that their methods are the best. Any maybe they are marginally effective. Or maybe they are making things worse. Dr. Bush not only refuses to try anything new, but he refuses to acknowledge seriously any setbacks his patient is having. If we were to follow Rumsfeld's line of logic anyone who called into question the good Doctors methods is someone who wants the patient to receive no treatment, that critics just want to sit back and see if the person heals themselves.

On the contrary, those who oppose Bush are saying that there are other, perhaps BETTER ways to treat the patient that should, at the very least be considered, especially since the patient is not showing the promised signs of recovery.

"What bothers me the most is how clever the enemy is," he continued, launching an extensive broadside at Islamic extremist groups which he said are trying to undermine Western support for the war on terror.

"They are actively manipulating the media in this country" by, for example, falsely blaming U.S. troops for civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan, he said.

"They can lie with impunity," he said, while U.S. troops are held to a high standard of conduct.

"The enemy is so much better at communicating," he added. "I wish we were better at countering that because the constant drumbeat of things they say - all of which are not true - is harmful. It's cumulative. And it does weaken people's will and lessen their determination, and raise questions in their minds as to whether the cost is worth it," he said alluding to Americans and other Westerners.

You see, the biggest problem Rumsfeld and the rest of the Bush Administration are facing right now is that even though the media has been uncommonly good to them, the truth still seems to get out to the American people and we are increasingly angry at our leaders over what has gone on. Instead of changing course in service to this country's desires and interests, the Bush Administration has responded to criticism by engaging in a war on the media and doing everything possible to undermine people's faith in what they read about the war.

And there is just one reason for it: the media is the last hope for freedom in this country. If they do their job and keep the people informed, the people will respond appropriately and the government will be held accountable. That is an intolerable state of affairs for an authoritarian like Donald Rumsfeld.

If one is going to analogize Hitler to Saddam, Nazi Germany to Iraq, then the analogy is this: Desert Storm was as if France and England responded to Germany's occupation of the Rhineland by storming over the border, destroying half of Germany's army and all its air force, and re-imposed war reparations.

So where is the appeasement Rummy is talking about? Has he been sniffing glue? What the hell does he put in his hair?

The Right periodically trots out World War II as some sort of justification for Iraq, without any regard to the facts or logic which cut against this piss-poor analogy.

World War II started when Germany invaded a militarily inferior nation, justifying the invasion with the false pretext that Poland was an imminent threat to Germany's national existence.

Our involvement in World War II started after United States forces and territorial possessions were attacked by Japan, followed by Japan's formal declaration of war.

A state of war arose between the US and Germany after the latter issued a declaration of war, and commenced unrestricted submarine warfare against US vessels.

Just how was the situation which existed prior to March 2003, in which we enforced no-fly zones in the North and South of Iraq, launched airstrikes at will, and fostered the creation of an autonomous Kurdish region akin to the appeasement of Nazi Germany, which was swallowing adjacent nations?

And how does our preemptive attack against Iraq compare to our response to two declarations of war, and the initiation of attacks against us?

Iraq is a war that is saddled with more incoherent premises than can be counted. Yet the most baffling part of it has to be that the more we succeed in stabilizing the new government and empowering majority rule, the more we hand over to our arch Iranian enemy (the New Hitlers) control over large parts of that strategically vital country. Thus, the principal result in exchange for all the lives lost and hundreds of billions of dollars squandered is to ensure that Iraq will be ruled by those most opposed to US interests.