I’ve been reading the furor over Rumsfeld’s odd comparison of Iraq today to Germany at the end of WWII. Many people say he is calling his detractors pro-Nazi, but I think that obscures the more interesting fact that Rumsfeld continues to show his analysis is removed from reality. Could such a man ever really be expected to achieve success in foreign policy or military objectives, whether they be in Vietnam or Iraq? CNN does a nice job and provides several notable areas for review.

First, Rumsfeld said:

Turning our backs on postwar Iraq today would be the modern equivalent of handing postwar Germany back to the Nazis.

Sad, really. Many experts were quick to come forward and counter such a baseless quip with a jolt back to reality:

Henry Kissinger, who served with U.S. forces in Germany at the end of World War II and who served as secretary of state under Republican Presidents Nixon and Ford, said the situations are not analogous.

“In Germany, the opposition was completely crushed; there was no significant resistance movement,” the German-born diplomat told CNN’s “Late Edition.”

Zbigniew Brzezinski, who served as national security adviser under President Carter, a Democrat, was less charitable.

“That is really absolutely crazy to anyone who knows history,” he said. “There was no alternative to our presence. The Germans were totally crushed. For Secretary Rumsfeld to be talking this way suggests either he doesn’t know history or he’s simply demagoguing.”

Ok, so Rumsfeld is again wrong about the past, appears to misunderstand the basics of conflict and warfare, and we know that he ruthlessly attacks anyone who disagrees with him. In addition to all that Brzezinski is probably right that Rumsfeld wants to appeal to the emotions and prejudices of the public rather than use rational argument. But what about his plan? What about the state of US intervention in Iraq?

“He has shown himself incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically, and is far more than anyone else responsible for what has happened to our important mission in Iraq,” said Paul D. Eaton, a retired Army major general who was in charge of training the Iraqi military from 2003 to 2004.

I think this will be the legacy of the Bush administration, similar to the sort of legacy left by the leadership of Enron. Things might be going badly, and more and more people are falling out of favor, but the executives will keep parading the emperor’s new clothes down main street until there is nothing left but shame:

“If President Bush ever wants to visit with me privately about my counsel on his Cabinet, I am sure he will ask me, but it appears to me it would not be helpful for me to make a comment,” the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said.

You know things are bad when the chairman of foreign relations refuses to express his opinion because he hasn’t been asked by the President to comment on the situation. Isn’t that his job, on behalf of the people, to express his opinion and fight for the best outcome? A fine example of loyalty misplaced.

I suspect that someday we may look back and agree that a group in office were not true Republicans, but instead an extremist right-wing faction mollycoddling Bush so that they could attempt some sort of strange and unrealistic experiment at the expense of the welfare and safety of America.