Rummy was right

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (AP) - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Tuesday accused critics of the Bush administration's Iraq and counterterrorism policies of trying to appease "a new type of fascism."

In unusually explicit terms, Rumsfeld portrayed the administration's critics as suffering from "moral or intellectual confusion" about what threatens the nation's security and accused them of lacking the courage to fight back.

In remarks to several thousand veterans at the American Legion's national convention, Rumsfeld recited what he called the lessons of history, including the failed efforts to appease the Adolf Hitler regime in the 1930s.

"I recount this history because once again we face similar challenges in efforts to confront the rising threat of a new type of fascism," he said.

Fascism, eh?

Main Entry: fas·cism
Pronunciation: 'fa-"shi-z&m also 'fa-"si-
Function: noun
Etymology: Italian fascismo, from fascio bundle, fasces, group, from Latin fascis bundle & fasces fasces
1 often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
2 : a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control <early instances of army fascism and brutality -- J. W. Aldridge>

Let's see... exalts nation and often race above the individual...

• "America should seek to preserve and extend its position of global leadership by maintaining the preeminence of U.S. military forces."
  
  
• "So, welcome to macaca here. Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia."
  
  
• "The civilization that we as whites created in Europe and America could not have developed apart from the genetic endowments of the creating people, nor is there any reason to believe that the civilization can be successfully transmitted by a different people."
  
  
• "Declaring that airport screeners shouldn't be hampered by 'political correctness,' House Homeland Security Chairman Peter King has endorsed requiring people of 'Middle Eastern and South Asian' descent to undergo additional security checks because of their ethnicity and religion."
  
  
• "District officials feared Hamlin's display violated a state law prohibiting the display of any flag but the American, Colorado or local flags on public buildings, including schools. Temporary displays for instructional or historical purposes are exempt, but the school principal did not consider Hamlin's display temporary enough."
  

...stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader...

• "I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to [crush the testicles of a person's child]."
  
  
• "Such provisions, if construed as mandatory rather than advisory, would impermissibly interfere with the President's constitutional authorities to conduct the Nation's foreign affairs, participate in international negotiations, and supervise the unitary executive branch."
  
  
• "The Executive Branch shall construe [the torture ban] in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President to supervise the unitary Executive Branch and as Commander in Chief and consistent with the constitutional limitations on the judicial power."
  
  
• "President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution."
  
  
• "Several justices seemed deeply concerned that the government had gone too far in its plans to hold a special trial for Hamdan. Some were downright indignant over the Bush administration's claim that a new federal law bars the high court from ruling in the Hamdan case."
  
  
• "In an unusually forceful and forthright speech, [Sandra Day] O'Connor said that attacks on the judiciary by some Republican leaders pose a direct threat to our constitutional freedoms. ... I, said O'Connor, am against judicial reforms driven by nakedly partisan reasoning. Pointing to the experiences of developing countries and former communist countries where interference with an independent judiciary has allowed dictatorship to flourish, O'Connor said we must be ever-vigilant against those who would strongarm the judiciary into adopting their preferred policies."
  

...severe economic and social regimentation...

• "Frist also reiterated that the GOP will not split the minimum wage apart from the estate tax, and that future votes on the pay increase will be linked to cutting taxes on multimillion-dollar estates."
  
  
• "If one were to work a normal 40-hour week for 52 weeks a year for minimum wage, it would take between 988 and 3,665 years to amass Frist's fortune."
  
  
• "President Bush on Wednesday signed into law a bankruptcy reform bill that will make it harder for individuals to clear their debts through bankruptcy."
  
  
• "However, the number of people without health insurance increased to 46.6 million in 2005. About 45.3 million people were without insurance the year before. The last decline in the poverty rate was in 2000, during the Clinton administration, when it dropped to 11.3 percent. With the poverty rate steady but median household income rising, 'that could represent an increase in inequality' between the wealthy and the poor, said David Johnson, chief of the Housing and Household Economic Statistics Division of the Census Bureau."
  

...and forcible suppression of opposition...

• "Earlier administrations have fired and prosecuted government officials who provided classified information to the press. They have also tried to force reporters to identify their sources. But the Bush administration is exploring a more radical measure to protect information it says is vital to national security: the criminal prosecution of reporters under the espionage laws."
  
  
• GOP callers overwhelm City Hall lines: "Offended by Rocky Anderson's plans to protest President Bush this week, the Utah Republican Party is waging a public-relations campaign urging Utahns to call the mayor and tell him to 'stop embarrassing' the state."
  
  
• "The phones were starting to ring, and as I would pick up one phone, it automatically bumped over to another line," testified Manchester firefighter Jeffery S. Duval, who was working the phones at union headquarters. "There was nobody on any of the phones. The phone lines were dead once we went to pick them up. .. We gave the police department a call."
  
  
• "Minutes before the U.S. president would tell Congress how much he appreciates 'responsible criticism and counsel,' the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq was dragged from a gallery overlooking the House chamber, handcuffed and arrested for the 'crime' of wearing a T-shirt that read: '2,245 dead. How many more?'"
  
  
• "At Neel's trial, police detective John Ianachione testified that the Secret Service told local police to confine 'people that were there making a statement pretty much against the president and his views' in a so-called free speech area."
  

I guess Rummy was right.