Rumsfeld likens Iraq war critics to Nazi appeasers

First paragraph of the New York Times’ report on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s speech yesterday to the American Legion:

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said Tuesday that critics of the war in Iraq and the campaign against terror groups “seem not to have learned history’s lessons” and compared them with those in the 1930s who advocated appeasing Nazi Germany.

You read that right. So now, if you are a critic of the Bush administration’s Iraq war policy, you are a 21st Century Neville Chamberlain. This, despite the fact that 60% of Americans polled support the Lamont-Kerry-Feingold amendment calling for a “phased withdrawal over the course of the next year”.

Watch the video, courtesy of Think Progress, here.

And here are some very important questions from Fred Kaplan in Slate Magazine regarding the questions posed by Rumsfeld in his speech.

Finally, Keith Olbermann gives us all a history lesson and shows how Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld et. all are the ones behaving like Chamberlain.

Update: This is too rich. . .Rumsfeld is now complaining to the Democrats that he’s been misunderstood.