July 2, 2003: For a while I thought maybe Donald Rumsfeld had a glimmering of intelligence. Now I realize he's just another dangerous nut.
Yesterday he compared the "messy" situation in Iraq to the one in the American colonies after the revolution. You might have thought the press corps would have jumped up as one and shouted, "False analogy!" But as far as I can determine, nobody did. Maybe the press corps is as ignorant as Rummy.
History isn't my strong suit, but I thought that the situation in America was that the colonists had just driven out what they considered to be an occupying force and overthrown a dictatorial rule. In Iraq, America IS the occupying force, and it's imposing a dictatorial rule.
Americans were trying to put together a democratic form of government to replace the one that had been imposed on them from outside. Paul Bremer said a couple of days ago, "We will impose our will on them." That's the kind of thing that's always exemplified democracy to me, all right. And just to prove that wasn't a fluke, he cancelled the scheduled free elections. Next he appointed mayors and governors of his own choosing. All of us English majors will remember "My Kinsman, Major Molineux," in which we learned that the colonial governors appointed by the crown were the most hated men in the colonies.
You might think that Donald Rumsfeld would know some of that history, or that maybe somebody in the press corps would. To show my restraint, I'm not going to make the obvious remark about what happens to people who fail to learn from history. Or then again, maybe I will make it.
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