Rumsfeld: U.S. aids terrorists

Rowan Scarborough, from The Washington Times, reports in "Rumsfeld: Iran aids rebels":

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld charged yesterday that Iran is fueling the deadly insurgency in Iraq with money and fighters.... Iran] has shown behavior that Mr. Rumsfeld said is "not part of the civilized world."...

Mr. Rumsfeld repeatedly has accused Iran of "meddling" in Iraqi affairs... Mr. Rumsfeld said, "They have put people in there. They have put money in there.

"By 'they,' I'm not going to say which element of the government or whether it's even known to the government. But money has come in from Iran. People have come in from Iran."

So, let me get this straight: If some unspecified person inside or from a country does something to aid an enemy of ours, then the country ought to be internationally condemned. OK, got it.

Therefore, according to the Washington Times's interpretation of the Rumsfeld/neocon doctrine, Spc. Ryan Anderson proves that America is America's enemy and should be condemned internationally. Same with Britain in the case of Richard Reid, the "Shoe Bomber"; Saudi Arabia and others for the WTC attack, etc.

Forgive me for taking this out of context, but that's my point -- that's exactly what the WT is doing. No one ever claimed they were nonpartisan, but couldn't they at least try to appear evenhanded? If the paper more or less got his point correct, though, it's a scary look into the mind of Don Rumsfeld. This is the same sort of evidence we were presented with about the Iraq invasion -- Saddam's "aiding" terrorists, we were told. It's probably true that Hussein's regime was sending checks out to families of Palestinian suicide bombers, and that some well-known terrorists had managed to sneak into Iraq and live under the radar (how hard could that have been in a state whose military was crippled by U.N. sanctions?). But the administration blurred this connection and abuses it to this day. This is no war on terror: even by the administration's definitions, Hamas and Chechen rebels are terrorists who attack regularly in other parts of the world, but we're not "taking the fight to them" in order to keep America safe.

And that's assuming we accept the administration's definition of terrorism. What if I say bulldozing houses, as the Israeli military has done, constitutes terrorism? What if I say torturing prisoners or detaining them without trial, outside of the Geneva conventions, is terrorism? What if I say that financially supporting Egypt while the government locks up pro-democratic writers is state-sponsored terrorism? No, the Bush administration (and most pro-Kerry Democrats) are fond of mischaracterizing terrorism to their advantage. Terrorism is probably the ugliest way of fighting war, but let's face it: terrorism is probably just the last in a progression of "dirty" fighting tactics that runs through guerilla warfare, atomic weapons, the machine gun, American revolutionaries hiding behind trees....

Bush was right:

Lauer: Do you really think we can win this war on terror in the next four years?

President Bush: I have never said we can win it in four years.

Lauer: So I’m just saying can we win it? Do you see that?

President Bush: I don’t think you can win it. But I think you can create conditions so that those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world — let's put it that way.

Well, folks, throw out your "Bush is a moron" mantras. He just hit the nail on the head. The problem is that what he's said is the right thing to do isn't Bush's plan, or at least, he's going about international policy in a way that's not making terrorism less acceptable. His slip may have been off-message, but the left has to believe now that Bush is a reasonable person making terrible choices. That might make it a bit harder for demonizing Democrats to paint Bush as evil incarnate (although it does actually fit with John Kerry's "W is for wrong" spiel -- and not to get off-topic, but when this whole election's over, wouldn't you like to see John Kerry put together a children's first A-B-C's book?), but it must push everyone to gauge a potential elected leader on his background and his beliefs rather than his "message."

If I had any faith that Bush could pursue good solutions to the problem as he points it out, he might actually get my vote. But at least I can rest a little easier knowing that he does have a pseudo-reasonable worldview. Up until now, I was just afraid he really thought there was a way to win, a finite number of terrorists to destroy, then plant an American flag and go home.

The next step is for Bush to break free from his handlers and wormtongues altogether and think to himself, "Perhaps military installation of democracy is a flawed plan... let's take the American face off of the Iraqi occupation, redeem ourselves by acting as a fair broker in Israel and Palestine, cut failed missile systems and other pork from the defense budget, use a chunk of the money to spread democratic ideas in the west, and try to reduce poverty and miseducation worldwide. And if it's appropriate, once the federal debt's been paid down, send a little tax cut home."