Condi takes historical analogies to an absurd level

[ProSense]

Condi takes historical analogies to an absurd level

Posted 8:29 am | Printer Friendly

Last week, top administration officials, including Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld, equated the war in Iraq with fighting Nazis in World War II. As part of this analogy, the Bush gang made its critics out to be Neville Chamberlain — as if troop redeployment in Iraq is the moral equivalent of appeasing Hitler.

As if that weren't quite offensive enough, Condoleezza Rice has upped the ante a bit, suggesting that opponents of the war are the moral equivalent of those who would tolerate slavery in 19th century America.

Secretary of State Rice compared the Iraq war with the American Civil War, telling a magazine that slavery might have lasted longer in this country if the North had decided to end the fight early.

"I'm sure there are people who thought it was a mistake to fight the Civil War to its end and to insist that the emancipation of slaves would hold," Rice said in the new issue of Essence magazine.

"I know there were people who said, 'Why don't we get out of this now, take a peace with the South, but leave the South with slaves?'" Rice said.

Now, I know that Rice, like much of today's Republican Party, is desperate. I realize that this appears to be a challenging campaign cycle for the GOP, and they're willing to engage in whatever demagoguery necessary to survive the next 10 weeks.

But to suggest, out loud, on the record, that critics of the war in Iraq are similar to those who would approve of slavery is perhaps the most breathtakingly stupid remark ever uttered by a Bush administration official. And given the competition, that's no easy feat.

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On a related topic (illegal war), Iraqis wait in line for water:

Wed Aug 30, 11:59 AM ET

Iraqis hold containers as they wait in line to buy water from a delivery truck on the outskirts of Baghdad August 30, 2006. Residents have been complaining of scarce water supply in some parts of the Iraqi capital since the start of summer. REUTERS/Mohammed Ameen (IRAQ)

Wed Aug 30, 12:01 PM ET

Iraqis hold containers as they wait in line to collect water from a delivery truck on the outskirts of Baghdad August 30, 2006. Residents have been complaining of scarce water supply in some parts of the Iraqi capital since the start of summer. REUTERS/Mohammed Ameen (IRAQ)

Problem:

http://www.taylormarsh.com/archives_view.php?id=24472">To some degree, these three points apply to the United States. We also run an immediate risk with our smallish (135,000) occupation force isolated in Iraq, and every day we stay, we’re rolling the dice against longer odds. Iraq is a country of 27 million people, 60 percent of them Shiites who were thrilled about Hezbollah’s victory. It is not fortuitous that our supply lines from Kuwait run for hundreds of miles though predominantly Shiite provinces.

[sweetheart]

1. loomings of the absurd

If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.

she's seen a white whale, pray tell, what next!

[Berry Cool]

It's blatantly obvious what she was trying to do there.

She figured the slavery comparison would sell to a black audience.

Cheap, cheap, cheap.

[sweetheart]

4. the neocon rule, accuse the opposition of your crimes

She is representing the confederates who have retaken the union by executive
order of the supreme court against the electoral will of the people, and since
then, the slave plantations have set about reordering the world, so that the
new iraq government represents the dixie south, and the very opposite, in every
way, of what she said was true... if history had a more ironic mirror, we'd
wonder if it was sentient.

[Fridays Child]

2. Condi had better watch it because there are more than a few people...

...in her party who believe that the South should still have slaves. Her little analogy could backfire big time.

[Monkeyman]

3. One more backfire down south

[leesa]

5. Did this idiot win her doctorate in a dice game?

[ProSense]

6. Has Condi rebuked George Felix Allen for his racist slurs? n/t