Reply #51: CNN: Rumsfeld's Iraq-Germany analogy disputed (Brzezinski: "demagoguing")

[DeepModem Mom]

Rumsfeld's Iraq-Germany analogy disputed
Former top officials disagree with comparison

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Former top officials in two presidential administrations -- one Democratic, one Republican -- disagreed Sunday with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's characterization of what would happen if the United States were to pull out of the war in Iraq.

"Turning our backs on postwar Iraq today would be the modern equivalent of handing postwar Germany back to the Nazis," Rumsfeld wrote in an opinion piece published Sunday....Henry Kissinger, who served with U.S. forces in Germany at the end of World War II and who served as secretary of state under Republican Presidents Nixon and Ford, said the situations are not analogous.

"In Germany, the opposition was completely crushed; there was no significant resistance movement," the German-born diplomat told CNN's "Late Edition."

Zbigniew Brzezinski, who served as national security adviser under President Carter, a Democrat, was less charitable.

"That is really absolutely crazy to anyone who knows history," he said. "There was no alternative to our presence. The Germans were totally crushed. For Secretary Rumsfeld to be talking this way suggests either he doesn't know history or he's simply demagoguing."...

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/03/19/rumsfeld.nazis/index.html

Link to WP: "What We've Gained in Three Years in Iraq," by Donald Rumsfeld
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/17/AR2006031701797.html