On the passing of Donald Rumsfeld, I say good riddance.
Given Rumsfeld's contribution to humanity, which included tremendous suffering and deaths, I toast the fascist's demise. Rumsfeld was unfortunately a successful politician, assigned to a variety of positions in the federal government. Most notably was his position as secretary of defense within the Bush Jr. regime from 2001 to 2006. Rumsfeld helped to push the United States into war with Iraq in 2003. He callously justified the torture of Iraqis in what was one of the biggest scandals in U.S. history. Rumsfeld perpetrated the lie that Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction, and that Hussein was allied with Al Qa'ida.
Due to Rumsfeld's disgusting push for war against Iraq, about one million Iraqis died and 37 million were displaced. The U.S. government put the cost of the war at a wasteful $6.4 trillion, which is criminal in itself considering that the money could have gone to actually helping people with healthcare, education and housing. But the imperial war was another one of those "important" regime change debacles.
After the Iraq War, Rumsfeld had no regrets, writing, "...the cold reality of a Hussein regime in Baghdad most likely would mean a Middle East far more perilous than it is today." In an Orwellian twist, Rumsfeld claimed that the Iraq War made the Middle East stable, when in reality it didn't. After Hussein was gone, a power vacuum developed. It was filled by the Shiites and their version of Islam. This raised animosity between the Shiites and Sunnis, the latter who were formerly in power. Eventually, ISIS was created and proceeded to wreak havoc. Because of Rumsfeld and the Bush Jr. regime, Iraq still feels the consequences of the war.
In a hypocritical twist of fate, Rumsfeld was friendly with Hussein during the Reagan regime. In 1983, under Reagan, the United States considered Hussein to be a "moderate." There is the well-known photo of Rumsfeld shaking Hussein's hand when the former visited the latter in Iraq that year. At the time, Rumsfeld was an emissary for the Reagan regime in order to develop relations with Iraq. The U.S. was siding with Iraq in its war with Iran. Frank Rich wrote (09/03/2006) in the New York Times that "Saddam was already as notorious thug. Well before Rumsfeld's trip, Amnesty International had reported the dictator's use of torture–'beating, burning, sexual abuse and the infliction of electric shocks' on hundreds of political prisoners. Dozens had been summarily executed or had 'disappeared.' American intelligence agencies knew that Saddam had used chemical weapons to gas both Iraqi Kurds and Iranians."
Writing in the HubPages (08/05/2017), Wesman Todd Shaw referred to Rumsfeld as an "elitist pretty boy fascist." Shaw detailed Rumsfeld's role as an elitist businessman and how he pushed for the the legalization of aspartame, a sugar substitute, which "hit the market and began to destroy the health of billions of persons worldwide." Rumsfeld believed that aspartame wasn't harmful, but as Shaw put it, "Donald Rumsfeld [was] not a doctor..." Shaw added that many medical doctors knew and publicly stated that aspartame was harmful for human consumption. Shaw also wrote that "[a]s an administrator new world order tool, the USA ever had – Donald Rumsfeld oversaw the development of important global oligarchy tools of oppression such as the cruise missile, and the B1 bomber."
And Shaw wrote, "We all saw the Donald then, his heyday was at hand, and he briefed the enraptured American public as they watched the second reality television version of innocent citizens of Iraq being murdered on television for 'god' and country. We watched the Donald as he led us through the righteousness of torture, and how it made the world safer for a democracy that is totally rigged by oligarchy far away, and unseen."
Rumsfeld called the opposition to the Bush Jr. regime's war on Iraq an appeasement to a new type of fascism, echoing an attempt to compare the opposition with the British government's appeasement with Hitler during the 1930s. This coming from the fascist himself. But this deflection does not erase the fact that Rumsfeld was a war criminal. And he deserved to be tried and convicted for his crimes.
Rumsfeld may be dead but his horrendous legacy lives on, particularly for the turmoil he caused in Iraq.