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Could Keir Starmer exploit the summer riots to curtail civil liberties? From the return of the Counter Disinformation Unit to the start of live facial recognition, Big Brother Watch’s Silkie Carlo joins UnHerd to discuss the UK crackdown.
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SubscribeThere is a very good Rumsfeld which was shown on Sky Documentaries and is possibly available on Netflix
A particular image of Rumsfeld sticks in my mind. It was a press conference given by him and Cheney early in the Iraq war. Characteristically, they gave no quarter to reporters and brooked no dissent.
But it was their facial expressions and body language that struck me, especially Rumsfeld’s. He absolutely exuded arrogance and contempt. I suddenly realized that’s how much of the world saw the US. Rumsfeld and Cheney were, at that time, at least as much the public face of that questionable war as President Bush.
I had the most uncomfortable feeling, really an intuition, that we were witnessing the beginning of the end of the American empire, brought down not by the 9/11 attackers but by American arrogance on the world stage.
The fact these events occurred at the dawn of the twenty-first century had, for me, uncomfortable parallels with the British Empire which was at its peak at the beginning of the twentieth century just as Queen Victoria died. It was all downhill from there.
I would not say that of Rumsfeld really – the problem was he would win, then hand off the project to people who were political appointees, those who were of a “mere mediocrity would get nowhere,” kind of person who had climbed the greasy pole of power, not by success, but by the game of patronage and owed favors.
Paul Bremer is where I trace the ending of American Greatness, the man who lost the peace after US winning the war in Iraq. He was under Rumsfield, but had total MacArthur powers, and used them to destroy the MENA by arrogance and stupidity.
“Bremer became the country’s chief executive authority.[10][11] As the holder of the “most powerful foreign post held by any American since Gen. MacArthur in Japan””
“On May 23, 2003, Bremer issued Order Number 2, in effect dissolving the entire former Iraqi army[43] and putting 400,000 former Iraqi soldiers out of work.” Then the Police, then the Baathist, and so created the insurgent army…. and lost the peace, not rebuilding the country which should have happened under any good leader, but creating endless wreckage, still going forward…
Rumsfield messed up, his temperament was too agressive, but Bush was just a complete fool, and was the real problem, the real reason for the American decline – which Biden now is taking to absolute destruction.
Rumsfeld is a classic example of neoconservatism not being driven by American nationalism, but Zionism and globalism.