High Masculine Tones

Rummy gives a history lesson

Mr. Rumsfeld said he was "reluctant" to encourage uprisings explicitly.

"I guess those of us my age remember uprisings in Eastern Europe back in the 1950s, when they rose up and they were slaughtered," he said. "I am very careful about encouraging people to rise up. We know there are people in those cities ready to shoot them if they try to rise up."

Mr. Rumsfeld, I'm forty years younger than you, but I remember back in 1991 when George Bush the Elder encouraged uprisings in Basra and elsewhere, only to abandon the rebels to Saddam Hussein's gunships. 30,000 to 60,000 civilians in southern Iraq died horrible deaths as a result.

I guess that Iraqis of a certain age remember it as well.

::Andrew Gumbel, The Independent: The people of Basra have revolted before - and been slaughtered for it via The Rational Enquirer