While Rumsfeld was in Munich to promote war, his German family relatives were busy telling a newspaper they want nothing to do with him or his war. [link via Buzzflash]

The Rumsfelds of Weyhe-Sudweyhe, an unremarkable red-brick suburb of Bremen, were once proud of their long-lost cousin, America's secretary of state for defence - but no longer.

Like many Germans, they are appalled by Donald Rumsfeld's hawkish attitude to military action against Saddam Hussein.

"We think it is dreadful that Donald Rumsfeld is out there pushing for a war against Iraq," Karin Cecere (nee Rumsfeld), 59, said from her two-up, two-down home last week. "We are embarrassed to be related to him," she told The Telegraph.

Margarete Rumsfeld, her 85-year-old mother, was equally dismissive: "We don't have much to do with him anymore. Nowadays he's just the American defence secretary to us, but for God's sake, he'd better not start a war," she added.

The family used to welcome Rumsfeld with open arms when he came to visit. Not any more. Germany, in particular, is putting up a stink about Bush and Rumsfeld's war plans.

More than 60 per cent of Germans oppose a war and the US defence secretary has become a hate figure for the country's peace movement. His desire to topple Saddam by force is at odds with the Social Democrat-led government of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, which is directly opposed to war in Iraq.

We can't wait for the inevitable political cartoons to come out of Europe portraying us all as cowboys in a rodeo throwing a lasso around the rest of the world. Yee-Haw.