Appeasement 101

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0206/hanson021606.php3 ^ | Victor Davis Hanson

[mal]

It is easy to damn the 1930s appeasers of Hitler — such as Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain in England and Edouard Daladier in France — given what the Nazis ultimately did when unleashed. But history demands not merely recognizing the truth post facto, but also trying to reconstruct the rationale of something that now in hindsight seems inexplicable.

Appeasement in the 1930s was popular with the European public for a variety of reasons. All of them are instructive in our hesitation about stopping a nuclear Iran, or about defending the right of Western newspapers to print what they wish — or about fighting radical Islamism in general.

[Tzimisce]

How Would Mohammed Vote Racist Pig?

[HiTech RedNeck]

With his sword

[goldstategop]

It always gets more costly later on. The so-called "peace" movement is really dedicated to the destruction of the West because they weaken and undermine our resolve to face down and rid the world of evil.

(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")

[sachem longrifle]

Today's isolationist view America as the problem as opposed to 1930's isolationists who thought America was too great of a country to get involved in European affairs

[Ichneumon]

*Excellent* editorial.

Also I couldn't help but notice this passage:

At the time of the Ayatollah Khomeini's homicidal fatwa against Salman Rushdie, religious conservative commentators from Patrick Buchanan to New York's Cardinal O'Connor attacked Rushdie, rather than defended the Western right of free expression. Apparently, they felt such Islamic threats to supposed blasphemers might have positive repercussions in discouraging left-wing anti-Christian attacks as well.

Just a few days ago I heard Pat Buchanan take the very same position with regard to the "Mohammad cartoon" issue, in an interview on the Sean Hannity radio show.

Although he mumbled the expected homilies about how it was "of course wrong" for the Muslims to react by burning things down and threatening folks with death, his real outrage was reserved for the newspaper editors who could be so "stupid" as to even think of printing something that was "offensive to religion" and how they should have "known better" and just shut the hell up.

His explanation made it clear that he was more concerned about quelling similar "blasphemies" against Christianity, than he was about the issues of free speech, or the insanity of appeasing the "bow to us in every way or we will behead you" Islamic extremists. It was pathetic, and one of the stupidest things I had heard on the radio all week.

[PGalt]

Great article. Thanks for posting.

Don't expect the European Union to defend itself. Their constitution doesn't address freedom and inalienable, individual rights. Any lack of understanding of these concepts dooms appeasers to any philosophical gang and its enablers.

[libertylover]

Like the appeasement of the 1930s, opting for the easier choice will only guarantee a more costly one later on.

Obvious to most on this forum but worth repeating.

[Tolik]

...But deja vu pertains not just to us, but our enemies as well. Like the Nazi romance of a exalted ancient Volk, the Islamists hearken back to a mythical purity, free of decadence brought on by Western liberalism. Similarly, they feed off victimization — not just recent defeats, but centuries-old bitterness at the rise of the West. Their version of the stab-in-the-back Versailles Treaty is always the creation of Israel.

Just as Hitler concocted incidents such as the burning of the Reichstag to create outrage, Islamist leaders incite frenzy in their followers over a supposed flushed Koran at Guantanamo and several inflammatory cartoons, some of them never published by Danish newspapers at all.

Anti-Semitism, of course, is the mother's milk of fascism. It is always, they say, a small group of Jews — whether shadowy cabinet advisers and international bankers of the 1930s or the manipulative neoconservatives and Israeli leadership of the present — who alone stir up the trouble.

The point of the comparison is not to suggest that history simply repeats itself, but to learn why intelligent people delude themselves into embracing naive policies. After the removal of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, the furious reply of the radical Islamist world was to censor Western newspapers, along with Iran's accelerated efforts to get the bomb.

In response, either the West will continue to stand up now to these reoccurring post-Sept. 11 threats, or it will see the bullies' demands only increase as its own resistance weakens. Like the appeasement of the 1930s, opting for the easier choice will only guarantee a more costly one later on. .

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[G.Mason]

"Don't expect the European Union to defend itself. Their constitution doesn't address freedom and inalienable, individual rights ..."

Don't delude yourself.

Our Constitution becomes meaningless when "We The People" choose to ignore it.

[PGalt]

No argument with your statement.

[G.Mason]

My intent was not to be harsh, but simply realistic and something that I, and all of us, must think about.

[Malesherbes]

Yes, it's deja vu all over again. Europe seems to be reprating that "low, dishonest decade" of the 1930's.

[Earthdweller]

"How Would Mohammed Vote Racist Pig?"

Hahahaha!! You be a naughty noobie. Someones going to take this wrong and fry your tail.

[PeterPrinciple]

Exactly when did WWII begin? When German invaded Poland is when I usually think of. After that it took a few years before we were at war. Is 9-ll any different?

[Mind-numbed Robot]

He took the Sudatenland first, or it was given to him by the appeasers, and then he went into Poland so you tell me when it began. That is sort of like our situation today. Did the WoT begin when Osama declared war on us or on 9/11?

[Tolik]

The Appeasement officially ended with the invasion of Poland because Brits and French were obligated to enter the war by agreements with Poland. American isolationists were not convinced until after the Pearl Harbor.

But VDH is talking about all the years before that.

Let me take extra step: French and British could prevent the build up of the German military, they did have an advantage, but their advantage was never so overwhelming as ours now. Current historians are not kind to them for appeasements of 30th. Does anybody think the future historians will be any kinder to us?

[humint]

The point of the comparison is not to suggest that history simply repeats itself, but to learn why intelligent people delude themselves into embracing naive policies. After the removal of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, the furious reply of the radical Islamist world was to censor Western newspapers, along with Iran's accelerated efforts to get the bomb.

There is great skill and effort that goes into rejecting evidence of impending disaster. It could be argued, "priorities change" and that's why the architecture and mechanics of our defenses change. This is true and explains choices made under difficult circumstances, IE, the Cold War. To VDH’s point, beyond adjusting to the times, apologists are unusually consistent in doling out their apologies to outsiders, while simultaneously castigating their countrymen. It’s as if the apologist is assuming too much responsibility for the crisis in the face of the crisis. No! A democratic mind will never be responsible for the aggression of the fascist mind. The tough part is knowing when to stop trying to compromise when your entire world view is built on compromise. In a way, the end of the appeaser’s world comes at the same time the world that authorizes compromise, including appeasement, is saved.

This is a great commentary because it uses history as a tool, not to shift blame or credit for the sake of an agenda, but to help navigate the future. BTTT!

[ModelBreaker]

It always gets more costly later on.

This summarizes my thoughts on the war in Iraq and the first gulf war. We will fight Islam in a bloody battle now or later. If we wait, we will be fighting a nuclear armed caliphate. We would still win but at horrible cost.

[ModelBreaker]

His explanation made it clear that he was more concerned about quelling similar "blasphemies" against Christianity, than he was about the issues of free speech, or the insanity of appeasing the "bow to us in every way or we will behead you" Islamic extremists. It was pathetic, and one of the stupidest things I had heard on the radio all week.

I really don't worry about the anti-Christian stuff in the press. God can take care of himself. I feel sorry for the authors, not God.

[Tyler Bede]

Political Islam has learned much from the Nazis.

I am well pleased that so many posters recognize this.

Islamists are implementing the same tactics of fear and violence that Hitler used. First divide and blame (Jews are always useful to blame, after all they killed Christ and can’t get enough baby’s blood to drink. Who can like the treacherous Jew?) After diminishing the thinking parts of the brain by heightening the emotion level, notch it up even higher by throwing in random violence. Chaos is great for seizing power. This tactic worked for Lenin and Hitler both.

Current events are fast changing. Now it is Germany 1930s redux. What followed Hitler’s six year build up to war was not peace – no matter how many people in other countries wished for it. If not stopped now we could get Europe in the 1940s, that is to say a continent in ruins. The difference this time is that the conflict will be even bigger and without borders.

The streets of France’s cities were burning just a few weeks ago. Many wished it would all just stop and go away, but it didn’t and it won’t. The goal is a world-wide caliphate and the timetable is this entire century. As Commander of the United States Central Command John Abizaid said, we are already in the middle of a Long War.
Oceans won’t protect the United States as WWII’s America Firsters wanted to believe.

I stumbled across some islamist writings that introduced to me the concept of "historical symmetry". The writer meant this term to mean “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” The reality is more a popular definition of insanity: “Keep on doing the same thing, expecting a different result.” Political Islam has learned from history. Unfortunately the wrong lessons were learned. The result is fated to be the same as Hitler’s unless countered NOW by wisdom on the part of our leadership.

Pray for the Holy Wisdom to lead us in what premises to be a very difficult several decades.

The Nazi/ Islamist connection is most brought out in pictures on my webpage at: http://www.fulcrumofdestiny.com/TempleMount.html#Goebbels

[crazycat]

"If we wait, we will be fighting a nuclear armed caliphate."

The horrible truth is that Pakistan already has nukes, so if the wrong person gets control there, no matter what happens in Iran, we have the same problem.

[Lady Jag]

Why did Hansen, the author and historian, tip-toe around the Nazi-Islam connection?

Undeniable historical links

TODAY'S COLUMNIST
By Chuck Morse and Carol Greenwald
February 9, 2006

 

The sacred memory of the victims of the Nazi Holocaust must not be victimized by political correctness.The U.S.Holocaust Memorial Museum has done this by avoiding any mention of the Arab or Muslim role in the Holocaust and by ignoring the link between Nazism and current Islamic extremism.
    Iran's president announces that the Holocaust never happened while simultaneously announcing that Israel should "be wiped off the map." The vilest anti-Semitic conspiracy theories are promulgated in the Arab press and taught to Arab children as a matter of routine. Anti-Semitic incitement has become a state-sponsored article of faith in much of the Islamic world.
    The museum has programs on the role of Christianity in promoting anti-Semitism -- but nothing on Islam. It has programs on current genocidal threats such as Darfur -- but not when the threat is against Jews. It does mention current anti-Semitism in Europe -- but not in the Middle East.
    Just as the Nazi threat was not confined to Jews, the Islamofascist threat is not confined to Jews, as demonstrated by the events of September 11, 2001 and by Islamic terrorist bombings in London, Madrid, Bali and Israel.
    Nazism held a genuine appeal for the Arab populace, who were attracted to its messages of rejection of democracy, recovery of past military glory and Jew-hating. In 1935, Reza Shah, the ruler of Persia, changed the country's name from Persia to Iran to reflect that they, like the Nazis, were Aryans. A popular Arab song during the war went, "Allah in heaven, Hitler on earth."
    The historic Nazi connection to today's Islamic terrorism is Haj Amin al-Husseini, the grand mufti of Jerusalem. He became a Nazi agent after meeting Adolf Eichmann, an architect of the Holocaust, in Palestine in 1937, and with Nazi funds organized the Arab Revolt of 1936-39 which led to the British closing Palestine to Jewish immigration. This facilitated the "Final Solution" by closing off the avenue of refuge. In 1941, the mufti orchestrated a short-lived Nazi-backed generals' coup in Iraq. One of the participants in that coup, Gen. Khayrallah Tulfah, was Saddam Hussein's uncle and mentor.
    The Iraq coup was followed by the Farhud, a pogrom against Baghdad's Jews, an event viewed by Sephardic Jews as comparable to the German "Kristallnacht," but never mentioned by the museum. The Mufti obtained Hitler's assurance in November 1941 that after dealing with the Jews of Europe, Hitler would treat the Jews of the Middle East similarly. Husseini promised the support of the Arabs for the Nazi war effort. In Berlin, Husseini used the "sonderfund," money confiscated from Jewish victims, to finance subversive pro-Nazi activities in the Middle East and to raise 20,000 Muslim troops in Bosnia, the infamous Hanjar S.S. Waffen, who murdered tens of thousands of Serbs and Jews in the Balkans and served as police auxiliary in Hungary.
    There is no mention of the grand mufti in the museum's permanent exhibit, although only Hitler received more pages in the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust.
    But the Mufti's Nazi heritage did not end with the Holocaust. Nazi war criminals found employment in Arab capitals as advisers in murder. The notorious SS killer Alois Brunner was the personal adviser to Hafez Assad's brother, who was in charge of the Syrian security forces. Husseini, Yasser Arafat's mentor, brought former Nazi commandos to Egypt to teach Mr. Arafat and others how to become terrorists.
    Walter Reich, director of the U.S. Holocaust Museum from 1995 to 1998, has recently said: "a focus on Arab and Muslim anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial at the Holocaust museum... would be, I believe, appropriately within the museum's mandate. Indeed, it would be strange if the museum did not focus on such anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial, given the museum's devotion not only to the Holocaust but also to contemporary genocides and given the prevalence in contemporary Arab rhetoric of not only the kind of anti-Semitism that helped lead to the Holocaust but also the calls for genocide that are aimed at the Jews of Israel."
    The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum should be an authoritative voice educating the museum's visitors and the public about the re-emergence of genocidal hatred as a political tool. The museum's mission requires it to publicize this rebirth of Nazi propaganda though exhibits and educational programs.
    
    Chuck Morse is the author of "The Nazi Connection to Islamic Terrorism." Carol Greenwald is on the board of Holocaust Museum Watch.
    

http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20060208-093102-5258r.htm

 

 

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Exactly when did WWII begin?

I'm hazy about the chain of events is Asia, but in Europe it was seventy years ago next month when Hitler made his first military move. He sent a few brigades in to the demilitarized zone of the Rhineland with nothing but bluff to back him up. His commanders had orders to run like hell back to their jump-off point if the French put up any resistance at all. The Germans were vastly outnumbered and any counter move by the French would have resulted in almost no casualties for them and the immediate fall of Hitler. That is what I consider the beginning of the war. After his success there Hitler next took over Austria and then Hungary without firing a shot. Poland even cooperated in giving him a free hand in Hungary when he promised to give them a piece of the carcass. He could have been stopped by the soon-to-be allied nations at each step, but at a progressively higher cost. Even when he invaded Poland the French could have come in behind him and taken Berlin, but by then the German fortification had proceeded so far that it would have been costly.

The loon currently running Iran has similar characteristics to Hitler. I hope the U.N. gets busy passing threatening resolutions soon.

I recommend "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" for an amazing account of German expansion written by a journalist who was there.

[dervish]

True.

Our Constitution gives us more freedom of speech than Europe. Yet barely any US media published the cartoons in contrast to a better showing in the European press. In fact the entire Anglosphere wussed out.

Western solidarity in publishing the cartoons would have sent a much needed message.

[ModelBreaker]

The horrible truth is that Pakistan already has nukes, so if the wrong person gets control there, no matter what happens in Iran, we have the same problem.

I don't like the nukes in Pakistan; but they are less of a threat than Iran or heaven forbid, Egypt or Turkey because of India. India would sit on the sidelines for anything else in the middle east except a frisky Pakistan.

Eventually, India would be pulled in against a caliphate. But that would take longer.

[G.Mason]

" ... Western solidarity in publishing the cartoons would have sent a much needed message."

Aye, and now ? Does the world, like in the 1930's, think that we will allow them to have their way?

I think not. At least not here in the Untited States.

[Harrius Magnus]

Needed Bump

[UnklGene]