With a good bit of talk recently about hitler liberals and leftists, this
looked to be of interest.........
" Seattle Times Editor: 'Hitler's Demands Were Not Unreasonable'
Fri, May 16, 2008 at 1:14:14 pm PST
Seattle Times editorial writer Bruce Ramsey, in an effort to defend Barack
Obama against President Bush’s “appeasement” speech, actually ends
up
defending Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler, and the Anschluss (the annexation of
Austria): Bush, and His Use of ‘Appeasement’. "
http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/edcetera/2008/05/bush_and_his_use_of_appeasemen.html
May 16, 2008 8:52 AM
Bush, and His Use of "Appeasement"
Posted by Bruce Ramsey
Democrats are rebuking President Bush for saying in his speech to the
Knesset, here, that to “negotiate with terrorists and radicals” is
“appeasement.” The Democrats took it as a slap at Barack Obama. What
bothers
me is the continual reference to Hitler and his National Socialists,
particularly the British and French accommodation at the Munich Conference
of 1938.
What Hitler was demanding was not unreasonable. He wanted the
German-speaking areas of Europe under German authority. He had just
annexed
Austria, which was German-speaking, without bloodshed. There were two more
small pieces of Germanic territory: the free city of Danzig and the
Sudetenland, a border area of what is now the Czech Republic.
We live in an era when you do not change national borders for these sorts
of
reasons. But in 1938 it was different. Germany’s eastern and western
borders
had been redrawn 19 years before—and not to its benefit. In the
democracies
there was some sense of guilt with how Germany had been treated after
World
War I. Certainly there was a memory of the “Great War.” In 2008, we
have
entirely forgotten World War I, and how utterly unlike any conception of
“The Good War” it was. When the British let Hitler have a slice of
Czechoslovakia, they were following their historical wisdom: avoid war.
War
produces results far more horrible than you expected. War is a bad
investment. It is not glorious. Don’t give anyone an excuse to start
one.
In a few months, in early 1939, Hitler ordered the invasion of what is now
the Czech Republic—that is, territory that was not German. Then it was
obvious that a deal with him was worthless. And so when Bush recalls the
unnamed senator who, in September 1939, lamented that he had not been able
to talk to Hitler, he hits an easy target. But the moment of September
1939
is nothing like today.
In September 1939, when Germany started the war, it had no just claim to
any
more territory. But the Palestinians who fight Israel do have a just claim
to territory. We can argue what it is; we can argue about the justness of
their military tactics, and so on. And the same for the Israeli side,
which
is equally arguable.
The step that must be taken now is for the two sides to talk, so that they
can make a deal that both will accept, and that each side will enforce
against its radical elements. In that context, to continually bring up
Hitler, the Nazis, the Munich Conference and continually use the word
“appeasement,” is wrong. To use those comparisons is to assert that it
is
morally questionable even to talk to the Palestinians. It is to give an
excuse to seal them off, cast them out, to deny that they have any just
claims. And they do have just claims. To compare the Palestinians—who
are
occupied, oppressed, denied, stepped-on—with Hitler’s Germany in 1939
is
incredible and ridiculous .
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