[This is a terrific example of how our educational system has failed to
educate the baby-boom generation in the lessons of history. Read it and
weep]
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.
The narrative we're given about Munich is entirely in hindsight. We know
what kind of man Hitler was, and that he started World War II in Europe.
From the view of 1938, what Hitler was demanding at Munich was not
unreasonable, according to the prevailing idea of the nation-state. His
claim was that the German-speaking areas of Europe--and ones that
thought of themselves as German --be 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. We have learned the hazards of it. But 1938 was only
19 years since Germany's borders had been redrawn, 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
the historical lesson they had learned 1914-1918: 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. He made a promise and
broke it within about six months. 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.
http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/edcetera/2008/05/bush_and_his_use_of_appeasemen.html
[
Yeah, let Hitler have a slice of Czechoslovakia. After all, war is a
bad investment.
]
--
Steven L.
Email: sdlitvin@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
the NOSPAM before replying to me.
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