In article <W6ydnb-0XfFavbPVnZ2dnUVZ_hudnZ2d@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
"Steven L." <sdlitvin@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> [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 łnegotiate with terrorists and radicals˛ is
> łappeasement.˛ 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 łGreat War.˛ In 2008, we have entirely forgotten World War I, and
> how utterly unlike any conception of łThe 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. Donąt 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_app
> easemen.html
>
> [
> Yeah, let Hitler have a slice of Czechoslovakia. After all, war is a
> bad investment.
> ]
No, it's a pretty good example of understanding what things are really
about.
Feel free to explain why you disagree.
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