Appeasement And Obama's Ingenious Argument

Wow! A lot of very important people got awfully angry when President Bush argued that appeasement of enemies was a bad idea.
Senator Joe Biden (D-Delaware) thundered, “This is malarkey. This is outrageous, for the president of the United States to go to a foreign country, to sit in the Knesset ... and make this kind of ridiculous statement.”
The haughty, French-looking senator from Massachusetts, John Kerry, yelped that the president was, “playing the disgusting and dangerous political game Karl Rove perfected, which is insulting to every American and disrespectful to our ally Israel. George Bush should be making Israel secure, not slandering Barack Obama from the Knesset.”
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) squeaked, “For the President to make this statement before the government of our closest ally as it celebrates a remarkable milestone demeans this historic moment with partisan politics.”
Strong words. I don’t recall any of these guys speaking so harshly about Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il. So what was it that got their panties in a knot? It was a history lesson. Speaking before the Israeli legislature, he noted that: “Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks rolled into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: ‘Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”
Now personally, I don’t see what is particularly controversial about that. Has anybody forgotten former British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s famous “peace in our time” declaration after negotiations that handed over Austria and Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland to Hitler?
Actually, now that I think about it, a great many people probably never learned that in the first place and therefore cannot have forgotten it.
Well in any event, while a lot of people are ignorant of Chamberlain’s misguided diplomacy, most have heard of the events that followed. It was called World War II, the bloodiest conflagration in human history. The Soviet Union alone suffered at least 20,000 fatalities daily from the start of the Nazi invasion until the surrender of the Third Reich. At least 60,000,000 perished worldwide – probably more.
And even though I don’t see Barack (he-who-must-not-be-middle-named) Obama’s name in that paragraph, it was inferred that Bush was speaking about the likely Democratic presidential nominee. His communications director, Robert Gibbs, denounced the speech as an “unprecedented political attack on foreign soil.”
But although Obama now denies it and claims that he would only negotiate with Iran if it gave up its nuclear program, Barack Obama did in fact declare that he would negotiate with Iran without preconditions. And although they all have the tape, Obama has so far benefitted from the mainstream media’s reluctance to replay the incriminating clip. This is a kindness that they did not extend to Mrs. Clinton regarding her flight to Bosnia under sniper fire. But unfortunately for Barack Obama, we now live in the world of YouTube and are no longer restricted to what the mainstream media chooses to remember. Obama can be heard announcing his intentions to speak with America’s most virulent sworn enemies here.
But who needs the media? Barack Obama’s own website announces his intentions regarding Iran: “Obama is the only major candidate who supports tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions.”
Amazingly, the words have not yet been airbrushed as of Thursday evening and can be read here. Just scroll down to the section on Iran. It’s in the third paragraph.
I’d love to know what secret “ingenious argument” he intends to use on our enemies that “will persuade them they have been wrong all along.” So far he has not constructed an argument sufficiently ingenious to clear up his relationship with his racist, anti-American pastor or with the unrepentant terrorist William Ayers. He might want to start by reconciling his shifting stories regarding his ties to Chicago’s sleazy political bagman, Tony Rezko. He has told at least three different stories on that one after the Chicago press corps disproved each previous story.
The indignation of the Obama camp shows that all recognize that his predisposition to nuzzle America’s enemies is a weakness. He is, after all, on record embracing his endorsement by the terrorist group Hamas.
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