One does not need to focus purely on Europe's woes during the 20th Century to see how appeasement in the face of threatened aggression, often fails. All we need to do is go back throughout the entire written history of the world and we will find examples of how civilizations and cultures clashed; and how certain ones used spoken threatening rhetoric, to bully and intimidate others.
Despite the fact that many in the past have unsuccessfully tried to appease their richer and more powerful adversaries, there have been many times when the more powerful ones imposed their wills on the weaker, anyway. Today, we have Iran threatening Israel. And today, we have a certain sector of the world population that firmly believe talking to the bully will prevent the bully from making good on their threats. Barack Obama believes it. He wants to sit down with the Iranian government and engage them in a conversation.
If Barack Obama were to be elected, what would he offer to Iran? What would be the objective of his talks? What realistic goal could be achieved by having a dialogue with an entity that has forced the conversation, with threats? We have seen this scenario before, and this modern version of past events isn't looking to be any different.
I can understand how many Europeans that still remember the wasteland made of their continent as a result of war, want to avoid it at all costs. I do not agree with it, but I understand it.
Despite this, let me pose even more pointed question for thought and consideration. What makes this generation so smug and so arrogant to think that this situation and these times we live in are so very different, from any other situation like this in history?
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What realistic goal could be achieved by having a dialogue with an entity that has forced the conversation, with threats?
"I will leave all options on the table, including surrender."
President Barack Hamas Obama
What makes this generation so smug and so arrogant to think that this situation and these times we live in are so very different, from any other situation?
Well, in many ways, it is different . . . but not on the positive side of the equation. Few young people today have suffered in the way of their grandparents three generations ago, and as a percentage of population, few have sacrificed anything for the greater good.
Permit me once again to paraphrase George MacDonald Fraser. He is writing about Great Britain, but he could just as easily be talking about the United States, or any democratic (western) society whose government has taken a sharp and unacceptable turn to the left. “ . . . [we] did not fight for a Britain which would be dishonestly railroaded into Europe against the people’s will; did not fight for a Britain where successive governments, by their weakness and folly, would encourage crime and violence on an unprecedented scale; did not fight for a Britain where thugs and psychopaths could murder and maim and torture and never have a finger laid on them for it; did not fight for a Britain whose leaders would be too cowardly to declare war on terrorism; did not fight for a Britain whose parliament would, time and time again, betray its trust by legislating against the wishes of the country; did not fight for a Britain whose churches and schools would be undermined by fashionable reformers; did not fight for a Britain where free choice could be anathematized as “discrimination”; did not fight for a Britain where to hold to truths and values which have been thought good and worthy for a thousand years would be to run the risk of being called a fascist—that, really, is the greatest and most pitiful irony of all.”
//"I will leave all options on the table, including surrender."//
Don't forget allowing Hezbollah to annex the state of Israel, Barry.
//Few young people today have suffered in the way of their grandparents three generations ago, and as a percentage of population, few have sacrificed anything for the greater good.//
Whether they want to or not, they are about to. Things won't be going too well after our generation dies off.
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