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Jewish World Review August 17, 2005 / 12 Av, 5765 Exit strategy day By Tony Blankley
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Summer is the season for World War II anniversary celebrations:
May 8, Victory in Europe Day; June 6, D-Day; Aug. 15, Victory in Japan Day.
But one WWII anniversary day is rarely celebrated: Sept. 29.
This year, Sept. 29 will be the 67th anniversary of the signing
of the Munich Agreement by (in order as their signatures appear on the
document): Adolph Hitler, Neville Chamberlain, Edouard Daladier and Benito
Mussolini.
Today's politicians please take note: History tends to remember
harshly those statesmen who sell out their and other nations — even if it
is done under cover of impeccable diplomatic language and with the best of
intentions to assure the peace.
The Munich Agreement called for the "cession to Germany of the
Sudetan German [sic] Territory [of Czechoslovakia]." Paragraphs 3 and 5 of
the Agreement established an "international commission" composed of Germany,
Britain, France, Italy and Czechoslovakia to work out the final details,
oversee the various plebiscites and guarantee the resultant borders.
But on that same day, Sept. 29, Germany's insincerity was
already manifest. On that day the four signatories issued an "Annex to the
Agreement" in which Germany and Italy withdrew their support for the
international commission's work (which they had agreed to earlier in the day
when they signed the main agreement) — pending resolution of "the question
of the Polish and Hungarian minorities in Czechoslovakia."
Needless to say the "international commission" did nothing the
following March 15, 1939, when Germany swallowed the rest of Czechoslovakia.
Only then, when it was too late, did Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain —
who had been proud of his efforts to appease Hitler — finally realize the
plight Britain and the world were in.
But a week after the Munich agreement — Oct. 5, 1938 —
Chamberlain, on the floor of the House of Commons, had been much more up
beat — even exuberant: "The path which leads to appeasement is long and
bristles with obstacles. The question of Czechoslovakia is the latest and
perhaps the most dangerous. Now that we have got past it, I feel that it may
be possible to make further progress along the road to sanity."
If one substitutes the name Iraq for Czechoslovakia, above, the
resultant language probably would closely approximate what President Bush's
Iraq war opponents would be saying the week after a "successful" Iraq exit
strategy had been completed — especially the phrase "further progress along
the road to sanity." Can't you just hear Sen. Boxer making such a statement?
But "stopping the killing" doesn't always stop the killing,
while surrendering to violence rarely leads to "sanity." Sept. 29, 1938's
"progress along the road to sanity" ultimately cost the world the death of
60 million souls before it reached VJ Day on Aug. 15, 1945.
Consider the words of a far wiser statesman than the misguided
Neville Chamberlain. Last week, in the Washington Post, Dr. Henry Kissinger
assessed the likely outcome if we use an exit strategy out of Iraq before we
succeed in our mission:
"The war in Iraq is less about geopolitics than about the clash
of ideologies, culture and religious beliefs. Because of the long reach of
the Islamist challenge, the outcome in Iraq will have an even deeper
significance than that in Vietnam. If a Taliban-type government or a
fundamentalist radical state were to emerge in Baghdad or any part of Iraq,
shock waves would ripple through the Islamic world. Radical forces in
Islamic countries or Islamic minorities in non-Islamic countries would be
emboldened in their attacks on existing governments. The safety and internal
stability of all societies within reach of militant Islam would be
imperiled."
Confronting Hitler in 1938 over Czechoslovakia was dangerous. If
Hitler didn't back down, British troops would die in the following
confrontation. Chamberlain was a man of peace, and he kept the peace for
another 11 months.
The road to the bloody hell of World War II was paved with
Neville Chamberlain's very good intentions to keep the peace.
If the Iraq exit strategy crowd wins the day (and if, as I
believe, Henry Kissinger's vision is a prescient one), 60 years from now no
one will be celebrating "Exit Strategy Day." But its advocates will
certainly share poor old Neville's dingy place in historic memory.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here. Tony Blankley is editorial page editor of The Washington Times. Comment by clicking here.
© 2005, Creators Syndicate |
Mitch Albom | |||||||||||
