An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile hoping it will eat him last - Winston Churchill

Does anyone ever read or study history? Neville Chamberlain had success of the Irish Treaty of 1921 to guide him with his policy of appeasement with Nazi Germany.  Mr. Chamberlin thought he was dealing with like minded leader. Hitler was permitted to devour Czechoslovakia prior to World War II. The thinking was that Nazi Germany would be satisfied with this action. Believing that it was inevitable anyway, that it gave time to build the defenses of the British Isles, and in a practical sense that was over there and of little importance.

According to Paul Kennedy in his Strategy and Diplomacy, 1983, appeasement is “the policy of settling international quarrels by admitting and satisfying grievances through rational negotiation and compromise, thereby avoiding the resort to an armed conflict which would be, expensive, bloody and possibly dangerous.”

So what happened? 72,709,600 deaths attributed to World War II. How many deaths would there have been if the world governments took Hitler to task and isolated and attacked him? No one knows but it seems reasonable to believe that it would have been fewer and defintely would not have included the world. Wison’s League of Nation’s Covenant was the natural outcome of a man born to appeasement. He was elected on the premise that he would keep us out of war.

In the early days of World War I, Wilson was determined to maintain neutrality. He protested British as well as German acts; he offered mediation to both sides but was rebuffed.

Finally the reality of German U Boats and sovereign rights to the oceans aroused the people and him to enter the war. Doing nothing early on starts to show a pattern in the high cost of appeasement and negotiation.

Believing that Stalin was both a like minded rational world leader and someone that he, Franklin Roosevelt could manipulate, allowed Stalin to wait while Warsaw was demolished before entering it and suppressing another nation.  An elitist, President Roosevelt felt himself smarter/better/more sophisticated than a son of a cobbler, President Roosevelt allowed the devastation of the nation of Poland for the same fuzzy thinking that appeasement is better than conflict. We see how Stalin gobbled up Eastern Europe and ruled as a dictator, everything we fought against Hitler during Word War II. He must have laughed at Chuchill and Roosevelt while he took possession of all Eastern Europe and then proceeded to annihlate any opposition from his own country men.

Some would say appeasement is the rational and mature aproach to the choice of armed conflict. That presupposes that you are dealing with like minded leaders that want to resolve differences before using armed conflict. We still have that sense of smuggness that believes in negotiation and appeasement as an answer to the difficult problems facing us. Negotiation is viewed as the rational approach to a bad situation. Going to war is the barbaric response to differing viewpoints. I would like to point out that the Iraq war is not a sign of stupidity or barbarism. Saddam Hussein was the barbarian in the mass elimination of the Kurds that disagreed with his tribe. I think tribe is the key word. That area was nothing but tribes at one time until it became an industrialized by the national oil companies in an effort to appease the idigneous population so that they could grow their profits. Now the oil companies and in turn us, dance to an OPEC band, at one time little more than wondering nomads with hereditary titles to sand and sky.

So what do the current crop of candidates want to do, pull out of Iraq. Its costing us too muchin money and lives. Iraq is over there and maybe they will not bother anyone in the location. There will be no more ethnic cleansing. Israel will not be bombed. The war will not spill over to a world conflict just because of oil. this is from two candidates that are essentially hypocrites. One too young to be a part of the selective service and did not volutnteer for national service but wanted a nice life as a Harvard graduate with a law degree and a need to rule this country. Or maybe Hillary’s plan that regardless of circumstances she will pull the troops out in six months. Both of them ignored the history of appeasement and its costs. Hillary the person that treated high ranking military aides as busboys in the White House. her and her draft dodging husband that seem to despise the military. That same smug attitude of superiority that President Roosevelt showed to Stalin. As President Clinton like to describe himself “a politcal wonk” he could make things work that no one else has been able to succeed and the arrogance of Hillary that seems to want ot destroy a political party in the lust for power and control. In the end there is only one rational attitude and that is Senator McCain. We are there. We have a goal. Lets get it done and come home. Too bad that does not play well in the affluent suburbs. These yuppies that believe in throwing money at problems and for who the phrase NIMBY was coined. So lets prove to the world that we do not have the stamina for a just fight. We have not wanted to win since World War II. Vietnam and Koread showed that we should just negotiate and give them what they want so they do not bother us. Isn’t that how organized crime makes money extorting those that do not want or will not fight back. Give a little get a little.