German editorial on Iraq

**shiznit2169** · 08-11-2006, 04:46 PM

I thought this was interesting, popped up in my email from a family member. Don't reply unless you read it so if theres a debate it can be educational starts below.

If any of you still feel that this war on terror is a mistake, here is
an opinion from an unexpected source. It's fascinating that this should
come out of Europe. Mathias Dapfner, Chief Executive of the huge German
publisher Axel Springer AG, has written a blistering attack in DIE WELT,
Germany's largest daily paper, against the timid reaction of Europe in
the face of the Islamic threat.

This is a must-read by all Americans. History may well certify its
correctness.

EUROPE - THY NAME IS COWARDICE
(Commentary by Mathias Dapfner CEO, Axel Springer, AG)

A few days ago Henry Broder wrote in Welt am Sonntag, "Europe - your
family name is appeasement." It's a phrase you can't get out of your
head because it's so terribly true.

Appeasement cost millions of Jews and non-Jews their lives, as England
and France, allies at the time, negotiated and hesitated too long before
they noticed that Hitler had to be fought, not bound to toothless
agreements.

Appeasement legitimized and stabilized Communism in the Soviet Union,
then East Germany, then all the rest of Eastern Europe, where for
decades, inhuman suppressive, murderous governments were glorified as
the ideologically correct alternative to all other possibilities.

Appeasement crippled Europe when genocide ran rampant in Kosovo, and
even though we had absolute proof of ongoing mass-murder, we Europeans
debated and debated and debated, and were still debating when finally
the Americans had to come from halfway around the world, into Europe yet
again, and do our work for us.

Rather than protecting democracy in the Middle East, European
Appeasement, camouf laged behind the fuzzy word "equidistance," now
countenances suicide bombings in Israel by fundamentalist Palestinians.

Appeasement generates a mentality that allows Europe to ignore nearly
500,000 victims of Saddam's torture and murder machinery and, motivated
by the self-righteousness of the peace movement, has the gall to issue
bad grades to George Bush... Even as it is uncovered that the loudest
critics of the American action in Iraq made illicit billions, no, TENS
of billions, in the corrupt U.N. Oil-for-Food program.

And now we are faced with a particularly grotesque form of appeasement.
How is Germany reacting to the escalating violence by Islamic Fundamentalists in Holland and elsewhere? By suggesting that we really should have a "Muslim Holiday" in Germany?

I wish I were joking, but I am not. A substantial fraction of our
(German) Government, and if the polls are to be believed, the German
people, actually believe that creating an Official State "Muslim
Holiday" will somehow spare us from the wrath of the fanatical
Islamists. One cannot help but recall Britain's Neville Chamberlain
waving the laughable treaty signed by Adolph Hitler and declaring
European "Peace in our time".

What else has to happen before the European public and its political
leadership get it? There is a sort of crusade underway, an especially
perfidious crusade consisting of systematic attacks by fanatic Muslims,
focused on civilians, directed against our free, open Western societies,
and intent upon Western Civilization's utter destruction.

It is a conflict that will most likely last longer than any of the great
military conflicts of the last century - a conflict conducted by an
enemy that cannot be tamed by "tolerance" and "accommodation" but is
actually spurred on by such gestures, which have proven to be, and will
always be taken by the Islamists for signs of weakness. Only two recent
American Presidents had the courage needed for Anti-appeasement: Reagan
and Bush.

His American critics may quibble over the details, but we Europeans know
the truth. We saw it first hand: Ronald Reagan ended the Cold War,
freeing half of the German people from nearly 50 years of terror and
virtual slavery. And Bush, supported only by the Social Democrat Blair,
acting on moral conviction, recognized the danger in the Islamic War
against Democracy. His place in history will have to be evaluated after
a number of years have passed.

In the meantime, Europe sits back with charismatic self-confidence in
the multicultural corner, instead of defending liberal society's values
and being an attractive center of power on the same playing field as the
true great powers, America and China.

On the contrary - we Europeans present ourselves, in contrast to those
"arrogant Americans", as the World Champions of "tolerance", which even
(Germany's Interior Minister) Otto Schily justifiably criticizes. Why?

Because we're so moral? I fear it's more because we're so materialistic,
so devoid of a moral compass.

For his policies, Bush risks the fall of the dollar, huge amounts of
additional national debt, and a massive and persistent burden on the
American economy - because unlike almost all of Europe, Bush realizes
what is at stake - literally everything.

While we criticize the "capitalistic robber barons" of America because
they seem too sure of their priorities, we timidly defend our Social
Welfare systems. Stay out of it! It could get expensive! We'd rather
discuss reducing our 35-hour workweek or our dental coverage, or our 4
weeks of paid vacation... Or listen to TV pastors preach about the need
to "reach out to terrorists. To understand and forgive".

These days, Europe reminds me of an old woman who, with shaking hands,
frantically hides her last pieces of jewelry when she notices a robber
breaking into a neighbor's house.

Appeasement?

Europe, thy name is Cowardice.

---God Bless America

**kbm8795** · 08-11-2006, 06:53 PM

I don't even have to Google this dude's name to figure out he's another right wing warmonger. He even carefully learned all the wingnut code words from the American Right - "cowardice" - and that favorite vague term "moral." Naturally we have to assume that shooting as many missiles as possible at every squeak in the night is the best way to preserve freedom.

So is the United States more free than it was before September 11, 2001? Have we preserved every ounce of our free society that existed before then without any incidents of mass spying, illegal torture or violations of our constitutional separation of powers?

And just how well have we done spreadin' "Christian" freedom to the Muslim hordes in the Middle East? We're supposed to believe that Muslim fundamentalists are trying to take over the world, and yet we are supposed to listen to that coming out of our own "Christian" fundamentalists whose goal is - brace yourself - to take over the world. And so apparently Europe is like a shrinking old woman because it doesn't throw away $300 billion dollars establishing a civil war in Iraq, toss a few billion more that gets "lost" by a private company in cahoots with the American vice president, and doesn't institute perpetual warfare as a convenient political tool to keep themselves in power.

Republicans, who sharply criticized President Clinton's intervention in Kosovo because he didn't have a "PLAN" are suddenly for war on everything. They've got the culture wars, the war against pornography, the war against ownership of the womb, the war against Christmas, the war against the gays, the war against the liberals, the war against the godless. . .there isn't a single policy instituted by con-servatives that doesn't call for warfare. They can't grasp the fact that they pilfered away a united American public after 9/11 on a collection of lies and mistakes, so they resort to the same old "we gots to get some more war" to maintain power. What exactly is the moral foundation of a political movement that is completely reliant on fear? Fear of invasion. Fear of the Mexicans. Fear of another language. Fear of the gays. Fear of the Muslims. Fear of a bottle of hand lotion. Is it so surprising that when they invoke their "non-denominational" ownership of "Christianity" that it is based upon Fear of God?

Yep - we know the Muslims are more physically ruthless than the Christians, but is that because the Christians are so much more moral? Or because they still struggle in a free society to assert enough power to become the mirror image of the Islamo-fascists? We've got plenty of behind-the-scenes evidence that our own American Taliban would like nothing more than to hurry along the Rapture by waging all-out war with the Muslims - why, Pat Robertson and the televangelista cabal regularly shill for collections to send bibles to Islamic countries and to fight their governments for the right to spread the religiously correct gospel of Christianity.

In a time where the concept of tolerance is about as foreign to a rightwing Christian as the belief in a loving God, we get fed this constant meal of wingnut hysteria. So we bomb and we send our troops - and it doesn't end. In fact, it isn't ever going to end, and that isn't because we aren't capable of ending it. It's because it isn't in this governments interest to end the conflict - because they depend on that conflict to stay in power.

Yeah...Europe should sure follow America's example. Why, the first thing the Republican National Committee did after finding out about the alleged terror plot in Britain (before the public, of course) was to send out a massive email using it for fundraising purposes. And the American Vice President, who had been briefed on the unfolding arrests a couple of days before, used his remarks to the American people to criticize the democratic choices of the people of Connecticut.

There are some people who thrive on looking at everything in the world as an enemy. And they make their dreams come true, just like this Administration. Long after Osama had bin forgotten, the American people continue to mortgage their freedom whenever the con-servatives declare that just a little less freedom will buy more security. So our compliant Congress rubber stamps every declared "need," we still have terrorism alerts whenever the Prez feels like pulling the puppet strings, and in return the American people get the safety of proposals to build 1,000 mile walls across the border, flag burning constitutional amendments, presidential rants about 8,000 gay couples getting "married," declarations that everyone needs to be celibate before marriage, and a government beholden to a cabal of faith-healer claiming televangelists who suddenly disappeared when Terri Schiavo needed their divine intervention. In return for compromising our freedom we got a President who views science as evil, who listens to God in his head and marvels at how He sounds just like his own voice, and who always manages to be on vacation when the shit hits the fan.

Oh yeah. . .Europe needs to become much more like the United States. The rest of the world needs to latch onto the model of our newly-appointed one-party government and it's supporters who declare that anyone participating in a debate who doesn't take their side is a "traitor" or a "coward" or a "communist" or a "liberal" - because everyone knows con-servatives are the most loyal, self-sacrificing, patriotic citizens any democracy would be proud to hold. Well, only if they can fight the wars without having to pay any taxes to support them. And maybe if they get no-bid contracts to make a profit. And maybe if the blood and gore and numbers of bombs set off their sexual urges.

The Dutch have some problems with Muslims, but their society has dealt with inclusiveness for centuries longer than the struggling, half-hearted attempts Americans put into accepting a multi-cultural society. Con-servatives in particular loathe anything that wasn't cloned in precisely their own image, but claim that doesn't influence their rough-and-ready attitude to shoot their load at any imagined threat. And their reward? Tens of thousands of Iraqis marching in the streets denouncing the great neo-con liberators. Can't be any potentially created terrorists there.

But if there is one wet dream that gets the American Right going, it's the vision of another replay of the Crusades, replete with nuclear explosions and millions of casualties and the atheists getting punished for having sex and those who gave Jerry Falwell money floating up to heaven. And for this Administration, that's the wet dream that keeps this government going. You won't hear the Right talking about the morality of war - they are too wrapped up glorifying it. Their biggest mistake is that they just keep coming up with more enemies every day - and in about two months we'll start hearing again about the war on Christmas. They'll pull out the same tired cliches again. Con-servatives are moral - everyone else is a heathen. Con-servatives are brave - everyone else is a coward. Con-servatives are patriotic, everyone else disgracefully burns the flag. Con-servatives believe in marriage and chastity, as long as they don't actually have to prove it.

And thanks to the moral compass of con-servatives, there are more potential terrorists in the world. But it's all good - Republicans can always use those alerts for another fundraising campaign.

**maniclion** · 08-11-2006, 07:49 PM

Long posts on a Friday suck....

**shiznit2169** · 08-11-2006, 07:53 PM

Originally Posted by maniclion

Long posts on a Friday suck....

But you are still online

I posted that because i know a lot of you here are heavily into politics so i wanted to see what you guys have to say and what your opinion is.

**maniclion** · 08-11-2006, 08:05 PM

Originally Posted by shiznit2169

But you are still online

I posted that because i know a lot of you here are heavily into politics so i wanted to see what you guys have to say and what your opinion is.

Because I have 23 minutes left at work, it's 4:07 right now in Hawaii.

Just starting my weekend whereas most of you just wasted several hours of yours doing nothing I bet.

**shiznit2169** · 08-11-2006, 08:09 PM

Originally Posted by maniclion

Because I have 23 minutes left at work, it's 4:07 right now in Hawaii.

Just starting my weekend whereas most of you just wasted several hours of yours doing nothing I bet.

I'm watching the Patriots-Falcons preseason game and i have work early tomorrow.

**maniclion** · 08-11-2006, 08:19 PM

Originally Posted by shiznit2169

I'm watching the Patriots-Falcons preseason game and i have work early tomorrow.

Ha ha sucker!

What's happening? Um... I'm gonna need you to go ahead and come in tomorrow. So if you could be here around 9:00, that would be great. Mm-kay? Oh, oh, and I almost forgot. Uh, I'm also gonna need you to go ahead and come in on Sunday too, 'kay? We, um, lost some people this week and uh, we need to sort of play catch-up. Thanks."

**Witmaster** · 08-11-2006, 08:27 PM

I'm pretty sure kbm8795 writes for the democratic underground. If he doesn't.. he should.

**kbm8795** · 08-11-2006, 08:35 PM

Hey. . .I usually get paid for my work.

**Big Smoothy** · 08-12-2006, 05:27 AM

This is an editorial. I understand this. No problem.

But you need to post a link.

Also, there is the linkage of the Cold War, with Americans in Iraq. This is the linking of "Appeasement" with the U.S. in Iraq, and doesn't make any sense.

There was no Islamicism in Iraq while Hussein was in power. Al-Qaeda hated Hussien (who was secular), and vice-versa.

I don't understand the point that the author is [i]attempting[i] to make, unless he believes that Europe, which composes of over 30 countries should have acted to remove Hussein from power. Not possible.

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