Appeasement similarly crippled Europe when genocide ran rampant in Bosnia and Kosovo. Indeed, even though we had absolute proof of mass murder, we Europeans debated and debated, and then debated still more. We were still debating when finally the Americans had to come from halfway around the world, into Europe yet again, to do our work for us.
Europe still hasn’t learnt. Rather than protecting democracy in the Middle East, European appeasement often seems to countenance suicide bombings in Israel by fundamentalist Palestinians.
Similarly, it generates a mentality that allows Europe to ignore the almost 500,000 victims of Saddam Hussein’s torture and murder machinery and to harangue George W Bush as a warmonger.
This hypocrisy continues even as it is discovered that some of the loudest critics of US action in Iraq made illicit billions — indeed, tens of billions — of dollars in the corrupt United Nations oil for food programme.
Today we are faced with a particularly grotesque form of appeasement. How is Germany reacting to the escalating violence by Islamic fundamentalists in the Netherlands, Britain and elsewhere in Europe? By suggesting — wait for it — that the proper response to such barbarism is to initiate a Muslim holiday in Germany.
I wish I were joking, but I am not. A substantial fraction of Germany’s government — and, if polls are to be believed, the German people — believe that creating an official state Muslim holiday will somehow spare us from the wrath of fanatical Islamists.
And
What atrocity must occur before the European public and its political leadership understand what is really happening in the world? There is a sort of crusade under way; an especially perfidious campaign consisting of systematic attacks by Islamists, focused on civilians, that is directed against our open western societies and is intent on their destruction.
We find ourselves faced with a conflict that will most likely last longer than any of the great military clashes of the last century, a conflict conducted by an enemy that cannot be tamed by tolerance and accommodation because it is spurred on by such gestures. Such responses have proven to be signs of weakness.
Only two recent US presidents have had the courage needed to shun appeasement: Ronald Reagan and George W Bush. The US’s critics may quibble over the details, but in our hearts we know the truth, because we saw it first hand.
Reagan ended the cold war, freeing half of Europe from almost 50 years of terror. And Bush, acting out of moral conviction and supported only by Tony Blair, recognised the danger in today’s Islamist war against democracy.
Crusade is the correct word; glad to see the Times printed it.
Be sure to read the whole thing as there is lots more.
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