Hitler was unknowingly mocking his own death and the end of his Reich.
6 decades later, Saddam Hussein likewise mocked President Bush's offer of peace to Iraq...unknowingly mocking his own death and the end of Ba'ath Party rule.
In both instances, the above is due to a fundamental ignorance of American Exceptionalism.
The rest of the world still doesn't get us. They are accustomed to offers of peace either being tricks, or cries of weakness.
And vast numbers of their people die in vain because of that lack of education.
Absolutely true. However, don't you think that democrat presidents exhibit an inordinate naivete regarding foreign thugs and foreign affairs in general. Wilson started this with his idealistic view of peace after WW I. This letter seems, on the face, very naive. Roosevelt, of course, later learned that force is the only thing dictators understand.
Truman was an exception, but Stevenson (another Illinois poll) had he been elected, would have given away the store. Kennedy was naive until the summit and the Cuban crisis. Johnson, being a bit of a thug himself, was an exception. Carter was a disaster, we are still paying the price for that novice. Clinton used US power only when it suited him domestically (Serbia), not when it was necessarily good for the country.
Their failed nominees, McGovern, Mondale, Kerry, and Gore, would have been very bad.
Obama has three big problems out there right now, Iran, North Korea, and the pirates. His responses so far put him squarely in the camp of Wilson, Stevenson, McGovern, Kerry, and Carter. With the break up of a nuclear armed Pakistan looming, we could be in for a rough ride.