Posted on 07/17/2006 3:45:17 PM PDT by Congressman Billybob
Bill Engvale is a member of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour. For years he’s been doing a routine about stupid things that people say. Each example ends with the tag line, “Here’s your sign.” That means a big sign with STUPID written on it. Although geopolitics are not Bill’s metier, he offers a way to cut through the twaddle about the beginning of WW III.
Let’s start with Howard Dean. (Remember him? He was in all the papers.) Dean cropped up today giving a fire-breathing speech to the faithful (and forlorn), screaming that we wouldn’t have these problems in the Middle East if we’d had “a Democrat Administration for the last six years.” His argument was that a Democrat Administration would have used diplomacy to keep this problem from arising.
Okay, what did the last Democrat Administration do with such problems on its watch? Madeline Albright, Secretary of State under that Administration, shook hands with Kim Jong-Il, son of the Glorious Leader of North Korea and now the tin pot dictator of that concentration camp called a country.
Madame Albright demonstrated Democrat wisdom in such matters by striking a deal with NK under which they got hundreds of millions in aid, and promised to end their nuclear program. Of course they promptly broke that agreement and developed nuclear weapons – or so they say – and are now working on three-stage rockets to deliver those items to Hawaii and points east.
And what does this poster child for incompetent diplomacy offer as the solution to the present problems in the Middle East. We should “send an American envoy to go with UN Secretary Kofi Anan’s three [wise] men” who are now in Beirut. Madame Secretary, “here’s your sign.”
Since the feckless Albright is Dean’s idea of a problem-solving diplomat, Chairman Dean, “here’s your sign.”
For a while in my Ph.D. program I thought about writing my thesis on mass murder by governments. Even though a majority of the governments in the UN are dictatorships of one stripe or another, only a few dictatorships in the modern world descend all the way to absolute barbarity by engaging in mass murder. What are the common characteristics of such governments?
Lying, cheating and stealing are all lesser sins, or crimes if you avoid the word “sins,” than mass murder. Any “leader” of any nation, or would-be nation, who engages in mass murder should be expected, based on history, to lie about and violate mere pieces of paper in the form of international agreements or treaties.
Let’s run a partial list of these monsters on the international stage in the 20th century and up to now. Was it possible to negotiate an end to war with Adolf Hitler and Germany? Neville Chamberlain tried that in the Munich Pact of 1938. He returned to England to announce “peace for our times.” Hitler began WW II a year later, and about 50 million people were killed in Europe as a result.
The idea of negotiating any binding agreement with mass murders, including a cease fire, is absurd. Think Mao Tse Tung in China. Pol Pot in Cambodia. Josef Stalin in the USSR. To anyone who thinks that mere diplomacy can shut down the murderous intentions of any of these and their like, “Here’s your sign.”
Most of these murderers put their intentions down in writing, or state them in speeches. They are as childish, as deranged, and many times more dangerous, than the Columbine High School murders. Why is it necessary to end the nuclear ambitions of any such “leader?” For the same reason that any competent adult would leap across the room to snatch a loaded revolver from a five-year-old. Multiply that threat by a million for the potential reach of nuclear weapons -- you get the idea.
I have seen diplomats, many of them relics of the Clinton Administration, go on TV and claim that all we need to do is “contain” these regimes, until they can be persuaded “to act reasonably.” Apply that logic to the five-year-old with a revolver in hand. Never mind the immediate danger; wait for him to grow up and learn to handle guns responsibly. “Here’s your sign.”
Some of the geopolitical analysts claim that recent events show that “democracy is not the answer” in the Middle East. Democracy did not seem to be the answer in Europe or in Asia at the outset of WW II. Hitler got into power initially through winning elections. So did Mussolini in Italy. The madman now in charge of Iran also got into power through elections, as did Hamas in the Palestinian Authority.
But a mere glance at a history book shows that democracy – and free societies with free markets – were the solutions in Germany, Japan and Italy. The fact that democracy fails on occasion, often through rigged elections as in Iran, does not belie the tendency of established democracies not to go to war with each other. To those who believe otherwise, “Here’s your sign.”
Last of course, are the many commentators who say that “the Middle East is spiraling out of control.” Often they add that the Israeli response is “out of proportion.” The first statement assumes that the Middle East was “in control” before last week’s events. Does anyone actually believe that? And what is a “proportional” response to mass murderers who’ve made clear their intent to murder your people and destroy your nation? What about the fact that Winston Churchill, before he became Prime Minister, warned that Hitler needed to be dealt with immediately, and harshly?
Tens of millions of lives would have been saved if the world had responded to Hitler “disproportionately” in 1938. To those who believe otherwise, “Here’s your sign.”
As for shutting down the murderous intents of Iran, if the task is left to Israel they will eventually bomb the nuclear facilities of Iran. The US could shut down Iran without firing a shot. We have the naval forces to shut down Iranian oil in the Straits of Hormuz and in pipelines through Turkey. And without the ability to sell its oil, Iran is nothing more than another miserable, third-world hell hole. No more.
Of course, that embargo would be an act of war. But we already are at war, and have been since the first and failed World Trade Center bombing. Our enemies have been at war with us for more than a decade. To all those who think we should abide the Marquess de Queensbury rules in fighting back, “Here’s your sign.”
For a clear understanding of how America fights and wins a war, try General Patton’s speech to his troops that begins the movie, “Patton.”
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About the Author: John Armor is a lawyer specializing in constitutional law, who may again be a candidate for Congress in the 11th District of North Carolina.
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Despite the gravity of the situation, there are some here at FreeRepublic that think that calling this 'WW III' is nonsense.
It doesn't look like WWIII yet. It will.
Agree completely!
Not sure this is accurate. Warrent Christopher was SoS when this deal was struck in 1994. I'm not sure if Mad Maddie had anything to do with it.
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