The 1930s, Again: A hard rain is going to fall.

In some ways in our war against the terrorists we are like the democracies of the late 1930s. They knew that there was more to Hitler than his avowed quest for the return of the Sudetenland or the Alsace-Lorraine. They sort of suspected that an entire, venerable culture in Germany and Japan had gone off the deep end. And while there was a certain logic to Hitler's diatribes that a moralistic England had no more right to distant India than did Germany to nearby Danzig, most deep-down knew that such parlor-game banter simply masked a much larger dilemma — how to corral a very powerful dictatorship and its axis that wished dominance not coexistence, and whose fuel was brutal force and autocracy, not democracy and freedom.

For England, most of Western Europe, and the United States, reeling under recent economic depression and hardly recovered from the sheer horror of the First World War — carnage unlike any in the long history of warfare — the idea of forceful resistance was little short of insanity. Filmstrips of German Panzers, thousands of Japanese shouting "Banzai!," and even Mussolini's comically delivered, but hateful rants overwhelmed the senses.

How could one stop such madness? And might it just go away with proper diplomacy? And why did "militarists" in the West insist on rearming and thereby "provoking" war? And was not there some truth to German grievances and Japanese hurts? And did anyone really wish to risk millions of innocent Americans and British to kill equally innocent, although perhaps mesmerized, Germans? Who was stirring up such animosity?

We are in a similar dilemma — in our hesitation about Iraq, our pressure on Israel, and our worries about mission creep in pursuing the killers. Can't the Jews and Arabs just get along? If Israel would just give back all of the West Bank, wouldn't there be peace? Didn't we just fight in the Gulf a mere decade ago? How do we know that Saddam Hussein really has such dreadful weapons? Shouldn't our allies get involved too? Do these undemocratic Muslim countries really dislike us all that much? Who can trust polls anyway? Why are these saber-rattlers trying to get us into a war?

And so we Americans, like those 70 years ago who so wanted a perpetual peace, pray for a return of sanity in the Middle East. We chose to ignore horrific stories of Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia — the embryo of 9/11. We are more amused than shocked that madrassas have taught a generation to hate us. When mullahs in Iran speak of destroying Israel we wince, but also shrug. We want to see no real connection between madmen blowing themselves up to kill us in New York and the like-minded doing the same in Tel-Aviv. We put our trust in peace with a killer like Mr. Arafat, who packs a gun and whips up volatile crowds in Arabic. All the while, no American statesman has the guts to tell the Arab leadership that statism, tribalism, fundamentalism, gender apartheid, and autocracy — not America, not Israel — make their people poor, angry, and dangerous.

Rather than preparing for what our enemies are preparing for us, we look to gestures of appeasement. Does not the Islamic world appreciate the presence of General Zinni? Do we not give billions to Arab countries? Did we not save Kuwait and Muslims throughout the globe? Who in the Arab world could really think that the murderous Taliban were preferable to the present more enlightened government in Afghanistan? And although Middle Eastern males blew up our planes, people, and monuments, have we not had a national discussion about the evils of profiling those from the Middle East in our airports and stations? Don't Muslims tell their kindred back home how much freer they are in America than in Iraq or Syria?

Like the dashed hopes of the 1930s such faith is not only misplaced, but also dangerous. The efforts of countries like Iraq to acquire nuclear weapons might under the present pressures grow dormant, but they will not cease. A nuclear Pakistan is a tottering military dictatorship away from Armageddon. Bribed autocracies in Jordan and Egypt are allies only in the sense that their unelected leaders promise to jail their nuts and fundamentalists who otherwise might turn on them as well as on us. Polls everywhere in the Middle East reveal not mere anguish, but real enmity toward Americans. Public pronouncements in Iran are not any less hateful than what emanated from Berlin in 1936. Thousands of al Qaeda killers have escaped — and thousands more are angry over the death of the comrades and kin and planning carnage for us as we sleep.

Only a few of us Americans really take the Islamic world at its word — that one in three is reported to think (representing, say, a small number of around 200 million?) that the murder of 3,000 Americans was justified; that two of three believed no Arabs were involved; and that even higher poll numbers reflected real antipathy for the West.

After 30 years of listening to nauseating chanting from Teheran to Islamabad to Nablus, hearing the childish rants about "The Mother of All Battles" and "The Great Satan," and witnessing presidents from Carter to Bush burned in effigy, the ritual torching of the American flag, the misspelled banners of hatred, the thousands of paint-by-the-numbers posters of psychopaths from Khomeini to bin Laden, televised threats that sound as hideous as they are empty, Nazi-inspired anti-Semitism, embassy takeovers, oil-boycotts, hijacked planes, cars, and ships, lectures from unelected obese sheiks with long names and gold chains, peacekeepers incinerated in their sleep, murders at the Olympics, bodies dumped on the tarmac of airports, shredded diplomats, madmen in sunglasses in Iraq, Syria, and Libya, demented mullahs and whip-bearing imams in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, continual televised murders of Americans abroad, our towers toppled, our citizens butchered, our planes blown up, hooded Klansmen in Hamas and Hezbollah, killers of al-this and Islamic-that, suicide bombers, shrill turbaned nuts spouting hatred on C-SPAN broadcasts, one day the salvation of Kuwait, the next sanctions against the swallower of Kuwait, the third day fury against the sanctions against the swallower of Kuwait, the fourth day some grievance from 1953, the fifth another from A.D. 752; and all the time sanctimonious fingerpointing from Middle Eastern academics and journalists who are as bold abroad in insulting us as they are timid and obsequious under dictators at home in keeping silent, I've about had it. No mas. The problem is you, not us — you, you, you….

I don't listen any more to the apologies and prevarications of our whiney university Arabists, our equivocators in the state department, and the really tawdry assortment of oil men, D.C. insiders, bought and paid for PR suits, and weapons hucksters. The truth is that a large minority of the Middle Eastern world wishes a war with America that it cannot win — and much of the rest is apparently either indifferent or amused.

So we should stop apologizing, prepare for the worst, hope for the best, and accept this animosity — just as our forefathers once did when faced by similar autocrats and their captive peoples who threatened us in 1941. I don't know about the rest of America, but I am proud that thugs like Khaddafi, murderers like Saddam Hussein, inquisitionists like the mullahs in Iran, criminals in Syria, medieval sheiks in the Gulf, and millions of others who do not vote, do not speak freely, oppress women, and are not tolerant of religious, gender, or ethnic diversity don't like me for being an American. I would find it repugnant if they did.

No, their hatred is a badge of honor, and I would have it no other way. I am tired of the appeasers of the Middle East on our Right who fawn for oil and trade, and those pacifists and multiculturalists on the Left who either do not know, or do not like, what America really is. I'd rather think of all the innocent dead on 9/ 11 than give a moment more of attention to Mr. Arafat and his bombers.

The truth is that there is a great storm on the horizon, one that will pass — or bring upon us a hard rain the likes of which we have not seen in 60 years. Either we shall say "no more," deal with Iraq, and prepare for a long and hard war against murderers and terrorists — or we will have more and more of what happened on 9/11. History teaches us that certain nations, certain peoples, and certain religions at peculiar periods in their history take a momentary, but deadly leave of their senses — Napoleon's France for most of a decade, the southern states in 1861, Japan in 1931, Germany in 1939, and Russia after World War II. And when they do, they cannot be bribed, apologized to, or sweet-talked — only defeated.

In that context, we see much of a whipped-up Arab world entering this similar period of dangerous unreality. The problem is them and their unelected and unfree regimes, not us — just as it was Hitler, not us; Tojo, not us; Mussolini, not us; and Stalin, not us — just as it always is when unelected maniacs take control and hijack an entire country and culture. We can either step up and stop Islamic fundamentalism, Arab terrorists, and Middle Eastern dictators or we can step back and watch it all continue to grow. If 9/11 was the beginning of a war, then we should remember that wars usually end when one, not both sides, win.

I believe that about covers it.

Let's Roll.

A likely story.

Oh, so I am a liar?
People do have a life away from the computer. Really, they do!
Tonight I have been with my family.
Maybe I can backtrack and give you a minute-by-minute schedule of my activities since 5:00 P.M. EST when I left work.

Can you honestly say that the Confederacy is the moral equivalent of totalitarian regimes such as:
"Napoleon's France for most of a decade, ...Japan in 1931, Germany in 1939, and Russia after World War II"?

As some say around here, "that dog won't hunt".
I believe that the Confederacy was merely fighting for their freedom, and for states' rights.
The states comprising the CSA were sovereign, and responding to invasion by the North.
They were sovereign states as spelled out in the Constitution, a document that has suffered injury, if not yet total death, from a thousand cuts since 1861.
If the author wants to equate anyone with despotic madmen such as Napoleon, Hitler and various members of the Japanese military, it should indeed be a leader from 1861... Abraham Lincoln.
He, along with various Supreme Courts and other Presidents who consider the Constitution a "living" document, have done so much damage to this constitutional republic.
I pray this damage is not irreparable.

That having been said, the rest of this article is actually very good.
Perhaps I wasn't clear about that before. I don't claim to be right all the time or even most.
However, that one sentence (see my #57) took the wind out of the author's argument for me.

I'm going to bed as soon as I get through paying bills, if that's acceptable to you.

Hope the rest of your evening goes well.

Feel free to educate all of us on the authors historical misconceptions. -- Please.

You opened the can I didn't, CD. LOL!!

Well here we go, I'm sure Walt will show up soon and tpaine I'm suprised at you personally. Never thought of you as a Hamiltonian(Federalist)

Nazi Germany--destruction of an entire group of people, namely the Jews, all in the name of racial purity. Quite a sick motive actually and had never been done on that scale. Hitler was a tyrant on a scale never seen. To compare Jefferson Davis to Hitler we'd need to see some proof of extermination plans, or relocation of the slaves for a purpose to 'cleanse' the nation. No the only one who was even idiotic enough to suggest relocation was lincoln, not Davis

Communist Soviet Union--5 year plans, doing it for the people, and again mass killings? No sorry no Southern values there

Perhaps we could try Japan. Let's see an Emperor who was not voted on, did things on his whim and not the peoples', attacked land to get raw materials that he couldn't get for free anywhere else? Well, sounds more like the northern Tyrant but again not like Jeff Davis.

No the South was a land that did have slavery(constitutionally), was being raped in taxes(unconstitutionally), educated the slaves(Stonewall Jackson, Jeff Davis) for emancipation that most knew was coming over the course of time, and acted much as the state of Massachussetts during the war of 1812 and the state of Texas several times before by exercising their right to secede peacefully. The attack on Sumter was because lincoln broke promises given, and here in the South a promise is a promise. Sure there were some states that used slavery as the issue in the declarations of secession, but hey it was a Constitutional right up until that time. Much nicer than the northern states that refused to even house blacks(Illinois 1853, Oregon constitution 1859) or educate them(Vermont 1836)

We can pull out the statements from lincoln and pull out the statements from Davis. Sure racism was rampant, but it was not the cause of the War. The South wanted her freedom and lincoln chose not to give it. Not one of those mentioned along with the South was fighting for freedom. They were fighting for world domination and for destruction of land and people. Much like lincoln and sherman

The 'one sentence' from # 57:

History teaches us that certain nations, certain peoples, and certain religions at peculiar periods in their history take a momentary, but deadly leave of their senses —
Napoleon's France for most of a decade, the southern states in 1861, Japan in 1931, Germany in 1939, and Russia after World War II.
And when they do, they cannot be bribed, apologized to, or sweet-talked — only defeated. .

Can you honestly say that the Confederacy is the moral equivalent of totalitarian regimes such as: "Napoleon's France for most of a decade, ...Japan in 1931, Germany in 1939, and Russia after World War II"?

-- Can you honestly say that the author is saying that the CSA was a moral equivalent to totalitarian regimes? ---- He is not. - He only claims they ALL momentarily left their senses, -- a fair comment.

As some say around here, "that dog won't hunt". I believe that the Confederacy was merely fighting for their freedom, and for states' rights. The states comprising the CSA were sovereign, and responding to invasion by the North. They were sovereign states as spelled out in the Constitution, a document that has suffered injury, if not yet total death, from a thousand cuts since 1861. If the author wants to equate anyone with despotic madmen such as Napoleon, Hitler and various members of the Japanese military, it should indeed be a leader from 1861... Abraham Lincoln. He, along with various Supreme Courts and other Presidents who consider the Constitution a "living" document, have done so much damage to this constitutional republic. I pray this damage is not irreparable.

--- Nice rant, but seeing it's built entirely upon a false premise, it doesn't matter to the issue at hand.
You need to learn to read for content & fact, instead of jumping to conclusions.

That having been said, the rest of this article is actually very good. Perhaps I wasn't clear about that before. I don't claim to be right all the time or even most. However, that one sentence (see my #57) took the wind out of the author's argument for me.

And lottsa wind your misconception was. Nothing more. -- Thanks.

No I didn't misinterpret. Yes I see the author's point and yes today seems like the 1930s waiting for the other shoe to fall and push the United States into a long drawn out war.

That being said, it is the author's misinterpretation of historical fact to compare what happened in 1861 to Germany, Russia, and Japan. The fact is that the South in that exact period had thought it out for many years going back to the very start of this nation. Their grievances were just as important as the grievances of the American colonies to the crown in 1776. Are you saying that War of Independence was not thought out? Of course not but it was a war of freedom just as the South's attempt at freedom was in 1861. All I'm saying is that it was a bad representation if he was trying to make the argument to compare that time with the 1930s as well as garner support for his argument

Consider the major hotspots around the world since WWII; e.g. Korea, Viet Nam, Israel/Palestine, Afganistan, India/Pakistan, the former Yugoslavia, the entire African continent...the roots of these conflicts can be traced to the vacuum created by the withdrawl of the British empire and/or idiotic foriegn policy "experts" drawing artifical lines on the globe after WWII.

Also consider that the entire Middle East was just such a project. Not only that, but had oil been discovered there and found so useful before such profound "enlightenment," the savages inhabiting the region would have been pushed out or pacified. Instead, we have given them command of the world's economy and the proceeds there of so that their savagery can be very well financed.

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