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On May 15th, 2008 George W. Bush, President of the United States of America visited the Knesset, an Israeli Legislative Building and delivered a speech to the Israelis celebrating Israel's 60th Anniversary and to discuss the all important matter of security and terrorism with the nation. In his speech, the President laid out in pretty stark terms that he believes this war on terror is comparable to the precedent WWII set for the world and also somehow similar is scope. He seems to imply that the threat Nazi Germany posed to humanity as a whole is equivocal to a cell based structure of combat where stealth and subtlety are key to battle ground success and the movement is only progressed through psychological warfare and perpetrated on a cause and effect rationality. Meaning, the enemy is expecting its more powerful "aggressors" to overreact to a threat or attack, and turn the moderates into radicals via collateral damage or economic embargoes, increasing their support as the people suffer.
When Chamberlin "negotiated" the Munich Agreement with Hitler in 1938 he handed Germany Czechoslovakia Sudetenland, a mostly German populated portion of the country. Rather than appeasement as many have judged this act through history, I feel it was more a strategic move to keep Hitler from attacking Europe, and instead, opening a door to move east through Russia. As time would tell, there was no negotiating with Germany, Hitler, or any of the Axis powers. They had developed arsenals the world hadn't seen, and taken Empire building to the Roman extreme in a world with a population that was exponentially larger and weapons that were far more devastating. What happened in Germany and Europe before 1940 is all too obvious to the trained eye, in retrospect. The mass build up of military resources and the mobilization of millions of people would not be possible today without being scrutinized and questioned.
The world of terrorism is a much more complicated and delicate issue to dissect. Our enemy is a disillusioned civilian population with weapons and technology that is archaic by today's standards. There is no front line in the war on terror where soldiers can meet toe to toe and duke it out. Instead they fight in the streets, killing woman and children in malls and neighborhoods. There is no head of state, no one person we can seek out to capture, no leader. Terrorism is an idea. A war of ideas is not something we can expect to win with guns and money. A war of ideas isn't Germany in 1938 invading the Soviet Union, and conquering Poland in a week. It's not airplanes flying over head and bombing cities, or tanks crossing bridges to garrison the last way out of town. The terrorists we describe today are the people of the town, every last one of them, up in arms to defend what is theirs and we are the Germans, invading their country.
Appeasement. Appease what? A bunch of third world, under educated radicals bent on killing civilians because our
American government has similar ideas? Are we sick? We mourn the deaths of 3,000 people on 9/11 the same way most of the world did, and then we decided to pick another fight and kill 4,000 more. When Bush talks of appeasement to terrorists or "rogue states", he seems to be trying to contrast them against one of the most brutal war machines this world has ever seen, lending even more credence to the claim of terrorism as legitimate warfare, appeasing it. He sure is generous.
