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Skriven 2006-11-28 18:30:36 av Mimi Gallandt (1:123/789.0)
Ärende: Revisiting (and Reliving) 1938
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Revisiting (and Reliving) 1938
By Rick Richman

“It is 1938; Iran is Germany; and it is racing to acquire nuclear weapons.ö
Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly punctuated his speech in Los Angeles earlier this
month with that sentence.  It was an effective rhetorical device, conveying
both a sense of threat and a sense of urgency.


But 1938 may be relevant in more ways than as a rhetorical device. Revisiting
that year, through Winston Churchill’s compelling account in “The Gathering
Storm,ö is an instructive exercise, and one the Iraq Study Group might consider
as it completes its deliberations.


* * *

February 20, 1938:  Churchill spent the entire night without sleep, “consumed
by emotions of sorrow and fearö -- the only time he went sleepless even after
he became Prime Minister.  He had received a call late that evening informing
him that Anthony Eden had resigned as Foreign Secretary.

Eden, who shared Churchill’s views about Germany and Italy, had found himself
almost isolated in the Cabinet, opposed by the Chiefs of Staff who “enjoined
caution and dwelt upon the dangers of the situation.ö Churchill was despondent
over the resignation:
I must confess that my heart sank, and for a while the ark waters of despair
overwhelmed me. . . .  I watched the daylight slowly creep in through the
windows, and saw before me in mental gaze the vision of Death.
A precipitating factor in Eden’s resignation had been Neville Chamberlain’s
decision to enter into direct negotiations with Italy. Chamberlain’s position
was that:

His Majesty’s Government would be prepared . . . to recognize de jure the
Italian occupation of Abyssinia, if they found that the Italian Government on
their side were ready to give evidence of their desire to contribute to the
restoration of confidence and friendly relations.
For Churchill, it was evidence that “in the dawn of 1938 decisive changes in
European groupings and values had taken place.ö  The Western democracies had
“seemed to give repeated proofs that they would bow to violence so long as they
were not themselves directly assailed.ö
That same day, Germany had begun to raise the issue of Czechoslovakia, and “the
usual techniques were employedö -- the de-legitimization of the target through
the rhetoric of grievances, combined with the knowledge that the West lacked
both the will (“owing to their love of peaceö) and the means (due to their
failure to rearm) to protect its broader interests:


The grievances, which were not unreal, of the Sudeten Germans were magnified
and exploited.  The public case was opened against Czechoslovakia by Hitler in
his speech to the Reichstag on February 20, 1938. . . .  It was the duty of
Germany [said Hitler] to protect those fellow-Germans and secure to them
“general freedom, personal, political and ideological.ö

More at:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2006/11/revisiting_and_reliving_1938_1.html


-- 
L'Chaim

Mimi

In the beginning
the Word already was.

mimigalATcoxDOTnet

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