Churchill, Hitler and Newt Posted: February 20, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern Pat Buchanan © 2006 Creators Syndicate Inc. You can always tell when the War Party wants a new war. They will invariably trot out the Argumentum ad Hitlerum. Before the 1991 Gulf War, Saddam had become "the Hitler of Arabia," though he had only conquered a sandbox half the size of Denmark. Milosevic then became the "Hitler of the Balkans," though he had lost Slovenia, Croatia and Macedonia, was struggling to hold Bosnia and Kosovo, and had defeated no one. Comes now the new Hitler. "This is 1935, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is as close to Adolf Hitler as we've seen," said Newt Gingrich to a startled editor at Human Events. "We now know who they are â the question is who are we. Are we Baldwin or Churchill?" "In 1935 ... Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini intimidated the democracies," Newt plunged ahead. "The question is who is going to intimidate who." Yes, a little learning can be a dangerous thing. A few facts. First, when Hitler violated the Versailles Treaty by announcing rearmament in March 1935, Baldwin was not in power. Second, Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald quickly met with Il Duce to form the Stresa Front â against Hitler. Third, when Mussolini invaded Abyssinia in October 1935, Baldwin imposed sanctions. But Churchill did not wholly approve. Abyssinia, said Churchill, is a "wild land of tyranny, slavery and tribal war ... No one can keep up the pretense that Abyssinia is a fit, worthy and equal member of a league of civilized nations." As late as 1938, Churchill was still proclaiming the greatness of Il Duce: "It would be a dangerous folly for the British people to underrate the enduring position in world history which Mussolini will hold; or the amazing qualities of courage, comprehension, self-control and perseverance which he exemplifies." But back to the new Hitler. The Iranians, said Newt, "have been proactively at war with us since 1979." We must now prepare to invade and occupy Iran, and identify a "network of Iranians prepared to run their ... country" after we take the place over. "I wake up every morning thinking we could lose two major cities today and have the equivalent of the second Holocaust by nuclear weapons â this morning." What about diplomacy? "We should say to the Europeans that there is no diplomatic solution that is imaginable that is going to solve this problem." Newt's reasoning: War is inevitable â the longer we wait, the graver the risk. Let's get it over with. Bismarck called this committing suicide out of fear of death. My own sense of this astonishing interview is that Newt is trying to get to the right of John McCain on Iran and cast himself â drum roll, please â as the Churchill of our generation. But are the comparisons of Ahmadinejad with Hitler and Iran with the Third Reich, let alone Newt with Churchill, instructive? Or are they ludicrous? Again, a few facts. In 1942, Hitler's armies dominated Europe from the Pyrenees to the Urals. Ahmadinejad is the president of a nation whose air and naval forces would be toasted in hours by the United States. Iran has missiles that can hit Israel, but no nuclear warheads. Israel could put scores of atom bombs on Iran. The United States, without losing a plane, could make the country uninhabitable with one B-2 flyover and a few MX and Trident missiles. Why would Ayatollah Khameinei, who has far more power than Ahmadinejad, permit him to ignite a war that could mean the end of their revolution and country? And if we were not intimidated by a USSR with thousands of nuclear warheads targeted on us, why should Ahmadinejad cause Newt to break out in cold sweats at night? Currently, the "nuclear program" of Iran consists of trying to run uranium hexafluoride gas through a few centrifuges. There is no hard evidence Iran is within three years of producing enough highly enriched uranium for one bomb. And if Iran has been at war with us since 1979, why has it done so much less damage than Gadhafi, who blew up that discotheque in Berlin with our soldiers inside and massacred those American kids on Pan Am 103? Diplomacy worked with Gadhafi. Why not try it with Iran? Yet, Newt and the War Party appear to be pushing against an open door. A Fox News poll finds Iran has replaced North Korea as the nation Americans believe is our greatest immediate danger. And a Washington Post polls finds 56 percent of Americans backing military action to ensure Iran does not acquire a nuclear weapon. Instead of whining about how they were misled into Iraq, why don't Democrats try to stop this new war before it starts? They can begin by introducing a resolution in Congress denying Bush authority to launch any preventive war on Iran, unless Congress first declares war on Iran. Isn't that what the Constitution says? Before we go to war, let's have a debate of whether we need to go to war.
I can see a very strong argument for preemptively terminating Iran's nuclear program, and most of their military assets and government leaders if they object. What I don't understand is why we are prepared to go to war against them, but not North Korea, which will sell anything to anyone. Or why we fear Iran's nukes, but not Pakistan's. Pakistan is one assasination from being controlled by islamists at least as bad as those running Iran, plus it has nukes and is an admitted proliferator. Rather than trying to take out Iran's entire nuclear program, why don't we just target their leaders? As much as these islamist crazies encourage kids to blow themselves up, you never see one of their clerics or leaders leading by example. ZZZ, you liberals, sorry I meant to say progressives, would approve of that wouldn't you?
Do I approve of the assassination of leaders of foreign countries? You need to go to Pat Robertson to give you the Christian blessing you are looking for.....
you realize that without Churchill, your ass would be in a concentration camp or you would be a brown shirt? Are you the stupidest person alive?
My, that was helpful. People were discussing war with Iran, and you really put things in their proper perspective.....
Being a Korean War Vet and a student of History and Politics,I believe the path we must take is clear. The problem can be summed up in one word, RESPECT. The reaction of the towel wrappers to a cartoon shows what we are dealing with. I had the same problem at the Chosin Resevoir with a line of Mo Howard haircuts that had a beginning but no end. A multi pronged Strat needs to be executed to get our respect back. First, the next big anti-cartoon mob that forms, we hit em with a conventional cruise missle. Next we carpet bomb the mosques in Iran just to show who's boss. Then we send a few armoured divisions into the oil fields of Iran and take em. The CIA should be turned loose to take out leaders we dont like. Then we borrow a couple dozen Gurkas from the Brits to kill Bin Laden and his troops. And lastly we find the young lady reporter in Iraq that the scumbags are holding. Anyone who had anything to do with it are rounded up into the town square and executed on live TV. That's just a start. ...Rennick out
Fine idea. Sounds sort of like what Saddam did, right? After all, he had the respect of his people, right? He sure had those Muslims under control, eh? So did Mao have his people under control. So did Stalin. So did Castro, Mussolini, Hitler.... Oh wait....that can't be right, now can it? Good to see you are thinking buddy, now you are thinking. And if that doesn't work, we can just nuke em, eh?
And now you're thinking there Flapjack, BTW Saddam did have his people under control, It sounds to me like you support W on Iraq.
Support W on Iraq? <embed src="http://www.thepocket.com/wavs/moneypit3.wav" safehtml autostart="false" loop="3">