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appeasement? not really…

Old Blog Import

This invocation of the Nazi analogy skirts perilously close to Godwin’s Law, but it’s worth examining. An”appeasement” policy depends on the notion of propitiation: There’s a threat, but you believe, somehow, that you can give your enemy what he wants and avert the threat — you can stop Hitler from going after you by giving him Czechoslovakia.

But there is no Czechoslovakia today. If there were any true advocates of appeasement right now, you could identify them by their willingness to give in to some demand of our enemies. (The "war brigade" does not like to be pressed too hard to define exactly who our enemies are, which makes this a little problematic, but for the sake of argument let’s name al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden, whom we can widely agree on.) Well, what are those demands? There are none. Which makes the whole "appeasement" argument a big red herring.”

This Modern World by Tom Tomorrow

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