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<title>Inkling Blog</title><link>http://www.InklingBooks.net/index.html</link><description>Ideas that Kindle Thought</description><dc:language>en</dc:language><dc:creator>Editor@InklingBooks.com</dc:creator><dc:rights>Copyright 2009 Mike Perry</dc:rights><dc:date>2009-04-22T20:01:42-07:00</dc:date><admin:generatorAgent rdf:resource="http://www.realmacsoftware.com/" />
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<lastBuildDate>Wed, 22 Apr 2009 21:06:11 -0700</lastBuildDate><item><title>04 The Appeasers: Envy for Dictators</title><dc:creator>Editor@InklingBooks.com</dc:creator><category>History</category><category>Book Reviews</category><dc:date>2009-04-22T20:01:42-07:00</dc:date><link>http://www.InklingBooks.net/files/61cbef8db23006d5e84367d29d76086a-3.html#unique-entry-id-3</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.InklingBooks.net/files/61cbef8db23006d5e84367d29d76086a-3.html#unique-entry-id-3</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[That only made sense if Germany wanted a war, wanted to win that war, and wanted to use that win to enlarge its territory in both the east and the west. 

...Those who regarded that friendship as desirable, and were prepared to sacrifice common sense for the sake of their desire, were appeasers. 

...It&rsquo;s not the sympathy of Britain&rsquo;s leaders for the average German citizen, who was living in a repressive police state.   It was a sympathy, or perhaps what might be better called an envy, for dictators such as Mussolini and Hitler. 

...Much the same can be said of present-day liberals, who display a strange sympathy (meaning envy) for Arab dictatorships or the Iran theocracy.   They care nothing about the suffering of Iraqis under Saddam, the Palestinians under their corrupt government, the people of Iran, or the average member of Arab dictatorships.   Instead, they display a strange eagerness to meet with the region&rsquo;s thugs and even, in the case of Obama, to bow down to them.    It&rsquo;s the ruthless power (and oil wealth) that the region&rsquo;s leaders have that feeds their envy and creates what appears to us as a bizarre sympathy by secular liberals for theocratic reactionaries. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>03 The Appeasers: Delaying War</title><dc:creator>Editor@InklingBooks.com</dc:creator><category>History</category><category>Book Reviews</category><dc:date>2009-04-22T17:08:30-07:00</dc:date><link>http://www.InklingBooks.net/files/824d068e6617812fdaffd79692e53383-2.html#unique-entry-id-2</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.InklingBooks.net/files/824d068e6617812fdaffd79692e53383-2.html#unique-entry-id-2</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[If a year had been gained in which Chamberlain could have strengthened Britain&rsquo;s defences and equipped the country for an offensive war, there should be evidence of growing strength, growing effort, and growing Cabinet unity....  ...  Chamberlain and his advisers did not go to Munich because they needed an extra year before they could fight. 

...They go on to argue that Chamberlain and others put their hope, not in a strong and united Britain able to defend itself and its allies against Germany aggression, but in establishing an Anglo-German alliance before public outrage at the Nazi occupation of country after country made any such agreement impossible. ...  Most important of all, it&rsquo;s based on an actual reading British foreign policy documents that have managed to slip into public view despite the nation&rsquo;s traditional 50-year embargo on the release of such documents. 

...To the extent that Chamberlain and others appeared to be standing up to Hitler in the year before the war, it was mere posturing for the public. 

...It is possible that Britain might have gone into an armaments death spiral in which German bombing would have weakened their defenses faster than their factories could rebuild them. 


...Germany had also devoted too much of its limited resources to prestigious naval projects such as the Bismarck and the Graf Spree, both of which proved to be of limited value in the war.   If that same effort had been devoted to having a powerful, long-range U-Boat fleet available at the start of the war, Britain might not have been able to hold out until other factors (Pearl Harbor) brought the US into the fighting. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>02 The Appeasers: Acknowledging the Courage</title><dc:creator>Editor@InklingBooks.com</dc:creator><category>History</category><category>Book Reviews</category><dc:date>2009-04-18T20:32:36-07:00</dc:date><link>http://www.InklingBooks.net/files/c1e6c10cf7d8222d6a18d5ec66e503b6-1.html#unique-entry-id-1</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.InklingBooks.net/files/c1e6c10cf7d8222d6a18d5ec66e503b6-1.html#unique-entry-id-1</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[In their &ldquo;Acknowledgments&rdquo; at the front of The Appeasers, Martin Gilbert and Richard Gott offer their thanks to those in the 1930s who refused to join the ranks of the appeasers. 


We have been inspired by the example of Englishmen who refused to be bullied by Nazi bombast; who saw German threats for what they were, the brash noises of a successful bully; who determined to stand up to that bully, a by firm words to caution him; and who urged England not to compromise with evil, but to face the dictators with courage and conviction. ...  But they were quite willing to face war if the alternative was a dishonorable peace, bought at the expense of others.


Much the same can be said today of those who faced up to another bully called Islamic terrorism and who would not compromise with evil, even when others with far less courage than they called them warmongers and displayed a disgusting willingness to excuse evil and buy a dishonorable peace at the expense of the suffering of the Iraqi people under a cruel dictator and (more recently) of the a brave Israeli democracy.   The spirit of Prime Ministers like Baldwin and Chamberlain still haunts our world.


...Israel has built fences on the borders of Gaza and the West Bank to keep terrorists out.   They did not build them to keep their own Arab population in.   That population is free to leave at any time but it overwhelming prefers to live in a Jewish democracy rather than in the corruption and repression of a Palestinian state.]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>01 The Appeasers: The Folly Begins</title><dc:creator>Editor@InklingBooks.com</dc:creator><category>History</category><category>Book Reviews</category><dc:date>2009-04-18T17:05:27-07:00</dc:date><link>http://www.InklingBooks.net/files/e5fb8fbed3af49041aa42ff5483164fe-0.html#unique-entry-id-0</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.InklingBooks.net/files/e5fb8fbed3af49041aa42ff5483164fe-0.html#unique-entry-id-0</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[First published in 1963 and still in print, it describes Britain&rsquo;s policy of appeasement from when Hitler rose to power in January of 1933 to Neville Chamberlain&rsquo;s resignation as Prime Minister in May of 1940.


The book surprised me because, probably like most people, I thought British attempts to appease Hitler appeared after 1935, when Germany&rsquo;s growing military power and obvious aggressive intentions made Britain&rsquo;s leaders, the BBC, and most of the press so fearful of another war that they were willing to give Hitler virtually anything he wanted to keep the peace or, near the very end, to stall for time while Britain built up its woefully inadequate armed forces.


...Those who&rsquo;d written the Treaty of Versailles at the end of World War I had known what they were doing.   Quite sensibly assuming that the greatest threat to the peace of Europe was Germany, they&rsquo;d made sure it lacked the military power to defend itself, much less invade other countries.  


...In 1932 Chesterton warned that, if something was not done, the next European war would break out over a border dispute between Germany and Poland, precisely what happened nine years later.


...Hitler&rsquo;s repression of his political foes in Germany, his persecution of the Jews, and his threats to conquer &ldquo;living space&rdquo; for Germany in Eastern Europe were, strange as those words sound to us today, merely the rhetoric of a frustrated man and a frustrated nation. 

...Treat the Nasties of the world with respect, they tell us, take the time to listen to their grievances,, to search for the root causes for things such as terrorism, and all will become better.   It doesn&rsquo;t matter what group we discussing, from Al Qaeda to North Korea or Cuba to the perennial problems of the Middle East, the problem in their eyes is Bush&rsquo;s stern rejection of violence as a acceptable means of behavior.  ]]></content:encoded></item></channel>
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