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Politics : DON'T START THE WAR -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (22768)	3/18/2003 3:05:30 PM
From: Stephen O	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 25898

Thankfully the war is starting. Read this. Subject: DISARMING A COUNTRY by Thomas Sowell > History does not literally repeat itself, but sometimes it comes awfully > close. Iraq is not the first dangerous dictatorship that international > agreements tried to keep disarmed. Nor is it the first where that effort > failed. > > Back in the 1930s, Germany's military forces were limited by a ban on > conscription, by limitations on the number and kinds of weapons it could > have, and by a requirement that it station no troops in its own > industrialized Rhineland. These requirements were in the treaty of > Versailles, which ended the First World War. Demilitarizing the Rhineland > was perhaps the crucial provision of these international restrictions. > > Germany's population and industrial might, together with its strong > military traditions and its aggressive policies which had brought on the > First World War, made it the most dangerous nation on the continent of > Europe. But it could not attack any other nation when its own industrial > heartland was undefended and therefore could be quickly seized by French > troops, who were just across the Rhine. > > Like Saddam Hussein today, Hitler at first pretended to go along with these > restrictions, all the while clandestinely building up his military forces. > However, this was clandestine only in the sense that the general public did > not know about it. British intelligence was well aware of what he was doing > and kept the Prime Minister informed. The real question was whether Prime > Minister Stanley Baldwin wanted to be the one to break the bad news to the > British public or whether he would keep quiet, get re-elected, and pass the > problem on to his successors -- as Bill Clinton would do in a later era. > Baldwin did a Clinton. > > In later years, Stanley Baldwin tried to justify his inaction: > > "Supposing I had gone to the country and said that Germany was rearming, > and that we must rearm, does anybody think that this pacific democracy > would have rallied to that cry at that moment? I cannot think of anything > that would have made the loss of the election from my point of view more > certain." But this was not just Baldwin's failure or that of his > Conservative Party. The Liberal Party in 1935 demanded "clear proof" of a > need to act against Saddam Hussein. Meanwhile the Labour Party was > advocating disarmament and innumerable groups were promoting international > agreements and diplomatic exchanges as a substitute for military power. > Diplomatic agreements and arms limitations treaties proliferated throughout > the whole period between the two World Wars. > > None of this had any practical effect, except to lull the Western > democracies into inaction while Germany and Japan rapidly built up their > military forces. Hitler began openly violating the restrictions put on > Germany, one at a time, allowing him to guage what reaction there would be > among the Western powers and in the League of Nations. Each violation that > he got away with led him to try another -- and then another. > > The key violation -- without which he would not be able to wage war -- was > moving German troops into the Rhineland in 1936, in open defiance of the > treaty of Verailles. Both he and his generals knew that the French army was > so overwhelmingly more powerful at this point that German troops would not > have been able to put up even token resistance if France sent its troops in > to oust them. > > France did nothing. It was the first of many nothings that Fance did in a > series of crises that led up to World War II. When Hitler had built up his > clandestine forces sufficiently, he simply stopped keeping them secret and > confronted the West with enough power that he knew they would not dare to > challenge him. The opportunity to stop him was past. Those who wanted > "clear proof" now had it. In just a few years, they would have even clearer > proof when the Nazis invaded France and subjugated it in just six weeks -- > and then began bombing London, night after night. > > While history does not literally repeat itself, sometimes it comes very close. > > This article appeared at townhall.com on January 30,2003 >