Jewish World Review March 17, 2004 / 24 Adar, 5764

Tony Blankley

Blankley
JWR's Pundits
World Editorial
Cartoon Showcase

Mallard Fillmore

Michael Barone
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Don Feder
Suzanne Fields
James Glassman
Paul Greenberg
Bob Greene
Betsy Hart
Nat Hentoff
David Horowitz
Marianne Jennings
Michael Kelly
Mort Kondracke
Ch. Krauthammer
Lawrence Kudlow
Dr. Laura
John Leo
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Chris Matthews
Michael Medved
MUGGER
Kathleen Parker
Wes Pruden
Sam Schulman
Amity Shlaes
Roger Simon
Tony Snow
Thomas Sowell
Cal Thomas
Jonathan S. Tobin
Ben Wattenberg
George Will
Bruce Williams
Walter Williams
Mort Zuckerman

Consumer Reports


The Spanish disease


http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | The reign in Spain died mainly on the train. I apologize for a silly, but irresistible, opening to a deadly and portentous topic: the electoral fall of our ally Jose Maria Aznar's Popular Party in the aftermath of a presumed Al Qaeda terrorist assault on a Madrid train.

The Spanish electorate decided to defeat its government for seeming to bring Islamist terrorist slaughter to Spain. It is true that a large majority of Spaniards never supported their government's decision to send troops to Iraq. Nonetheless, the day before the terrorist attack, every Spanish poll and political expert predicted a solid win for Aznar's party.

But after the attack, about three million Spanish voters changed their impending electoral decision. Thus, their vote was not out of anger at Aznar's policy but out of fear of the terrorists' wrath. And so we are returned to Winston Churchill's lamentation about avoiding crocodiles.

On Jan. 20, 1940, four months after Hitler invaded Poland, Churchill gave a world address to urge the neutral nations of Europe to abandon appeasement and rally round the Union Jack and the French Tricolor (France was still in the fight then) as the surest path to safety against the Nazi onslaught: "At present their (the neutrals) plight is lamentable; and it will become much worse. They bow humbly and in fear of German threats … Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last. All of them hope that the storm will pass before their turn comes to be devoured. But I fear — I fear greatly — the storm will not pass. It will rage and it will roar, ever more loudly, ever more widely." The European neutrals, however, continued to appease — until, in the spring, they were devoured.

Appeasers are likely to underestimate the price of appeasement. They always assume that peace and tranquility are available at some price. But the crocodile doesn't want a finger or a toe — he wants the whole carcass.

The Spanish voters' fear is understandable. But not only have they not saved themselves from further harvest by the Saracen scimitar, they also have increased the likelihood and advanced the arrival of similar slaughters for their cousins in the streets of Europe and America. It is hard not to assume that within the Al Qaeda war councils, advocates of pre-election terror attacks have gained a fearsome advantage.

Donate to JWR


But notwithstanding the evidence of the terrorists' unlimited objectives, the verisimilitude of logic that appeasement offers the fearful remains comforting — if falsely so. Appeasement has an awful, seeming logic to it because we all practice appeasement every day — with our spouses, our children, our bosses, etc. Interlocutors with limited goals are often usefully appeased if the cost of conflict is more than the cost of appeasement ("Yes, dear, I'll be glad to clean up the garage").

And when the cost of non-appeasement (i.e., the decision to fight) is very high, we are strongly motivated to assume our opponent has limited demands — in order for the cost-benefit calculus to continue to lead us to the comforting appeasement option. I have little doubt but that, since the Spanish election returns, politicians across the globe have become tempted to harvest such votes of fear, because the politicians themselves are suffering under the same false calculus of cost/benefit.

Now we must wait and see which other Western electorates might succumb to the Spanish disease. It would be easy, and comforting, to assume that Americans will be resistant. After all, we are renowned for our unflinching instinct to rally round the flag when American blood has been spilled. But the Spaniard, too, is renowned for his courage — at least as an individual.

It is only by the vigor and pride of a nation's collective body politic that it may be immune to the disease of appeasement. In the coming months and years, America, Britain, Poland Australia and other countries will all be tested.

Already, millions of Americans have put the war on terrorism out of mind — content to express support for politicians whose terrorism policy is largely to turn it over to the United Nations and the Interpol. President Bush is mocked by comedians and Washington journalists alike for the assertion that he is a wartime president. Anyone who thinks that is funny doesn't think there is a war. For a threat so minimized, we need not pay the high price of eternal vigilance. There is probably about a four in 10 chance that the American electorate will come down with the Spanish disease this November.

Eventually, of course, as the genocidal nature of the Islamist fury becomes manifest even to the most obtuse, all will rally to the resistance — as eventually they did in occupied Europe against Hitler. The question that remains is how many more must die before the maximum war-fighting effort is mounted by the united civilized nations.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in Washington and in the media consider "must reading." Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.




Tony Blankley is editorial page editor of The Washington Times. Comment by clicking here.

03/10/04: Euro back-stabbers for Kerry
02/25/04: What makes John Kerry tick?
02/18/04: Kerry's pre-emptive war policy
02/11/04: George W. Bush — grand strategist?
02/04/04: Elections in the age of terror
01/28/04: There's a war on?
01/21/04: It's good that we live in ignorance of the future
01/14/04: The strange case of immigration politics
01/07/04: Funding for American presidential elections is beginning to go global
12/31/03: Make us laugh
12/24/03: War prophesies
12/17/03: Analyze this!
12/10/03: Until peace is ready to be negotiated …
12/03/03: AFL-CIO meets Monty Python
11/26/03: Republicans need to learn from the Romans
11/19/03: All of a sudden we have a responsible media?
11/12/03: To arms
11/05/03: Mayor Mike's appetite for self-destructive accusations
10/29/03: A bloody march to peace
10/22/03: Calls for a general 's head because his comments may have ruffled the feathers of our esteemed enemies!?
10/08/03: The leakers' agony
10/01/03: Managing a scandal
09/24/03: Will we have to balance our strong ethical and religious revulsion of cloning against the danger of being surpassed by a gene-manipulated super-race?
09/17/03: The skinny on the First Ladies
09/10/03: More than cynicism will be needed to defeat prez
09/03/03: Dead Man Politickin'
08/27/03: Patience is not America's long suit
08/13/03: George Will's trifecta of punitive aspirations
07/30/03: A question for the candidates: Whose side are you on?
07/23/03: When GOPers attack their leader
07/17/03: Spanish fest mirrors U.S. elections
07/09/03: On the horns of a dilemma
06/25/03: The continuing deaths of American and British soldiers in Iraq should not be rhetorically minimized -- but sanctified
06/18/03: No reason to feel defensive about criticism of the war on terrorism
06/11/03: The Clintons — self-proclaimed geniuses — have no defense against the charge of cunning mendacity
06/04/03: George 'Machiavelli' Bush? Nah
05/28/03: When 'progressives' become reactionaries
05/21/03: Yes, this conservative is defending the NYTimes
05/14/03: Playing the politics of deflation
05/07/03: Only the stupid could think it'll be the economy: Comparing the Bushes 04/30/03: How to squelch increasing Iraqi distrust of America
04/25/03: Winning the war, losing the peace
04/16/03: Our own domestic Senate Republican Guard better be prepared for a grinding
04/03/03: At this human moment we need to act like humans, not just calculating analysts
04/02/03: If we could only draft Jennings' eyebrow to the cause, we wouldn't need the 4th Armored Division?
03/26/03: This war is showing the world who we really are
03/19/03: Time for America to laugh at itself
03/13/03: They're coming out of the woodwork: Russert, Buchanan and Moran
03/05/03: Franc-tireur
02/26/03: World history is shifting under our feet --- even our most experienced statesmen are, effectively, inexperienced
02/19/03: The shame! We've mischaracterized the French 02/12/03: Schroeder and Chirac will be disproportionately undercutting their interests
02/05/03: We need to rise above our temporary anger and seek to preserve our bonds with our European cousins
01/29/03: Who is President Bush's stupidest opponent: Saddam Hussein or Tom Daschle?
01/22/03: We call them our European cousins --- but I demand a DNA test
01/16/03: Dems bare partisan teeth
01/02/03: Before the cheering must come the struggle
12/27/02: Long ago and far away
12/18/02: Be glad that Gore's gone?
12/11/02: What fun! A titanic, once-in-a-century partisan battle royal is in the offing
12/04/02: Kerry atwitter
11/27/02: The unThankful list
11/20/02: First the scare, then the yawn
11/13/02: It's going to be a long two years for Lefty Pelosi and the Frisco Dems
11/06/02: Technology: A pollster's worst enemy --- thank goodness!
10/31/02: Watch this election's Wheel of Fate
10/23/02: The Ari and Colin Show: Politics has never been, well, more vaudeville-like
10/09/02: Bush beats drums of realism
10/02/02: Needed: A political chromatograph to detect any true statements in the public domain
09/25/02: Buchanan's new mag
09/18/02: There are many forms of peace
09/11/02: The imperial period of our history starts
09/04/02: Memo to Powell: In periods of upheaval, the refusal to act gives aid to those bent on destruction
08/30/02: Logging old growth is a sham issue

© 2002, Creators Syndicate