[antimedia] antimedia: An article by Stephen Schwartz in Weekly Standard....

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Posted by antimedia:
An article by Stephen Schwartz in Weekly Standard....
http://www.antimedia.us/posts/1158117848.shtml


   ....makes for [1]interesting reading. Schwartz draws comparisons
   between the Spanish Civil War, which was a harbinger of WWII and the
   Iraq war. There are many parallels, enough to give a serious reader
   pause. Not least is the concept of proxy wars, where greater powers
   meddled in the affairs of many lesser powers in a struggle for global
   supremacy.

     But the main points of resemblance between Spain and Iraq--and even
     Lebanon under the menace of Hezbollah--remain the role of the
     international powers, the great contention between oppression and
     liberation, and the threat of a later, wider war. When France,
     which had a leftist government in the late '30s, and Britain, which
     should have served as a sentinel against Nazi interference beyond
     Germany's borders, together accepted an embargo on arms to the
     Spanish Republic, Hitler was encouraged beyond measure in his plans
     for the subjugation of all Europe. These days, the pusillanimity of
     European leaders allows Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah chief, to
     threaten the complete destruction of the nascent Lebanese democracy
     while also attacking the citizens of northern Israel.
     In Iraq, unlike in Spain, the United States, almost alone but for
     Britain, has undertaken the heavy task of leading the world's
     democratic faithful against the acolytes of terror, who are now
     driven by Islamofascism rather than its antecedents, the
     antidemocratic ideologies of the 1930s. That is the ultimate lesson
     of Spain in 1936 and Iraq in 2006: By winning the battle of Iraq,
     and by fostering real change in Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Iran, the
     democratic nations may save the world from a later, longer,
     bloodier, and more terrible war.
     In the Spanish Civil War, Albert Camus wrote, he and those like him
     "learned that one can be right and be beaten." Let us hope that, so
     many decades later, Sen. Lieberman and those like him are not alone
     in this understanding: that we are right, and that we will not be
     beaten.

   I never cease to be amazed by the cowardly and praetorian behavior of
   the Europeans, with the one wavering exception of Great Britain. You
   would think that two world wars, the destruction of their economies
   and the loss of millions and millions of their citizens would have
   left an indelible mark on the psyche of Europe, but sadly such is not
   the case. Even anti-semitism is acceptable behavior for those who
   watched the Jews being herded like cattle into the death trains.
   The aphorism that those who do not remember history are doomed to
   repeat it seems tragically true today. (Hat top to a faithful Media
   Lies reader.)

References

   1. http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/655emfvl.asp