As far back as December 21, 1924, the wise and knowing New York Times was getting claims and analyses wrong with regard to evil and violent actors around the world.
Look upward, and take in once again the title of this post. It is a real headline from a 12/21/24 Times article, in which a Times reporter explains that Hitler, released on parole from the Landsberg fortress where he had been sent for trying to overthrow the German government (in what has come to be known as the "Beer Hall Putsch"), had been "moderated" by prison to such a degree that German authorities were convinced that he presented no further danger to the existing society.
In fact, according to the article, it was expected that he would abandon public life and return to his native land of Austria to live quietly and, likely, never be heard from again in any meaningful way.
Barry Rubin, director of Israel's Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, sees a parallel between that catastrophic 80-year-old misunderstanding of how "tame-able" the world's evil persons are, and the current line being taken by the Times on the importance of Israel being willing to negotiate -- and to compromise -- with hostile entities, such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and the PLO.
"Few countries can afford the luxury of limiting their diplomacy to friendly countries and peace-loving parties," wrote the NYT's editors in a June 30 column. "National security often requires negotiating with dangerous enemies."
Rubin responds:
Right. And believing their protestations of moderation, making concessions to them, ending sanctions, blaming ourselves for problems, and never using force is the actual content of such negotiations.
Then the leaders of Hamas, Hizballah, Syria, Iran, the Muslim Brotherhoods, al-Qaida, North Korea, Zimbabwe, Sudan, etc., will no doubt be tamed, abandon public life, and go back to their homes.
Henry Kissinger once told the joke--or at least is credited for doing so--that it is very easy to have the lion lay down with the lamb, as long as you put in a new lamb every day. Kissinger no doubt little expected at the time that this would become the democratic world's favored strategy. No surprise that the main villain for the politically correct West is Israel, the lamb that refuses the honor.
That is some very well-prepared food for thought.
Updated below the fold.
Update - 7/17@1553CDT: RedState commenter Aaron Gardner makes the excellent point that this lesson should be extended to include the release of supposedly "tamed" prisoners from Gitmo, such as Guantanamo Bay veteran turned Mosul suicide bomber Abdullah Salih al Ajmi.
In the Israeli context, this lesson is currently applicable to the subjects of Wednesday's prisoner exchange with Hezbollah, which saw five terrorists -- including Samir Kuntar, a murdered who had been sentenced to 542 years in prison for the 1979 shooting of a father and smashing-in of a daughter's head (another child was inadvertently suffocated while the mother hid with her under a bed) -- returned to Lebanon to what CNN described as "a hero's welcome."
Lebanese President Michel Suleiman said Lebanon "feels very proud as we welcome back the heroic resistance fighters who were released from the Israeli occupation," and Kuntar swore to the crowd assembled to greet him that he would "continue to fight" now the he was free.
Referring to the same NYT editorial quoted above, Rubin writes,
"Even if the prisoner exchange is understandable it is at best a terrible dilemma. Yet the New York Times sees it as a role model for diplomacy. Its June 30 editorial explains:"Few countries can afford the luxury of limiting their diplomacy to friendly countries and peace-loving parties. National security often requires negotiating with dangerous enemies. Fortunately, Israel's prime minister, Ehud Olmert, is now displaying a clearer grasp of such realities than President Bush has mustered."In other words, if terrorists attack you it's a good thing to release murderers in a deal, not just to soothe the pain of families but as a centerpiece of national strategy. It is such a superb notion it proves the United States and other countries should negotiate with Iran, Syria, Hizballah, and Hamas over their political demands. Presumably, this entails big concessions and letting radical forces escape sanctions and isolation.
This is bizarre logic. It does spring from Israel violating its own guidelines, not for the first time, on negotiating with terrorists, but is an extraordinary, dangerous extrapolation from what is somewhere between a necessary tragedy and a mistake.
What is unforgivable in the deal itself was to include Palestinian prisoners. This was certainly unnecessary--would Hizballah reject getting its own men back?--and signals Palestinians that Hizballah (and hence Iran and Syria) are their true guardians.
The messages being sent by these actions, which the Times so heartily condones, are many-fold, but, as Rubin so articulately shows, uniformly bad.
Recommended
Foppa July 17th, 2008 at 11:55 a.m. (link)
I'm just depressed sometimes in what seems to be a complete lack of common sense in so much of the population regarding how to deal with men that are simply evil.
Jeff....
Aaron Gardner July 17th, 2008 at 2:57 p.m. (link)
I wish you would have tied that title in with the current policy of releasing terrorists from Gitmo. Although Hitler managed to take over an entire country and the terrorists we have released have only gone back to the battlefield to fight our servicemen, I still think it is applicable. And it should be a lesson to the policy makers that rehabilitation of extremists just doesn't work.
"Land of the Free and Home of da Whopper" Peter Griffin...Family Guy
conform and celebrate diversity....or else!!!
Steel-Belted Radial Right Winger
"I'll create 5 million jobs from out of unicorn farts and pixie dust" Justatron paraphrasing Obamessiah...yes I love it that much.
I find it odd that..
Mord July 17th, 2008 at 3:26 p.m. (link)
everyone has started calling these guys "Extremists"...I do it too. I see it as a symptom of unchecked political correctness. The...people...detained in Gitmo or anyone else who straps bombs to their own bodies to kill infidels and themselves at the same time are not Extremists.
These people are sick, their ideology is sick. They are murderers. Calling somone who kills innocents in the name of religion an "Extremist" is wrong.
Extremist is a label that tries to white-wash and excuse their actions. Islam and islamic states hate Freedom and the ideals we Free countries stand for with a white-hot passion that cannot be appeased or negotiated with.
“Republicans never win polls, they win elections,” - Rudy Giuliani
good point....
Aaron Gardner July 17th, 2008 at 3:35 p.m. (link)
but when I wrote extremists I was not limiting it to religious extremists like the terrrorists we deal with on the battlefield but also people who molest young children...I meant extremists of all sorts...those who would go to such extreme measures to commit their crimes/attacks are not able to be rehabilitated....that was the point I was trying to get across and the reason I used the less limited term of "extremists".....but you are correct the terrorists are more than extremists.
"Land of the Free and Home of da Whopper" Peter Griffin...Family Guy
conform and celebrate diversity....or else!!!
Steel-Belted Radial Right Winger
"I'll create 5 million jobs from out of unicorn farts and pixie dust" Justatron paraphrasing Obamessiah...yes I love it that much.
I read Aaron's answer.
Flagstaff July 17th, 2008 at 6:46 p.m. (link)
I understand his point.
But for this particular type of person, I would go with "killer." Even "murderer" is too soft, too personal. Murder implies a personal rationale of some kind behind the killing. The murderer knows his victim.
These slime are just killers. They have no more interest in their victims than most people have in the fly they swat. The more the merrier. Killers.
So I'm with you, only more so.
"I have a bracelet, too." -- Barack Whosayin' Obama
Pluto, the Ninth Planet - Forever!
Good call, and updated to reflect.
Jeff Emanuel July 17th, 2008 at 4:08 p.m. (link)
Thanks.
wow...thanks Jeff...
Aaron Gardner July 18th, 2008 at 9:54 a.m. (link)
I appreciate the hat tip.
"Land of the Free and Home of da Whopper" Peter Griffin...Family Guy
conform and celebrate diversity....or else!!!
Steel-Belted Radial Right Winger
"I'll create 5 million jobs from out of unicorn farts and pixie dust" Justatron paraphrasing Obamessiah...yes I love it that much.
"something wicked this way comes"
fisk2521 July 17th, 2008 at 3:19 p.m. (link)
We live in a time where people use diversity and cultural relativism as an excuse for cowardice. One must be able to recognize evil before it has done great harm.
The tyrannical leaders of Iran are evil - - they seek to destroy, control and impose it's will and does so unashamedly. It seems that Obama and his following want to answer that declaration with 'they're not so bad, let's just get along!!!' If they are not 'bad' then what is??? We cannot lose our faith in the basic principle off individual freedom and it IS worth fighting for.
"The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. Whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on basic principles."
AYN RAND, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal
LDavis
The NY Times...never one to give up on a
Jaded July 17th, 2008 at 3:41 p.m. (link)
dictator/murderer....it is their calling you see...they were marxist/communist even when it wasn't cool!
Whoever has his enemy at his mercy & does not destroy him is his own enemy
No surprise, then...
CJB68 July 17th, 2008 at 3:52 p.m. (link)
If the NYT catching on to trendy political chic is something that's gone on since early in the last century (and perhaps even before then), I shouldn't be surprised. Expect these people to be singing the praises of the next bully on the block once Al Qaeda and its ilk have gone their way...
Delusional and Arrogant. The 2008 Democratic Presidential Ticket.
even before then, indeed
pilgrim July 17th, 2008 at 3:58 p.m. (link)
Before the New York Times was the newspaper of prominence in NYC was Horace Greeley's New York Tribune. And who did they hire as their international news reporter......Karl Marx.
Extreme taxation, excessive controls, oppressive government competition with business … frustrated minorities and forgotten Americans are not the products of free enterprise.Ronald Reagan
The gray lady
KBDay July 17th, 2008 at 3:55 p.m. (link)
That's a good one. The cool thing about the NYT is they have all their archives online--a while back I did an article at The US Report after Gov. Crist pulled off the Everglades/US Sugar deal.
You wouldn't believe what I found--the way the paper referred to people of color. Also I never knew until then that Seminoles who had villages in the Everglades still had African slaves:
I was appalled--the writer didn't even tell these people they were free. His whole attitude was despicable. Bear in mind one of my ancestors was run out of SC for being an abolitionist!
Anyway, that struck a chord because I'd read an essay in one of my mags--I think it was by Andrew Sullivan--wherein the writer made a case for Democratic guilt over racial prejudice.
You did good on finding this nugget posted here! I'd recommend it if it weren't already done--best, Kay
at least NYT doesn't scrub like Obama
gamecock July 17th, 2008 at 4:19 p.m. (link)
archives that is. Michelle says he stinks, i.e. that Biden was wrong.
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns The Minority Report and The HinzSight Report "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." - The Chief Justice Race 4 2008 "One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
Just As The Progressives
ICRJCalvin July 17th, 2008 at 4:10 p.m. (link)
of the 1920's and 30's, our modern liberals are always seeking ways to accommodate fascism. . . .
The Political Left & Liberal Fascism
and if I'm not mistaken
woodsman July 17th, 2008 at 4:14 p.m. (link)
Hitler wrote his book Mein Kampf while in this same prison. So he basically gave a play by play snapshot of what he was thinking and had the intent to fulfill.
And still... people were asleep at the wheel and hoped he would be OK and leave them alone.
Many parallels to events today.
Ohhh for the want of longer term memories...
Thanks for posting this.
Flagstaff July 17th, 2008 at 5:13 p.m. (link)
My wife and I were both incredulous this morning upon hearing that this killer, Samir Kumar, (and others) had been released in a "prisoner" exchange.
Then we found out that the "prisoners" he was exchanged for were actually dead bodies returned for burial or cremation. That was worse.
Then we found out that the soldiers whose bodies were returned had been kidnapped specifically so they could be used to obtain the release of these prisoners held by Israel. Even worse.
By giving these killers the very prize they killed for, Israel has managed to give its enemies more incentive to capture and kill Israeli soldiers, while also releasing a cold blooded killer back into the world. I pity the young Israeli soldiers on sentry duty near enemy lines (which are everywhere, aren't they?) Which ones will be the next targets? And did no one think at all about the father and children who were killed by this man, or the wife and the rest of the family who survived?
We used to admire the Israelis for their courage and determination. Now it seems their leadership has turned into a group of nervous Nellies who have no capacity to evaluate costs and no ability to anticipate the consequences of their deeds.
Some things are always clear if one opens his eyes to see them. One is that fighting a real war against real enemies who want to destroy you DEMANDS that every citizen may have to pay the ultimate sacrifice. It DEMANDS that the soft sentimentalism/religiosity that puts such a high premium on the return of a dead body must be resisted. It DEMANDS that government leadership must stand up to both the enemy and the citizens who push them to do the wrong thing.
And it DEMANDS that killers such as Samir Kuntar be executed upon sentencing. This tragedy shows what false security a sentence of 542 years in prison actually amounts to.
"I have a bracelet, too." -- Barack Whosayin' Obama
Pluto, the Ninth Planet - Forever!
Israel can read
Xraxnd_Caracarn July 17th, 2008 at 6:07 p.m. (link)
The writing on the wall and it seems they are no longer willing to go it alone.
That this nonhuman was released is stupid and makes me doubt if humans want to live at all. He should have been staked to the roof of the dome of the rock covered in honey and rats and left to die. The left for generations has been preaching that we are animals letting things like this free proves that we aren't even as interested in survival as any animal.
As Charles Krauthammer just pointed out--
Flagstaff July 17th, 2008 at 6:24 p.m. (link)
There was a living hostage whom the Israelis did not get back, yet they gave up the prize they've kept for almost 30 years.
This removes any incentive for these killers and kidnappers to keep anybody they grab alive. They'll figure they will get what they want when the dead body is returned.
Shimon Peres looked like a dead man walking as he talked about it in a news conference. He should. He sounded like he was ready to throw up as he said
Did they think the soldiers were still alive? What were they thinking? What about their commitment to the soldiers who are still alive, who might be captured in the future?
The war started with the kidnapping of these two soldiers, intended to obtain their release and return. How does this capitulation help? It ENDS it? If so, what was the point in the first place? Rational people don't fight wars to recover two dead bodies, they fight to prevent more deaths from happening. This capitulation by the Israelis is the worst thing they could have done.
"I have a bracelet, too." -- Barack Whosayin' Obama
Pluto, the Ninth Planet - Forever!
Aaron Gardner, are you "aaronbg"?
ZootSuit July 18th, 2008 at 9:59 a.m. (link)
Sorry for the threadjack but about a month ago I promised "aaronbg" to get back with him on reference material about culture and trust, etc. Well, believe it or not, except for the Fourth of July, I have not been home since then; very busy.
Regardless, I did think of a book that somewhat touches on the theme I was raising, Integration or Separation?: A Strategy for Racial Equality by Roy L. Brooks.
Although I am in agreement with the author, we both reach very similar conclusions completely independent of one another, the book is really more "parallel" to the concerns I was raising in my previous posts. That is, it doesn't analysis the relationship between culture, trust and economic (and social) development in-depth but mostly notes them and argues for their place in policy discussions. It should tide you over until (if) I return home to my personal library.
Again everyone, my apologies for the threadjack (especially if Aaron Gardner is not "aaronbg").
* Unrepentant African-American nationalist, Unapologetic African-American conservative!
It is I, aaronbg....
Aaron Gardner July 18th, 2008 at 10:09 a.m. (link)
I felt that with the launch of the new site I should start using my real name...as stated by a few other posters, I think it will help me hold myself accountable for my words...I didn't want to hide behind a pseudonym, even a thinly vieled one. Anyhow, thanks for the reference and getting back to me on that. Good memory.....;^)
"Land of the Free and Home of da Whopper" Peter Griffin...Family Guy
conform and celebrate diversity....or else!!!
Steel-Belted Radial Right Winger
"I'll create 5 million jobs from out of unicorn farts and pixie dust" Justatron paraphrasing Obamessiah...yes I love it that much.