smittyoneeach's Journal: Rodeo Clown Foreign Policy Gets No Respect

Daladier, a classic leftist politician of the era, became Prime Minister three times. French politics were rough and tumble, with alliances made and dissolved, and little attention paid to foreign policy. There was a general refusal to acknowledge that Germany was re-arming and preparing for another round. Daladier was a voice in the wilderness. He saw the threat coming from Germany and became particularly alarmed by the Nazi-Soviet Pact. Unlike many others of his time, and today, he understood that Communists and Nazis comprised two sides of the same totalitarian coin. Daladier became PM for the last time in April 1938. By this time, the West's appeasement policies towards Hitler were firmly set. Daladier desperately tried to convince Britain's Neville Chamberlain to take a firmer stance against Hitler. Chamberlain would have none of it, and France's parlous military state prevented Daladier from striking out on his own. Chamberlain had decided to yield to Hitler's demand for the Sudetenland, and to the effective dismemberment of Czechoslovakia. Daladier argued against this, but found himself helpless to do anything but go along. To his life-long shame, Daladier became a signer of the September 1938 Munich Agreement, the now universally recognized monument to appeasement. Heading back home from Munich, Daladier assumed angry French patriots would rip him to shreds. He, instead, got a hero's welcome. Enthusiastic crowds sang his praises, prompting him to turn to an aide, and utter the famous, bitter, and prophetic words, "Ah, the fools! Why are they cheering?"
. . .
I have written before about the Obama foreign policy (here, here, and here, for example). We are firmly in the grip of an appeaser, perhaps even worse. Other countries have begun to see that quite clearly.

All I can say is that I've worked harder to restore sanity to our system the last five years than in the preceding 20. Too, you can't wholly blame Obama; the structural drivers precede #OccupyResolutDesk. Nevertheless, he'll be the one to run us aground. So, brace for shock and stand by for a rough one.

US are the Nazi/Communists

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Iraq/Syria is Czech/Slovakia

Re:

[smittyoneeach]

Meh. If we WERE that oppressive, where is the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_Spring [wikipedia.org]? Or, where was even the hint of a Czech nuke threat?
Your equation is trivial. The details, no' so much.

Re:

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

There's no nuke threat on Earth, bigger than US.

There's no nuke threat from Middle East, if you discount Israel.

Re:

[smittyoneeach]

Nor, in a practical sense, do I expect ANYONE to go pickling off a nuke. The political fallout will exceed the physical.
Rather, I know that the posturing and brinksmanship of a little man with a big strap-on will get really, really tiring.
All that seems moot after the re-election of #OccupyResoluteDesk. In his defense, the darker possibilities may have been inevitable.