Salon/James Pinkerton: The A-Word (Appeasement)

[kskiska]

Is everyone who fails to follow Bush guilty of "appeasement"?

The day after the Madrid terror bombing, the neoconservative press -- should we call it the "neocontern"? -- rushed to offer its cloying embrace to Spain. "We Are All Spaniards Now," proclaimed the New York Sun. Of course, the real object of the neocon word blitz wasn't to soothe the Spanish, but rather to propagandize Americans; the neocons don't really care about Spain. Instead, the real target of their faux internationalist solidarity was the home audience, who might be starting to suspect that "Operation Iraqi Freedom" is boomeranging.

On Sunday night, even as the election returns were coming in, Andrew Sullivan blogged an item titled "Bin Laden's Victory in Spain." He argued that al-Qaida had "removed a government intent on fighting terrorism and installed another intent on appeasing it." By Monday afternoon, it seemed "clear" to Sullivan that "the trend in Europe is now either appeasement of terror or active alliance with it. It is hard to view the results in Spain," he continued, "as anything but a choice between Bush and al-Qaida. Al-Qaida won." Meanwhile, in National Review Online, David Frum disdained "the new Spanish government's swift and abject surrender to the attackers."

Evidently we're not all Spaniards anymore.

Christopher Hitchens in Slate.com jumped right in, slamming Spain as the new France. And we know about those frog-eaters: "French schools should make all haste to permit not just the veil but the burqa," Hitchens mocked. But as he lanced at the straw man of pusillanimous Euros trying to buy off Islamo-blackmailers, he neglected to note that the French are doing just the opposite of what he accuses them of. It's the "weak-kneed" French who have banned the veil in public places; indeed, several other "Old Europe" countries are tough-mindedly considering similar prohibitions against Muslim garb.

So maybe the Europeans aren't weeny weasely "appeasers" -- the neocons' favorite slur word -- after all. Maybe the Europeans have learned from the failure of the Crusades and of colonialism; maybe they haven't allowed a blur of pamphlets from the American Enterprise Institute to blind them to the impossibility of remaking a whole region by force.

more…
http://salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/03/19/spain/index.html

[GCP]

1. This is a brilliant piece

Worth every dime of my Salon subscription.

[salin]

2. Perhaps in a twist of perspective

for some going along with bush and his plans = appeasement (of bush and his aggressive neocon policies.) Hard to tell - we can only view this through our Amero-centric eyes, but to say, the Spanish public who was soundly against the war... could Anzar's stand have been perceived as appeasing Bush?

[Oggy]

3. Good article

Here is the link to todays Steve Bell cartoon on the subject, I think it is very funny.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/cartoons/stevebell/0,7371,1173357,00.html

[jbfam4]

4. great article

A friend just sent it to me. I thought, after just watching Bush trying to justify the war, again, that the A word was ASS.