Mary Mostert, Analyst, Banner of Liberty (www.bannerofliberty.com)
January 24, 2003
In his speech before the United Nations on September 12, 2002, President George W. Bush warned, “We created the United Nations Security Council, so that, unlike the League of Nations, our deliberations would be more than talk, our resolutions would be more than wishes. After generations of deceitful dictators and broken treaties and squandered lives, we dedicated ourselves to standards of human dignity shared by all, and to a system of security defended by all.”
As the world remembered the 9-11, an event that caused the UN building to be evacuated, George Bush reminded the assembled delegates that if it kept ignoring terrorism and terrorist states, the UN, like the League of Nations, would become a useless body. This President, the son of a World War II fighter pilot, is not going to stand by and watch as the world repeats the do-nothing history of the League of Nations.
Unfortunately, since the American public education system gave up teaching History more than a generation ago, and since most reporters are under the age of forty and haven’t a clue about the history of the League of Nations and World War II, most of them ignored the significance of that statement.
I was reminded of the inaction of the League of Nations in 1935 this week when Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld responded to a Dutch reporter who asked what he thought about a “lot of Europeans” (particularly the French and Germans) that “give the benefit of the doubt to Saddam Hussein than
President George Bush.” Rumfeld said, “Now, you're thinking of Europe as Germany and France. I don't. I think that's old Europe. If you look at the entire NATO Europe today, the center of gravity is shifting to the east. And there are a lot of new members. And if you just take the list of all the members of NATO and all of those who have been invited in recently -- what is it? Twenty-six, something like that? -- you're right, Germany has been a problem, and France has been a problem. …But you look at vast numbers of other countries in Europe, they're not with France and Germany on this, they're with the United States.”
President Bush probably was thinking about France in particular when he pointed out the United Nations would go the way of the League of Nations if it did not do more than just talk about peace. In 1935 it was France and Britain that ignored Ethiopia Emperor Haile Selassie’s plea for help from the League of Nations. Selassie appealed to the League of Nations for weapons to rebuff the invading army of Italy’s Fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini after the Italians had attacked an Ethiopian town with mustard gas “in order to terrorize and exterminate them” in the words of Selassi.
Instead of offering the Ethiopians any sort of aid, the League of Nations, led by France and Britain, suggested sanctions and “proposed to Italy and Ethiopia a settlement calculated to give the maximum satisfaction to the invader,” Italy. (Britannica Encyclopedia.) The League of Nations had also failed to protect China against aggression, failed to implement disarmament agreements signed by Japan and Germany and allowed both Japan and Germany to continue their aggression against their neighbors which led to World War II. .
We have people at the UN, in Congress and in our media who pretty much want to repeat history. They are determined to do nothing about the 21st century “axis of evil” apparently thinking inaction will work this time.
In a massive propaganda war, e-mail, TV, radio, newspapers and the Internet we are being deluged with stories urging us to put our faith in the notion that Saddam Hussein and his terrorist friends are really more trustworthy than President George W. Bush.
This is not coming just from obvious and clumsy propagandists in Iraq, such as those who accused five inspectors in Iraq this week of “provocation” when they accepted an invitation to visit the new Al-Nid’a mosque We also have appeasers in our own political system, such as Sen. Ted Kennedy who said at a National Press Club speech this week: “I continue to be convinced that this is the wrong war at the wrong time. The threat from Iraq is not imminent.”
In 1935 the threat of war for America was not “imminent” either. However, between 1935 and 1945, because we appeased the aggressors, over 50 million people died worldwide, millions of them from poison gas in German concentration camps, and uncounted thousands when Japan released plague-infested fleas in China and poisoned water with typhoid bacteria. It was a war that ended when America dropped a couple of atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing approximately 65,000 instantly and another 30,000 people in four months.
Kennedy said in his speech that the Bush Administration was “a contrast with the previous Administration, when peace was a consistent priority in our foreign policy.” Actually, of course what was going on in the Clinton Administration were a number of terrorist attacks throughout the Clinton administration years that were ignored, or worse, in the case of the Muslim Kosovo Liberation Army, adopted as “friends” and allowed to kill, destroy Christian churches and run drugs under US and NATO protection.
The destruction of the World Trade Center occurred because nothing was done to find and stop the network that tried to destroy the World Center during the Clinton Administration.
So, are we just supposed to wait until the “smoking gun” is not just a couple of buildings in New York and Washington, but an entire American city in ashes? Does Ted Kennedy REALLY believe that Saddam Hussein would not use weapons of mass destruction on America, after using them on the Kurds, who are fellow Muslims and countrymen?
Apparently.
To comment: mmostert@bannerofliberty.com
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