This surely is shattering for President Obama, Secretary Clinton, the New York Times, so many others. As wrong-headed as they were, as insouciant, they meant well and thought they had done well. On National Public Radio this morning an expert said that there always has been more anti-American sentiment in Egypt than in other of Islam's countries in Arabia. More. Munich killed Neville Chamberlain but before he died, after the Nazi betrayal, there was no Briton more committed to war. 9/11 2012 and the aftermath will not kill Obama, Clinton or Thomas L. Friedman, et al, it may not even kill Obama's chances for reelection. I hope, but I do not believe, that, as with Chamberlain, it kills their naivete and that they now are just as committed to war as was he.
Churchill eulogized Chamberlain:
"It fell to Neville Chamberlain in one of the supreme crises of the world to be contradicted by events, to be disappointed in his hopes, and to be deceived and cheated by a wicked man. But what were these hopes in which he was disappointed? What were these wishes in which he was frustrated? What was that faith that was abused? They were surely among the most noble and benevolent instincts of the human heart-the love of peace, the toil for peace, the strife for peace, the pursuit of peace, even at great peril, and certainly to the utter disdain of popularity or clamour."
Churchill eulogized Chamberlain:
"It fell to Neville Chamberlain in one of the supreme crises of the world to be contradicted by events, to be disappointed in his hopes, and to be deceived and cheated by a wicked man. But what were these hopes in which he was disappointed? What were these wishes in which he was frustrated? What was that faith that was abused? They were surely among the most noble and benevolent instincts of the human heart-the love of peace, the toil for peace, the strife for peace, the pursuit of peace, even at great peril, and certainly to the utter disdain of popularity or clamour."
...
"Herr Hitler protests with frantic words and gestures that he has only desired peace. What do these ravings and outpourings count before the silence of Neville Chamberlain's tomb?"
