During the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich Islamic terrorist kidnapped and ultimately killed 11 Israeli hostages. Jim McKay took the job of reporting events live. I will never forget when he reported the sad news that all 11 hostages had been killed:
When I was a kid my father used to say “Our greatest hopes and our worst fears are seldom realized.” Our worst fears have been realized tonight. They have now said there were 11 hostages; two were killed in their rooms yesterday morning, nine were killed at the airport tonight. They’re all gone.
—McKay, 1972
There are only a few times when we experience our worst fears or greatest hopes. I would really like to believe that by some miracle this administration has negotiated an agreement that will prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. The problem is that neither President Obama nor Secretary of State John Kerry has ever successfully negotiated a significant agreement about anything with anyone. Our foreign policy is lurching from disaster to disaster.
One is reminded of when Neville Chamberlain told the British people that he had negotiated “peace for our time.” The following BBC article explains what happened:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/september/30/newsid_3115000/3115476.stm
The British Prime Minister has been hailed as bringing “peace to Europe” after signing a non-aggression pact with Germany.
PM Neville Chamberlain arrived back in the UK today, holding an agreement signed by Adolf Hitler which stated the German leader’s desire never to go to war with Britain again.
The two men met at the Munich conference between Britain, Germany, Italy and France yesterday, convened to decide the future of Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland.
Mr Chamberlain declared the accord with the Germans signaled “peace for our time”, after he had read it to a jubilant crowd gathered at Heston airport in west London.
The German leader stated in the agreement: “We are determined to continue our efforts to remove possible sources of difference and thus to contribute to assure the peace of Europe.”
Eventually Chamberlain left office in disgrace to be replaced by Winston Churchill. Winston Churchill who was absolutedly despised by the cultured elite of the day. Today those speeches by Winston Churchill are considered to be masters of inspiration. But in 1940 many establishment members of the British Parliament were still too busy clapping for Neville Chamberlain to notice. Unfortunately, a lot of innocent people paid a terrible price because of the incompetence of Neville Chamberlain:
Less than one year later, on September 1, 1939 Hitler derided the agreement as just “a scrap of paper” and invaded Poland. The result was World War II. Between 50 and 80 million ple died during World War II. Civilian deaths are estimate between 38 to 55 million. Military deaths were between 22 to 25 million.
The difference between Neville Chamberlain and Barack Obama is that at least Hitler pretended to negotiate a real deal. Iran isn’t even pretending. Iran is alreadying telling its own people that the deal is nothing more than a scrap of paper. In addition, if Obama is wrong the human cost could be significantly worse than what was experienced during World War II. It is increasingly difficult to be optimistic about this. We can only hope we have gotten this very wrong.
TDM