First of all, I must point out that most of the blog posts on the left about the attack at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan that the Taliban claims targeted Vice President Dick Cheney have, for the most part, played it straight with a little grumbling about his gallivanting around the world at this point. (For some shocking and notable exceptions, see Malkin, AJ Strata, and Dean Barnett.)
Having said that, this post at Down With Tyranny deserves special attention – not only for its towering ignorance but for its unhinged hatred and despicable comparison of Vice President Cheney to Reinhard Heydrich, Himmler’s chief lieutenant in the Gestapo and at the time of his assassination, Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia:
When I was just a child I used to wrestle with a moral dilemma. If I could go back in time to the very beginning of Hitler’s chancellorship—and knowing in the early 1930s what we know currently about what he and the Nazis were up to—would I kill him? The fact that it would mean my own death was something I discounted entirely. Hitler was a man consumed with hatred and insanity who wielded immense power, power he used for destructiveness on a level rarely seen in history.How does history judge Jan Kubis and Jozef Gabcik, respectively a Czech and a Slovak soldier, who assassinated Reinhard Heydrich on May 27, 1942. They didn’t travel back in time to do it, but from Britain and with the blessing of the Czech government in exile. Heydrich was an SS-Obergruppenfuhrer, chief of Gestapo, one of the 2 or 3 main architects of the Holocaust, and the brutal Governor of Bohemia and Moravia (Czechoslovakia). He wasn’t the vice president of Germany but at the time of his death Hitler considered him his political heir. Kubis and Gabcik ambushed him in his open car in a Prague suburb on his way to work. They were more successful than the Taliban suicide bomber was today.
Oh! So heroic! Oh! So dramatic! Discounting one’s own death in order to kill Hilter? One needs to ask if, in fact, the writer has grown up yet so that he can disabuse himself of such childish notions. What, pray tell, would have been the “moral dilemma” about killing Hitler? Especially, as the morally confused writer points out, if we knew “in the early 1930s what we know currently about what he and the Nazis were up to…”
This would seem to be a no-brainer – even for an unhinged loon like this poor fellow. Except dealing with concepts like “right” and “wrong” is still a chore for most of the left. They have resolved their dilemma by positing the notion that anyone and anything to the right of Ted Kennedy is evil and wrong. That way, they don’t have to think very hard – or know very much for that matter.
As far as what history has had to say about Heydrich’s assassins, some historians have criticized the British for allowing the boys to go ahead with their attack. That’s because what our morally feckless correspondent fails to point out is that as a result of Heydrich’s death, the Gestapo and SS went on a rampage that echoes down through the years all the way to the present.
More than 13,000 Czechs were rounded up and either murdered outright or sent to concentration camps. The entire towns of Lidice and Ležáky were razed to the ground, bulldozed until no trace of human habitation remained. All the men and boys over 16 were executed. Most of the women were sent to camps – others became subjects of medical experiments.
And the children? Immediately after the war, there were pitiful cries for help from the few surviving mothers of Lidice begging for news of their lost children. It wasn’t until several years later that their grim fate came to light; of the 105 children taken from the two towns, only 17 survived. Nine had been adopted by German families with another 8 found in an orphanage in Prague. The rest had been given “the shower treatment” shortly after being taken.
I’ll give you a real moral dilemma, my morally immature blogging friend. Suppose you were Winston Churchill and knew full well the fury that would be unleashed upon the Czech people as a result of the killing of such an important Nazi. Would you still countenance the support of your government for the assassination plot, even knowing that thousands would die horrible deaths?
Kinda makes your moral dilemma about killing Cheney seem rather insipid now, doesn’t it?
Because that is what, in a roundabout and cowardly way you are trying to get at here. If only someone had killed Cheney when he was but a youngster, the world would be such a fine place, isn’t that what you’re saying? I don’t know any other way to read it – especially your disappointment that the Taliban suicide bomber was less “successful” than the Czech assassins of Heydrich.
Perhaps realizing he had gone over the edge, our Brave Sir Blogger pulls back at the last moment and advocates impeachment rather than assassination:
The deaths of vom Rath and Heydrich did nothing to slow Hitler down. What would have happened had the Taliban succeeded in killing Cheney is something we’ll never know. America’s fate is in the hands of Americans. We need to solve our own problems—and fortunately we have a constitutional process in which to do that.
If this is so, why the big write up about the heroes who assassinated Nazis? Why go so far as to point out that Heydrich “wasn’t the vice president of Germany but at the time of his death Hitler considered him his political heir” thus clearly connecting Cheney and Heydrich in your assassination fantasy?
(Note: It is doubtful that Hitler himself ever considered Heydrich his heir but it is clear that many in the inner circle believed the younger man – he was only 38 when he died – would be able to claw his way to the top eventually due to his sheer ruthlessness.)
I am not one to shy away from nasty political epithets. Nor do I believe political give and take to be a sport for the faint of heart. Politics is, in fact, a blood sport waged full tilt and with few holds barred. But anyone who doesn’t see how far beyond the pale this post and this blogger have gone deserve to be banished to the outer darkness. Sickening in its implications, shocking in its hate directed against the Vice President, I wonder if anyone on the left will denounce this calumny as so many on the right do when one of our unhinged brethren steps over the line?
UPDATE
Speaking of Goldstein, I think this comment by him responding on the post linked above, should be saved for all time and should be carved into Glen Greenwald’s mausoleum:
Christ, if Greenwald were any more full of himself he’d run the risk of getting himself pregnant, or at the very least, being charged with his own rape.
4:07 pm
Cheney makes surprise Pakistan visit
Vice President Dick Cheney made an unannounced visit to Pakistan Monday to press for President Perve
5:37 pm
Amen.
5:38 pm
My first impulse is to say “unbelievable.” But of course, it’s not.
5:58 pm
” moral dilemma “......doesn’t one have to have morals in order for there to be a dilemma. One of the certainties of the left is that there are no morals, no ethics, no values.
“The fact that it would mean my own death was something I discounted entirely. “......I find it rather ficticious that this fool could ever sacrifice anything of his own for the benefit of any others.
” Perhaps realizing he had gone over the edge, our Brave Sir Blogger pulls back at the last moment and advocates impeachment rather than assassination: “......because for all of his bravado and bragadocio, in the end, he doesn’t have the courage of his convictions. He is a ,in a word, coward. The ultimate definition of a coward in fact. He is a accurate representation of many of those on the left, far to many.
6:56 pm
I don’t get the way this guy thinks. If terrorists had killed Cheney it would not exactly have been a “rally round the terrorist-appeaser party” moment. I’m thinking the Dems would find their hands tied for a bit, no? Maybe I’m missing something.
9:39 pm
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11:08 pm
One wonders why you find it of interest to search out the most loony people on “the left” and then waste your time analyzing them.
And do you really think that anyone believes you when you seem to imply that this is some exclusive characteristic of the left? Have you read LGF ever? You get this level of lunacy on a daily basis. Does the fact that it is in service to the same causes you support means that it gets a pass?
11:12 pm
Hi Rick,
Thanks for the link in your first sentence.
Are you so sure Malkin, LGF et al would have reacted in a different way had it been, say Hillary Clinton or John Murtha?
And what does it say about those same folks that their first reaction is not to wonder “who could have spilled on where Cheney was to be?” but instead to wonder “what are the lefties saying?”.
Regards, C
5:22 am
Tano:
Go away…again. It gets to be a chore reading your drivel.
And for the record, that “same cause I support” is common decency. It doesn’t surprise me that you have not one word – one, stinking word – for the blogger who calls it a “moral dilemma” to decide whether or not to kill the VP of the US like the worst of the worst Nazi was assassinated.
Hog:
I don’t have time to do the research, but when Olberman was threatened with the fake anthrax by the Freeper idiot and that horrible article appeared in the NY Post mocking him, the right came down on both the Freeper and the Post like a ton of brick. When Coulter spouts off about killing Clinton or SCOTUS judges, dozens and dozens of righty blogs hit her very hard over it.
Any similar activity from the left over this or other hateful posts about assassinating Bush or Cheney?
Crickets chirping . . .
7:56 am
It seems to be a common tactic on both sides to take a couple of comments from the fringe and extrapolate from them “this is the way the Left (Right) feels about…” (take your pick).
While I have no use for Cheney, I think the jokes (and that’s what most of them are) are funny yet I would take no joy if he were to be killed.
We need to get a grip.
9:54 am
Dehumanizing your opponents enables you to do just about anything to them. I learned that from discussions with several people who had the misfortune of growing up under the watchful eye of the Stasi.
The fact that these people continue peddling their Bush=Hitler tripe and their mouth-breathing audiences keep eating it up indicates that leftist ideology trumps humanity every single time. At least that’s what history teaches us, withour exception. I seriously doubt any of these people would recognize real tyranny if it landed on their faces and started wiggling.
But, if the American people see the error of their ways and deliver the House, Senate and Presidency to Democrats in 2008, they’ll succeed where everyone else has failed, right Puff Ho’s?
10:56 am
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12:42 pm
Web Reconnaissance for 02/28/2007
A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention.
12:47 pm
Trackbacked by The Thunder Run – Web Reconnaissance for 02/28/2007
A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention.
10:49 pm
Hi boys!f4da353ab5a7f5d705d7188db78eadbb