Redstate

By Rick Moran Posted in Archived — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

[promoted by haystack because...well, I shouldn't have to SAY why]

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.

More below the fold...

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

Go. Read Goldstein. Now.

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.

Cross Posted at Right Wing Nuthouse.

Note: Link to post in question fixed.