That nice Mr Hitler

The peace movement has a long and disgraceful history to live up to:

John Middleton Murry, editor of the pacifist journal Peace News during WWII, wrote in that magazine on 9 August 1940:

Personally I don't believe that a Hitlerian Europe would be quite so terrible as most people believe it would be.

[...]
In Peace News, 30 October 1942, [the Marquess of Tavistock] invoked the following rationalisation for Nazi aggression in Europe:

... the very serious provocation which many Jews have given by their avarice and arrogance when exploiting Germany's financial difficulties, by their associations with commercialized vice, and by their monopolization of certain professions.

on 3 May 1945, Vera Brittain maintained that the gas chambers were being publicised by the allies:

... partly, at least, in order to divert attention from the havoc produced in German cities by allied obliteration bombing.

Thus an ethical objection to war - grossly misguided, but not inherently ignoble - became a position indifferent to tyranny and genocide, uncomprehending of the moral imperative of combating evil, and even complicit in support of that evil.

The concluding words are Oliver Kamm's. The situation they describe continues.

An anonymous American peace campaigner has written to the President of Iran:

"Mr. President, we hate war as much as [we hate] Bush and his team. Many people here in America think like me. We cannot do anything to prevent Bush's stupid acts…but I write to you because I believe you are a rational and God-loving person," read a portion of the American woman's letter to the president.

"We do not consider George Bush as our [legitimate] President because he got the White House top job by cheating, which was illegal. Even many American mothers whose sons have not been sent to Iraq agree with me that Bush is an [expletive]," the letter continued.

The American mother wrote that Bush had forced her son to go to war in Iraq. Bush "took my son away from me forever," she wrote.

The Iranian President wrote back to the woman on his personal blog that "the ones who forced your son to go to war in Iraq must be held responsible for the shedding of his blood and that of other American soldiers who have met the same fate."

He wrote that Iranians respect all people, including Americans.

"Our religion does not allow us to harm the peace of mind and tranquility of any nation," the President wrote...

Via The Spirit.