Chamberlain's attempt to appease the Nazis in the early days of World War II has been seized upon recently by the GOP leadership as a scary metaphor to galvanize support for the war in Iraq. The GOP talking point is to suggest that taking any exception to the current war policy, or proposing that the adminsitration has in any way failed in the prosecution of that policy, is the moral equivalent of Nazi appeasement and demonstrates that the true nature of the threat is not understood. This suggestion is nonsense.

The question is not: how serious is the threat? No one is saying that the threat is not real or serious. What is being questioned is the effectiveness of the war in Iraq under the policies pursued by the current adminstration as a response to the threat. What is becoming more clear every day is that the current policy is failing to address the threat.

The appeasement metaphor is the logical and moral equivalent of a different scarey metaphor drawn from European history: the suggestion that if you did not believe that the Jews were poisoning the wells during the Middle Ages and had to be purged, then you did not understand the true nature of the threat posed by the Plague. There is no logical consequence that dicatates: if the threat is real you must pursue a feckless and misguided policy in response.

The real question is: when are we going to start taking the threat seriously and abaondon the fantastic, fear-based, and failed policies of the current administration in favor of effective action.

The equally confused notion that the only alternative to pursuing a failed policy is to "cut and run" ignores the near infinite number of alternatives in between; one such altermative might be pursuing an effective policy.

The threat is real. We need real foreign policy. Not public relations policy which rides on the backs of ignorance and fear.