Four Myths Government and Media Use to Scare Us About 'Dictators'

By Larry Beinhart, AlterNet. Posted October 2, 2007.

Fog Facts: The Bush White House calls Iran's President Ahmadinejad a "dictator" when he isn't -- part of scaring the public into thinking preemptive war is a good thing.

We have a basic mythology: Appeasement of dictators leads to war. The historical basis for this narrative is the "appeasement" of Hitler at Munich. It encouraged him to believe the democracies -- and the Soviets -- were weak and would not oppose him. That led him to attempt more conquests and engulfed us all in the Second World War.

If the other countries had stood up to him right away, the theory goes, he would have backed down. If he hadn't, they would have gone to war and nipped him in the bud, thereby preventing WWII, the Holocaust, the deaths of 60 million and all the rest of the horrors.

Now we are floating the story that Mahmoud Ahmenajad is a dictator (the new, new Hitler, after Saddam Hussein). If we "appease" him, it will only encourage him and that will engulf us in World War Three.

Read at AlterNet