If hoary clichés are sin number one for journalists, “like appeasing Hitler” must appear near top of the no-go list. It is wheeled out by an almost incomprehensible number of slothful journalists on the brink of, and during, every single conflict. It really is indicative of a lazy mind that is satisfied with vapid comparisons which are wholly unable to stand up even to the most cursory historical scrutiny.

(That’s quite apart from the question of whether appeasement was the enormous tactical blunder it’s made out to be, which isn’t the open and shut history it’s been made out as.)

Scores of wars have been justified on the basis that not waging them would be “like appeasing Hitler” , the escalation of diplomatic conflicts has been urged using the same line, and a litany of tyrants, despots and third world strong men have been labelled by an asinine western press corps as “the new Hitler”

The Parallax Brief’s toes curled, therefore, when he read at CentreRight today the headline “Withdrawing from Afghanistan would be like appeasing Hitler”.

The article itself has some interesting insight into life under the Taliban and the consequences of withdrawal (whether you agree with them all or not, they’re interesting).

But really, Britain’s reaction to a nasty, chaotic religious theocracy armed with Kalashnikovs, RPG-7s and Toyota pick up trucks, ruling over a barren, rocky hell-hole thousands of miles away in the Hindu Kush has literally nothing to do with its reaction to a major European power taken over by a man with the will and resources to commit genocide on an unprecedented scale and bring all of Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals under his heel, including our own country.

Really: nothing.