Folks, history has shown us clearly that placating or even tolerating tyrannical dictators does not maintain the peace.
It’s not the most recent example certainly, but it is among the most graphic, to look at the history of world war II and slightly before. We let the anti-war sentiments in this country sway us from controlling and eliminating those that threatened the remainder of the world.
The advocates of a false peace, made the argument that Germany was such a strong power, it wasn’t worth going to war with them over a few bits of neighboring real estate. As far as the people in those countries? Well sorry, but there really isn’t much we can do for them.
Thing is by the time we finally found our spine, it took four and a half very bloody years to put an end to the threat.
There was no negotiating with Tojo or Hitler back in the day and there is no negotiation with Vladimir Putin now…. first, because the Crimea and Ukraine are not ours to negotiate away, nor anybody else’s. But secondly and more importantly, negotiated peace never lasts. I did attempt to contact Neville Chamberlain for his comments on his experiences with Hitler but he was unavailable.. However, I believe I can prove quite easily that the negotiations in such matters are not worth the paper they’re written on.
You can go ahead and tell me about how nuclear warfare is too terrible to contemplate in reaction to the despotism of Vladimir Putin. But remember that it was a popular opinion back in the day that reacting to Hitler’s despotism was unthinkable as well. Then as now, the leaders of the West were faced with terrors that the world had never faced before.
The basic patterns have not changed since those days nor have the majority of the dynamics. The only change is the size of the boom.
As Hitler showed us, such people are not bound by negotiation, and they never will be.
Why is it we have to keep relearning this lesson?
