Commander-in-Chief: Currently, we do not have one. Biden is incapable of filling Washington's shoes. We debate principles of going to war but have not yet mastered how to end one.
‘Has the world forgotten its mistakes of the 20th century?’ asks Volodymyr Zelenskiy as invasion looms
. . .“'What do appeasement attempts lead to? How did the question ‘Why die for Danzig ?’ [a French anti-war slogan coined in 1939] turn into the need to die for Dunkirk and dozens of other cities in Europe and the world, at the cost of tens of millions of lives?”
"He then twisted the knife by saying there was no threat of war in Europe – the war was already under way: “How did it happen that there is a war ongoing and people are dying in Europe in the 21st century? Why does it last longer than World War II? How did we get to the biggest security crisis since the cold war?”
"Zelenskiy had answers that the doting western security establishment might not have applauded so vociferously if they listened harder to his withering attack on their collective failure. He blamed “selfishness, self-confidence, irresponsibility of countries at the global level. As a result, some commit crimes, and others stay indifferent. Indifference that results in complicity. This is your contribution to the security of Europe and the world.”
"He said: “Ukraine has been Europe’s shield for eight years. For eight years, it has been holding back one of the largest armies in the world.” Yet the door to the EU and Nato had not been opened. The promises to protect Ukraine’s sovereignty enshrined in the Budapest memorandum in 1994 seemed worthless.". . .
Haile Selassie, "Appeal to the League of Nations as Mussolini invaded Ethiopia," June 1936 (mtholyoke.edu) . . .Faced by numerous violations by the Italian Government of all international treaties that prohibit resort to arms, and the use of barbarous methods of warfare, it is my painful duty to note that the initiative has today been taken with a view to raising sanctions. Does this initiative not mean in practice the abandonment of Ethiopia to the aggressor? On the very eve of the day when I was about to attempt a supreme effort in the defense of my people before this Assembly does not this initiative deprive Ethiopia of one of her last chances to succeed in obtaining the support and guarantee of States Members? Is that the guidance the League of Nations and each of the States Members are entitled to expect from the great Powers when they assert their right and their duty to guide the action of the League? Placed by the aggressor face to face with the accomplished fact, are States going to set up the terrible [precedent] of bowing before force?"...
In 1938, during the Munich (Czech) Crisis, then British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain expressed his distaste for making war preparations over "a quarrel in a faraway land between people of which we know nothing."
Chamberlain gives his logic for leaving Czechoslovakia to the mercy of Hitler. Recorded speech, September 27, 1938
"On learning that Chamberlain had sold out Czechoslovakia—leaving it defenseless against the German dictatorship—Winston Churchill warned: "You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour and you will have war.' " Newsweek
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