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Neville Chamberlain Republicans

By Mike Woloshin

Driven by a purported ambition to mediate an end to a war of aggression, as Teddy Roosevelt did in mediating the Russo-Japanese War, which merited Roosevelt the 1905 Nobel Peace Prize, Donald Trump did not follow the dictates of the ghost-written The Art of the Deal. As Vice President J.D. Vance addressed the February 2025 "Munich Security Conference," he appeared ignorant of the 1938 "Munich Agreement" in which British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain agreed to cede the German-Speaking Czech Sudetenland to the Third Reich in which Czech President Edward Benes had virtually no voice.

If that scenario seems familiar, it was recently repeated in the White House humiliation of Ukrainian President Zelenskyy, who, like Edward Benes, had no voice in the matter. Days later, under immense pressure, Zelenskyy agreed to cede rare earth mineral rights to the US, cede the Russian-speaking provinces of Ukraine to the Russian Federation, and agree to a 30-day cease-fire, which Vladimir Putin has yet to accept. Within a year of the 1938 "Munich Agreement," the Third Reich had swallowed up the remainder of Czechoslovakia. Yet, there is no indication that Putin would act any differently, still refusing to recognize the sovereignty, territorial integrity, or independence of Ukraine, as previously recognized by the US, UK, and Russian Federation under the 1994 "Budapest Memorandum," in which Ukraine surrendered its nuclear arsenal.

Such duplicity is similar to John Foster Dulles canceling the 1956 Vietnamese reunification election provided for under the 1954 Geneva Agreement. President Eisenhower wrote in his diary following the Vietnamese defeat of the French at Dien Bien Phu, "I am convinced that no military victory is possible in that kind of theater," recognizing that victory was impossible against a determined independence movement. As Ho Chi Minh wrote previously, "Nothing is more precious than independence and liberty." Like the Vietnamese, the Ukrainians will have the tenacity and determination to win their national independence from the hated Russian Empire!

Slava Ukraini - Glory to Ukraine!

Mike Woloshin, AMH-2, USN, ATKRON 86, onbd USS Coral Sea (CVA-43), Vietnam (Yankee Station) 1969-1970. Mike is the grandson of Ukrainian immigrants, a retired Assistant Cook County Public Defender, and active in VVAW since joining in 1971.