Trusting Very Bad Men

On September 30th of 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returned from a summit with Adolf Hitler with an agreement that if the countries of Europe allowed Germany to occupy the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia, there would be no further attempts to expand the Third Reich.  Chamberlain told the assembled press at his return to London that he had secured "Peace in our time."  Besides, who cares if a few Czechs have to live in under a regime they did not choose?  Chamberlain was hailed as a hero--and likely would have won the 1939 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to appease Hitler and avoid all-out war.  The 1939 Nobel Peace Prize was never awarded, because less than a year after Chamberlain had "secured peace", Germany would invade Poland, and Europe would be fully engaged in World War II.  Seven years later, an estimated 60-million people were dead--and the entire continent lay in ruin.

In February of 1945, as World War II was drawing to an end, President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill met with Josef Stalin in Yalta to discuss the future of Europe following the inevitable defeat of the Nazis.  Weary from war--and weakened both physically and politically, Roosevelt and Churchill agreed to let Stalin continue to occupy the areas of Eastern Europe--with Stalin promising to hold democratic elections after the war.  It appeared that an ugly battle (and potential military conflict between allies) had been averted--and peace would be coming to our time faster.  Besides, who cares if a few "minor" countries have to put up with Soviet occupation for a little while?  But less than a year later, Stalin would renege on that promise--leading Churchill to declare "An Iron Curtain has descended across the continent".  Countless millions would be killed for their opposition to Communist rule--and freedom would not come to those nations for another 50-years.

On September 10th, 2013, President Barack Obama--himself a Nobel Peace Prize winner (for talking about withdrawing US troops from Iraq and Afghanistan)--announces that Syria has agreed to turn over its chemical weapons to Russia--in order to avoid military retaliation from the United States.  Syrian President Bashar Asaad had been not only denying the use of chemical weapons--but flat out calling the US liars for insinuating he had any.  Now Russian President Vladamir Putin--known for his own brand of retaliation against enemies--promises that he will take those weapons and make sure than nobody ever uses them again.  I'm sure the Nobel Prize Committee is already getting nomination papers making the case for Putin because he has once again "secured peace".  Besides, who care if a few thousand Syrian civilians get gassed--it's not our war to fight.

Does anyone notice a pattern here?  Appeasement of war criminals, despots and all-around thugs in the name of "maintaining peace"?  Based on past results, we will be right back here in a year--with a worse condition brewing in Syria--and a much more costly "solution" to fix it.

But that's the risk you take when you are willing to trust Very Bad Men.