Letter to the Editor: The Kremlin Kandidate

Dear Editor,

“Adolf Hitler justified the annexation of Austria (“Anschluss”) and parts of Czechoslovakia by claiming that he was uniting ethnic German populations in these regions with the German Reich, essentially arguing for the right of self-determination for these “Germanic” populations, while also exploiting political instability in both countries to facilitate his military takeover; he used the concept of “Lebensraum” (living space) to further rationalize his territorial ambitions.”*

Wait a minute, isn’t that what Putin said about Crimea and now claims for Ukraine? Putin is just reuniting Russians, after all.

None other than England’s Neville Chamberlain, the French Vichy government and most of Europe turned their backs on Austria and Czechoslovakia to appease Hitler, who must have laughed at their cowardice right before he invaded Poland.

Forgot those little details did you? You can live it all over again as Putin and Trump, the “Kremlin Kandidate,” divide up Ukraine for its own good to stop further bloodshed. Maybe appeasement will work this time because Trump says it will. Maybe Putin will just take a little nibble out of NATO for his trouble. If you can’t find Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia or Muldova on a map, does it matter?

My father’s entire generation paid the price for this craven, self-serving reasoning. I fear we are about to do it again. Maybe history does not repeat itself. But I agree with Mark Twain, it rhymes.

*information courtesy of Google AI

Dr. David Hoffman

Lovell