Repeating Mistakes Of The Past

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The NAZI invasion of Poland began September 1st, 1939, and the Soviet invasion

Title: Line of demarcation between German and Soviet military forces after their joint invasion of Poland in September 1939Line of demarcation between German and Soviet military forces after their joint invasion of Poland in September 1939 | Date: 01/05/2009 | Photographer: Poeticbent | Poeticbent grants anyone the right to use this work for any purpose, without any conditions.

commenced sixteen days later. The campaigns ended on October 6th, 1939 with Germany and the Soviet Union dividing and annexing the whole of Poland. A month later, Germany attacked Finland, followed by the invasions Denmark & Norway in the spring of 1940. Then on May 10th, 1940, the Nazis invaded France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.

As Germany's campaign of terror continued across Europe, eventually resulting in the dissolution of the German's pact with Russia, America practiced a blind eye policy of, "commerce and honest friendship with all nations - entangling alliances with none," by not increasing American political/military involvement in European affairs.

As tanks rolled, and tens of thousands of people were systematically slaughtered, Americans took comfort in the notion that it wasn’t their problem. Of course, the U.S. WAS eventually attacked, and brought into the conflict, by which time the world was engulfed in war.

If the U.S. had drawn the line at Poland, it may have prevented years of blood shed.

Title: UKRAINE | Date: 12/10/2006 | Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License,

Fast forward to February 27th, 2014, one day after ministers for Ukraine's new government were named, armed men seized control of the parliament in Crimea (Ukraine's capitol) and raised the Russian flag. The next day, armed men, described by Ukrainian minister as, "Moscow's forces," took control of two airports in Crimea.

Since then, Russian troops have strengthened their foothold in Crimea, while, Russian President, Putin has publicly flip flopped between making threats and spouting transparently false denials.

I stare at a photograph of my three nephews (7 years, 4 years, and 6 months old) on the wall above my desk, and a large part of me hopes they’ll never experience a time of war. I don’t want them to know the horror of war, or grow up feeling the need to defend their country.

The peace loving Democrat in me says we shouldn’t involve ourselves in Ukrainian/Russian affairs, and practice a policy of, "commerce and honest friendship with all nations - entangling alliances with none." Then I think of nephews (7 years, 4 years, and 6 months old) of Ukrainians, who are being attacked and oppressed, and I wonder if we can turn a blind eye, without repeating mistakes of the past.
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