Trump’s Betrayal of Ukraine and Europe: the United States has been weighed in the balance and found wanting

Churchill’s Response to the Betrayal of Czechoslovakia Today

Neville Chamberlain with Hitler’s Piece of Paper Promising Peace in Our Time. Rubio and Lavrov Making that Deal Yesterday

On 5 October 1938 Winston Churchill spoke before the House of Commons following the British, French and Italian sell out of Czechoslovakia at Munich. His speech was poignant and in it he discussed the unmitigated defeat and disaster that Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and French Prime Minister Édouard Daladier inflicted on the Czechs, Europe, and their own countries at Munich.

It was a defeat without a battle, a victory given to Hitler when many in his own Army High Command were ready to remove him from power if he attempted to invade Czechoslovakia. The coup was planned and the forces ready. But the French and British completely undercut the Czechs, left them out of the negotiations regarding the fate of their country, kept the Soviet Union out of the negotiations, when a united front would have prevented a Nazi invasion or assured its defeat.

The British and French Prime Ministers went home to declare that they had achieved peace. When leaving his aircraft in London Chamberlain made a short statement:

“The settlement of the Czechoslovakian problem, which has now been achieved is, in my view, only the prelude to a larger settlement in which all Europe may find peace. This morning I had another talk with the German Chancellor, Herr Hitler, and here is the paper which bears his name upon it as well as mine [shows paper to crowd]. Some of you, perhaps, have already heard what it contains but I would just like to read it to you: " ... We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German Naval Agreements symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again".

Later at 10 Downing Street he said:

“My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Go home and get a nice quiet sleep.”

That is happening today as Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other U.S. officials met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to negotiate an end to the war that Russian launched against Ukraine nearly three years ago. This war has cost Russia billions of Rubles and nearly a million lives, a war that they are no closer to winning than when they began. And now, Trump holds unilateral meetings with Russia and locks Ukraine and its European allies out of the negotiations as Rubio and Lavrov discuss allowing Russia to keep control of Ukrainian territory and Donald Trump demands that Ukraine pay the United States vast sums of its natural resources, amounts that dwarf the reparations forced upon the Weimar Republic the successors to Imperial Germany, reparations that were completely unjust and created conditions that led to the collapse of Weimar and the rise of Adolf Hitler.

After the meeting Trump mocked Ukrainian President Zelenskyy. Referring to Zelenskyy, Trump said, “Today I heard, ‘Oh, well we weren’t invited.’ Well, you’ve been there for three years,” Trump said with a sneer. “You should’ve ended it in three years. You should have never started it. You could have made a deal.” Thus he blamed Zelenskyy for the Russian invasion and absolved Putin, the aggressor. Trump’s words and actions are a repudiation of everything that the United States has stood for since defeating the Nazis, founding the United Nations, trying war criminals, and standing firm against the Soviet Union against its aggression during the Cold War alongside of our NATO allies, who like Ukraine Trump and his criminal cabal are now betraying.

Winston Churchill criticizing Neville Chamberlain (foreground) after Munich

Churchill told his countrymen and the world the disaster that Chamberlain and Daladier created by appeasing Hitler.

“... I will begin by saying what everybody would like to ignore or forget but which must nevertheless be stated, namely, that we have sustained a total and unmitigated defeat, and that France has suffered even more than we have....

And I will say this, that I believe the Czechs, left to themselves and told they were going to get no help from the Western Powers, would have been able to make better terms than they have got—they could hardly have worse—after all this tremendous perturbation...

I have always held the view that the maintenance of peace depends upon the accumulation of deterrents against the aggressor, coupled with a sincere effort to redress grievances.... After [Hitler's] seizure of Austria in March... I ventured to appeal to the Government... to give a pledge that in conjunction with France and other Powers they would guarantee the security of Czechoslovakia while the Sudeten-Deutsch question was being examined either by a League of Nations Commission or some other impartial body, and I still believe that if that course had been followed events would not have fallen into this disastrous state...

France and Great Britain together, especially if they had maintained a close contact with Russia, which certainly was not done, would have been able to influence many of the smaller States of Europe, and I believe they could have determined the attitude of Poland. Such a combination, prepared at a time when the German dictator was not deeply and irrevocably committed to his new adventure, would, I believe, have given strength to all those forces in Germany which resisted this departure, this new design... Such action would have given strength to all that intense desire for peace, which the helpless German masses share with their British and French fellow men....

... I do not think it is fair to charge those who wished to see this course followed, and followed consistently and resolutely, with having wished for an immediate war. Between submission and immediate war there was this third alternative, which gave a hope not only of peace but of justice. It is quite true that such a policy in order to succeed demanded that Britain should declare straight out and a long time beforehand that she would, with others, join to defend Czechoslovakia against an unprovoked aggression. His Majesty's Government refused to give that guarantee when it would have saved the situation...

All is over... Czechoslovakia recedes into the darkness. She has suffered in every respect by her association with the Western democracies and with the League of Nations, of which she has always been an obedient servant. She has suffered in particular from her association with France, under whose guidance and policy she has been actuated for so long...

We in this country, as in other Liberal and democratic countries, have a perfect right to principle of self-determination, but it comes ill out of the mouths of those in totalitarian states who deny even the smallest element of toleration to every section and creed their bounds...

What is the remaining position of Czechoslovakia? Not only are they politically mutilated, but economically and financially, they complete confusion. Their banking, their railway arrangements, are severed and their industries are curtailed, and the movement of their population is most cruel... It is a tragedy which has occurred....

I venture to think that in the future Czechoslovakian state cannot be maintained as an independent entity. You will find that in a period of time measured only by months, Czechoslovakia will be engulfed in the Nazi régime. Perhaps they may join it in despair or in revenge. At any rate, that story is over and told... It is the most grievous consequence which we have yet experienced of what we have done and of what we have left undone in the last five years—five years of futile good intention, five years of eager search for the line of least resistance, five years of uninterrupted retreat of British power, five years neglect of our air defenses. We have been reduced from a position of security, of safety and power—power to do good, power to be generous to a beaten foe, power to make terms with Germany, power to give her proper redress for her grievances, power to stop her arming if we chose, power to take any step in strength or mercy or justice which we thought right—reduced in five years from a position safe and unchallenged to where we stand now.

When I think of the fair hopes of a long peace which still lay before Europe at the beginning of 1933 when Herr Hitler first obtained power, and of all the opportunities of arresting the growth of the Nazi power which have been thrown away, when I think of the immense combinations and resources which have been neglected or squandered, I cannot believe that a parallel exists in the whole course of history. So far as this country is concerned the responsibility must rest with those who have the undisputed control of our political affairs. They neither prevented Germany from rearming, nor did they re-arm ourselves in time... They neglected to make alliances and combinations which might have repaired previous errors, and thus they left us in the hour of trial without adequate national defense or effective international security...

We are in the presence of a disaster of the first magnitude... Do not let us blind ourselves to that. It must now be accepted that all the countries of Central and Eastern Europe will make the best terms they can with the triumphant Nazi Power...

If the Nazi dictator should choose to look westward, as he may, bitterly will France and England regret the loss of that fine army of ancient Bohemia [Czechoslovakia] which was estimated last week to require not fewer than 30 German divisions for its destruction...

...Many people, no doubt, honestly believe that they are only giving away the interests of Czechoslovakia, whereas I fear we shall find that we have deeply compromised, and perhaps fatally endangered, the safety and even the independence of Great Britain and France...[T]here can never be friendship between the British democracy and the Nazi Power, that Power cannot ever be the trusted friend of the British democracy...

...[O]ur loyal, brave people... should know the truth. They should know that there has been gross neglect and deficiency in our defenses; they should know that we have sustained a defeat without a war, the consequences of which will travel far with us along our road; they should know that we have passed an awful milestone in our history, when the whole equilibrium of Europe has been deranged, and that the terrible words have for the time being been pronounced against the Western democracies:

Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting.

And do not suppose that this is the end. This is only the beginning of the reckoning.”

Will there be any American leader of any stature who will be our Churchill today? I certainly would like to hope so, but even if there is such a man or woman, but for now the United States has been weighed in the balance and found wanting. And sadly, this isn’t the end, only the beginning of our reckoning.

So until next time, be safe and watch your six.