To the editor:

On nearly this same date in 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returned to London from Munich waving a piece of paper signed by Adolf Hitler pledging permanent peace for Britain, Europe and the world. The price of peace was giving part of Czechoslovakia to Germany. Newspapers proclaimed a “peace for our time.” Video of Chamberlain and images of the paper itself are not hard to find.

Hitler would invade neighboring Poland just 11 months later, and in the next five years, culminating in the dropping of two atomic bombs, between 60 million and 85 million people would die by violence. In addition to Chamberlain, Hitler invited fellow dictator Benito Mussolini and the leader of France, Edouard Daladier, to the meeting in Munich. But not Czechoslovakia.

Chamberlain and Daladier went, nonetheless. And made a deal, nonetheless. Agreeing Hitler could have part of Czechoslovakia, nonetheless. Telling the Czechs afterwards, nonetheless, to sign on … or else.

Now Vladimir Putin announces a peace conference for the war he started in Ukraine. Invited are fellow Chinese dictator Xi Jinping and America’s Donald Trump. Ukraine is not invited.

Coincidentally, during the week leading up to Putin’s announcement, screws were turned down on Ukraine. Trump declared that sanctions against Russia, under the newly minted Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act, had been waived.

At the same time, somehow mysteriously, Elon Musk’s Starshield satellite network, which Ukraine relies upon to shoot down incoming Russian missiles, and his Starlink network, used by Ukrainians to direct their drones, both went dark.

Sign on, Ukraine, to Trump’s peace for our time … or else.

William Skepnek,

Lawrence