Tom Toles for March 25, 2014

Just making up his mind. A few more slices?

Why stop at a small slice? Why not go whole hog? That’s how Hitler started: a piece of France, “annex” Austria . . .

Actually, a pretty lousy analogy. A better one is this: Germany and Austria get carved up after WWI, and a new country, Czechoslovakia, is created. Germans resent the loss of “their” territory. The narrow mountainous strip containing most of Czechoslovakia’s border defenses is inhabited by ethnic Germans. Having first absorbed Austria into a new German state, and in the name of “self-determination” Germany demands that this piece ground, the Sudetenland, be “reunited” with the new larger Germany. There is a crisis, but in the end, the rest of the world acquiesces despite treaties to protect Czechoslovakia’s borders. The ethnic Germans in the Sudetenland cheer their “liberation” from Czechoslovakia. England declares the crisis averted and “Peace in Our Time.” When 1939 began, that was the situation. If it has stopped there, the parallel would be pretty good. We might today even be saying that it all ended pretty well for everybody. Of course, it didn’t there. The German took the rest of Czechoslovakia without much of a fight a few months later, and then began talking about the poor ethnic Germans in Danzig and how Germans were being persecuted in Poland and … If the Ukrainians pull out of Crimea and nothing else happens, perhaps this is really no big deal. In spite of the illegitimacy of the plebiscite, and the violation of international law. The real question is: has Putin “no more territorial demands to make in Europe”?

He was blue, and wanted a new lane

So he thought he’d annex the UkraineWhile the world sits. Putin out his hitsDifferent countries but they all askWhere can they get natural gas masksAnd the world sits. Putin out his hits

I was born in 1940. I think this is where I came in.

that should be obama, not putin, choosing at the meat counter. get it right toles

Shouldn’t that be a salami he’s slicing?

Doughfoot: As one of the few who remember those days, I also remember a definition at the time: “plebiscite: say yes in any way you wish”..Night-Gaunt49: Albert Einstein, in response to an interview question on what the weapons of WW-III would be. He said he couldn’t predict WW-III, but knew those of WW-IV.

Who is supposed to be playing the butcher? (Yeah, I know. They don’t come butcher than Putin. Ha, Ha.)

Hey Bilword, do you even read the news? I don’t see Obama slicing and dicing Ukraine, or any other country. Maybe you mean W? Iraq, Afghanistan, “I don’t think about” Osama Bin Laden?

BTW: Let’s send our navy through the Bosporus to show Putin we mean business! Oops! ONLY ONE WAY IN AND OUT!And yet John McCain says it’s too bad there’s no military solution. Maybe if we send him over there to wreck a few more jets?

Is that Pharrell behind the counter? Nice hat!

Shouldn’t that be Obama behind the meat counter?

Night-Gaunt49: There are always survivors. The question is how many and whether they can survive the loss of artifacts and infrastructure of "modern civilization.

Hitler took the Alsace-Lorraine territory from France, claiming it belonged to Germany. He annexed Austria under the same guise. What are you talking about?