Political Quotes

“Mr. President, in this Chamber over the last couple of months, we have heard haunting echoes of the past, haunting echoes of Chamberlain going to Munich in 1938 to say to Hitler: Go ahead. Take that slice of Czechoslovakia. We will simply look the other way and declare peace in our time. The parallel is not just haunting, it is scary. Folks advocating for saying to Putin: Just go ahead, take Ukraine. We will look the other way and tackle other challenges. In both cases, you had an authoritarian in Hitler, in Putin, determined to take adjacent land and certainly in Putin's case, determined to crush the democracy of the Republic to the south. Ukrainians speak a language that is a close cousin to Russia. Putin particularly resents the loss of so much territory, so many states that he controlled--or the Soviet Union controlled--not so long ago, and his mission is to reclaim as much as he can. It should be our mission--it is our mission; it is the American mission--to defend democracy in the world, to stand with people who are all about freedom of speech and freedom of assembly and freedom of religion and the freedom to cast a fair ballot to determine their own future. Those are all the values that Putin opposes. So much is at stake here for the future freedom of the people of Ukraine but also for American leadership in the world. If we follow in Chamberlain's footsteps from 1938 and look the other way, where else-- where else--will Putin decide to tackle?…”