What We Haven't Learned

N.B. This article was submitted to the Washington Post as an op-ed and was rejected. Thankfully, it can be published here so readers can access it.

In little more than a month it will be the 85th anniversary of the infamous German and Italian bombing of the Basque city of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War. All should stop for a moment and ponder what we have or have not learned from that massacre of innocent civilians. This town, far from the front lines, was bombed for three and a half hours and civilians were machine gunned from the air. Practically the entire town was destroyed and early reports indicated that hundreds were killed and many more were wounded. This terror attack was truly a war crime. Unfortunately, it was not unique but it is most famous as Pablo Picasso painted his famous work Guernica in reaction to the attack. The painting was exhibited in many countries, and for a time found a home in New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Picasso’s will stipulated that the painting should go to Spain after it became a democracy. It was sent there in 1981 and today is exhibited at Madrid’s Reina Sofia Museum.

This painting, which so vividly expresses the horror of war, is so important that a tapestry of it has been created which is on display immediately outside the United Nations Security Council. One cannot enter that room without seeing it. It cannot be avoided, though attempts have been made to shield it from viewers. All of this is important. But more importantly, one doesn’t have to go to Madrid to see this masterpiece. You can see Guernica every day on television. The slaughter of innocents continues as Russia, a permanent member of the Security Council, mercilessly bombs Ukrainian cities such as Kyiv and Kharkiv among others. The scenes on television are unbelievable. Who in their right mind would have ever dreamt that such a war would take place in Europe? Yet this war is occurring and its human cost is horrible.

What we should have learned from Guernica is that the tyrant’s lust for power and aggrandizement is insatiable. There can be no negotiating with them as they are way ahead of the democracies in planning their next moves. All agree that peace is better than war. No one sane wants war. To have a “No Fly” zone as requested by the legitimate Ukrainian government would go a long way towards stopping the slaughter that is happening at this moment. The refusal of NATO and the United States to enforce such a zone as it would be provocative to Russia is absurd. Watch the television and see what is happening. Russia is provoking the world. A response is necessary. The silence and failure of the democratic west makes Democratic Peace theory a laughing stock as democracies refuse to support a democracy under existential threat. Defensive weapons are fine but they will not bring peace. Think of the “Phony War” of 1939-40 on the western front. Germany, with the USSR’s connivance destroyed Poland, while its guarantors, England and France, did nothing. It is speculative, but an allied attack on Germany from the west may have defeated that nation and avoided the horrors of World War II.

In response to Italy’s brutal attack on Ethiopia in 1935, which included the use of mustard gas, Emperor Haile Selassie appealed to the League of Nations on June 30,1936. He asked the League “what measures do you intend to take?“ There was no effective response.

Now is the time for the world to stand and demonstrate that the nightmare years of the 1930s and World War II mean something. That we have learned that there can be no compromise between freedom and tyranny. That decency and morality mean something. That life cannot go on as usual while your neighbor's house is burning. You must give him a hose to put out the fire. That tyrants never have a last demand . There will always be one more. Appeasement is not a strategy. it is a formula for failure.

President Biden and the leaders of the NATO countries are decent people. But as Henry V in Shakespeare’s play of that name declared “In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man as modest stillness and humility: But when the blast of war blows in our ears, then imitate the action of the tiger”.

There is nothing new under the sun. We’ve been there before. We know all about war, war crimes and atrocities. We hate war and all that goes with it. But, contrary to Bob Marley’s song, it isn’t gonna be alright, unless we demonstrate that we stand for something besides business as usual.

Don’t cry for Ukraine. Cry for humanity. Cry for civilization. And do something meaningful about it! Nothing less than the future of the world is at stake.

Garry S. Sklar

Las Vegas, NV

March 17, 2022