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Glenn's Show Prep

Michelle Obama fans the flames of racial tensions during commencement speech

May 11, 2015
Staff

WRITER

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times on radio this morning. Moments after playing the inspiring audio from Denzel Washington, Glenn played another commencement speech. But rather than deliver an uplifting and inspiring message, Michelle Obama fanned the flames of racial tension.

GLENN: Now, the worst of times. Here is -- and I just want to emphasize, the woman who is married to the most powerful man in the world, the First Lady of the United States of America.

MICHELLE: Because while we've come so far, the truth is that those age-old problems are stubborn. And they haven't fully gone away. So there will be times, just like for those airmen, when you feel like folks look right past you. Or they see just a fraction of who you really are. The world won't always see you in those caps and gowns. They won't know how hard you worked and how much you sacrificed to make it to this day.

PAT: Now, she's speaking to an all-black audience. And speaking of black airmen from Tuskegee about them. And, of course, this never happens to white people. White people never get looked beyond. Everybody always knows how hard a white person has worked. Everybody always knows that. Right? Just amazing.

GLENN: Listen to this list, and tell me this doesn't apply to white people as well.

MICHELLE: The countless hours you spent studying to get this diploma. The multiple jobs you worked to pay for school. The times you had to drive home and take care of your grandma. The evenings you gave up to volunteer at a food bank or organize a campus fundraiser. They don't know that part of you. Instead, they will make assumptions about who they think you are, based on their limited notion of the world.

PAT: Jeez. Wow.

MICHELLE: And my husband and I know how frustrating that experience can be.

GLENN: Can I ask you, Mrs. Obama, the First Lady of the United States of America, who is of a race that is 11 percent of the population. So you were clearly not voted in with just your race, white people in droves went out to vote for you, and you were somehow or another invisible so much that you became the president and First Lady of the United States of America.

PAT: Twice.

GLENN: Tell me about the troubles that you have seen. I mean, it's just remarkable to me. Remarkable. Now, I'm not going to play anymore -- you want to play more?

PAT: There's a lot here. We haven't even gotten to the part where she talks about Baltimore.

GLENN: Well, play the Baltimore part. I can't take --

PAT: Yeah.

MICHELLE: We both felt the sting of those daily slights throughout our entire lives.

GLENN: Stop.

PAT: Nobody else has. No white people has felt that sting. Nobody.

GLENN: No Hispanics. No whites. No Indians. Nobody else. And if you want to say that the Native Americans have felt it and the Hispanics have felt it, but the whites have never felt it. I mean, the conservatives have never felt it. The jobs that we -- that we are suddenly bypassed for because we're conservative. Because of our viewpoint. The religious that are mocked on a daily basis and belittled. Yeah, we've never felt that. We don't know what it's like. Okay. All right.

PAT: And, again, First Lady of the United States of America.

GLENN: Yeah. I'm not comparing -- I'm not comparing what anybody has gone through. The same as slavery. Or the same as what Martin Luther King went through. But we're not the country of Martin Luther King's time anymore. We are being dragged back to those days. And the proof is in the pudding when she starts talking about Baltimore.

MICHELLE: -- cross the street in fear of their safety. The clerks who kept a close eye on us in all those department stores. The people at formal events who assumed we were the help. And those who have questioned our intelligence, our honesty, even our love of this country.

GLENN: Oh, my gosh.

PAT: And why do people do that? We've questioned their honesty and integrity over and over again because of their actions.

GLENN: Because they lie.

PAT: Their honesty is in question because they've lied to us over and over again --

GLENN: And I want to make sure it's very, very clear. When we say "their honesty," we're not talking about black people. We're talking about this particular black person and her husband.

PAT: The Obamas. Yes.

GLENN: And we would question them like we do the Bushes. Like we do with the Clintons. Like we do with the Huckabees. Like we do with -- who else has been on our -- on our list of people to really question? Soros.

PAT: Harry Reid.

GLENN: Harry Reid. Lindsey Graham. John McCain.

PAT: They're liars.

GLENN: Liars.

PAT: And we've proven it over and over again. Now, love of country. That's based on your comments. On your actions. On the history of who you are and what you've done your whole lives.

STU: In the middle of the speech where she's essentially boiling her country down to a place that follows black people around in department stores and executes them as they cross the street, of course, we don't think you like this place. Look at the way you talk about it. You describe it as a horror show.

PAT: Right. She's the one who said, we have to change our history. We have to change our culture. We have to change where we are.

GLENN: Her husband said we have to have a fundamental transformation. I've pointed this out before. You don't go to the Mona Lisa and say I want to fundamentally transform this painting. You say, I want to restore it to its original beauty.

PAT: You don't go to the love of your life -- your wife or husband and say, hey, I really love you, but I want to fundamentally transform everything you are.

GLENN: Everything about you. It just doesn't happen.

MICHELLE: I know that these little indignities are obviously nothing compared to what folks across the country are dealing with every single day. Those nagging worries that you're going to get stopped or pulled over for absolutely no reason.

GLENN: Stop. I want -- I just want you to make a note of what she's saying here. What she's saying here is, you as a black person, you're invisible -- think of this, you're invisible when -- when you want a job or you want to do something, nobody will even see you. But because you're black, you're super, super visible when you're in a store or when you're driving. And they're going to stop you for no reason whatsoever. And you have a justified concern of being stopped for no reason whatsoever. Just make note of what she's saying. Because she's about to get to Baltimore.

MICHELLE: Feared that your job application will be overlooked because of the way your name sounds. The agony of --

GLENN: Like Barack Hussein.

STU: When you're trying to lead the world with a name --

GLENN: While we're at war with a guy named Hussein.

STU: And Osama, which is one letter away of his last name.

PAT: How does she get away with this? How does she get away with a speech like this! It's unbelievable.

GLENN: Nobody's willing to say it.

STU: It's laughable. Can we at least put this into context one more time? All of these things, in the middle of all these things, describing the worst country you've ever heard of in your entire life, she complains that people continually think that she doesn't love the country.

PAT: And it's because she's black that they do that.

STU: It's not because you're black. It's because you keep saying this. This is the only way you ever describe the nation you live in. Of course, people think you despise it.

PAT: Every time.

GLENN: But she thinks -- she's saying that it's only because I'm black that they would question.

STU: Right. And it's not that at all. When you're asked to talk about your country, this is what you do.

PAT: Virtually every time.

STU: You point out every horrible thing that's ever happened and you act like it happens all the time.

PAT: Would anybody question if she loves this country if she would get up and say, and leave it at this, look, I know the country has problems. It always has. And it probably always will. But, look, I -- we -- I and my husband are the first couple of the United States of America where we belong to a group that's 12 percent of the population. And we were elected president and first lady of the United States.

GLENN: So don't get discouraged. Don't get down. You can make it.

PAT: Nobody has done that in the history of the world. But we have gotten there.

GLENN: These two people --

PAT: Jeez.

GLENN: I truly believe, in the history of all mankind, they may go down as at least top ten, maybe top five of people who had the biggest opportunity in the world, in all of history to change things for the better.

PAT: Uh-huh.

GLENN: And they decided to go the other way. They could have changed race relations forever. And they took us back to the 1960s. On grudge politics.

STU: If you played this in a documentary from the 1960s, this speech --

PAT: It would be totally appropriate.

STU: You would have no idea that this country elected a black person. You would have no idea that we made any progress at all. This is boilerplate nonsense from the 1960s.

GLENN: Yes, it is.

MICHELLE: Sending your kids to schools that may no longer be separate, but are far from equal. The realization that no matter how far you rise in life, how hard you work to be a good person, a good parent, a good citizen, for some folks, it will never be enough.

PAT: Wow.

MICHELLE: Those feelings are real. They're rooted in decades of structural challenges that have made too many folks feel frustrated and invisible. And those feelings are playing out in communities like Baltimore and Ferguson and so many others across this country.

PAT: Wow. Wow.

GLENN: So she's saying -- she is saying that the reason why Baltimore is on fire is because people are feeling invisible. They feel like they can't -- they're not being heard. They're not being seen. And she's saying, it's not just that those feelings are real. She's saying, in the beginning of this speech, in the beginning of this paragraph, that that is the truth. So it's one thing to say, you know, I know how you feel. But let me tell you the reality. The reality is, things are getting better. You're not invisible. I'm the First Lady and the president of the United States is my husband. You can make it in this country. Look, the struggle is not gone. The struggle is still there. But you can make it. You can make it. And the worst thing to do is riot in the streets. She's saying the opposite. I know what you feel because I felt it, and even I'm the president's wife and I still feel invisible. I feel like we're not being heard. And so it's -- it's not only your feeling. I validate your feeling. I'm here to tell you, it is happening. And that's why people are rioting in the streets. She is encouraging this kind of behavior.

STU: Yeah. And, first of all, taking something that was real in the 1960s and rehashing it now as if it's still the truth. Honestly, wouldn't you ask, why the hell would you love that country? If that country is real in 2015, I don't love it.

PAT: It sounds terrible.

GLENN: I don't want to live -- I wouldn't be proud of the United States of America if we were doing what we did in Selma, Alabama.

STU: No.

GLENN: I would not be proud of that country.

PAT: The most ironic bit of this is it happened in Tuskegee University.

GLENN: Oh, my gosh. Booker T. Washington is spinning in his grave like a lathe. If you've ever read Up from Slavery, that is one of the greatest men to ever live in America.

PAT: It's the opposite of everything he stood for, believed, and advocated.

GLENN: Absolutely. But I doubt they even teach that anymore.

PAT: I bet not.

GLENN: I bet that's so lost. Even now, if you buy Up from Slavery, the copy that I have, I have an original copy. You go back and you read the -- the new versions, the version I have, the preface is from like some Harvard know-it-all that says, we're not even sure that any of this is even real.

PAT: What?

STU: What do you mean?

PAT: Are they saying he didn't write that?

GLENN: We think that this is mostly made up. He wasn't really a slave.

PAT: What! Oh, my gosh.

STU: Trying to discredit him.

GLENN: Yeah. To totally discredit him now.

PAT: Wow.

GLENN: And he is one of the greatest voices. Every child, black, white, brown, doesn't matter, every child should read Booker T. Washington Up from Slavery. Should know who Booker T. Washington is. Should emulate his actions and his life. That guy had more answers in his pinkie than everybody in Washington has today.

STU: This is sort of separate. We say this many times though that the suspicion is, of many, that she's actually more radical than he is.

GLENN: Yes.

STU: Michelle is more radical than President Obama. This is an interesting piece of this. Because he's been criticized by some in the black community for using the word thug to describe Baltimore and some of these other riots. He's been out there actually using that word. Which MSNBC is calling the new N-word. The President of the United States is using that word to describe some of these people. That's not the vibe here. There's an obvious separation -- either he's completely lying when he's using that because he's using it for some political purpose, or they are at odds on this position.

GLENN: I have a feeling that their upstairs talk is very contentious. I have a feeling -- I don't know whether he believes it or what. But she does believe it. And he's probably saying to her, I'm the president. You don't know what I'm dealing with here. And he may actually believe it. But he's trying to walk a more fine line that she doesn't have to walk.

Hunter laptop, Steele dossier—Same players, same playbook?

ullstein bild Dtl. / Contributor | Getty Images

The Durham annex and ODNI report documents expose a vast network of funders and fixers — from Soros’ Open Society Foundations to the Pentagon.

In a column earlier this month, I argued the deep state is no longer deniable, thanks to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. I outlined the structural design of the deep state as revealed by two recent declassifications: Gabbard’s ODNI report and the Durham annex released by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).

These documents expose a transnational apparatus of intelligence agencies, media platforms, think tanks, and NGOs operating as a parallel government.

The deep state is funded by elite donors, shielded by bureaucracies, and perpetuated by operatives who drift between public office and private influence without accountability.

But institutions are only part of the story. This web of influence is made possible by people — and by money. This follow-up to the first piece traces the key operatives and financial networks fueling the deep state’s most consequential manipulations, including the Trump-Russia collusion hoax.

Architects and operatives

At the top of the intelligence pyramid sits John Brennan, President Obama’s CIA director and one of the principal architects of the manipulated 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment. James Clapper, who served as director of national intelligence, signed off on that same ICA and later joined 50 other former officials in concluding the Hunter Biden laptop had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation” ahead of the 2020 election. The timing, once again, served a political objective.

James Comey, then FBI director, presided over Crossfire Hurricane. According to the Durham annex, he also allowed the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server to collapse after it became entangled with “sensitive intelligence” revealing her plan to tie President Donald Trump to Russia.

That plan, as documented in the annex, originated with Hillary Clinton herself and was personally pushed by President Obama. Her campaign, through law firm Perkins Coie, hired Fusion GPS, which commissioned the now-debunked Steele dossier — a document used to justify surveillance warrants on Trump associates.

Several individuals orbiting the Clinton operation have remained influential. Jake Sullivan, who served as President Biden’s national security adviser, was a foreign policy aide to Clinton during her 2016 campaign. He was named in 2021 as a figure involved in circulating the collusion narrative, and his presence in successive Democratic administrations suggests institutional continuity.

Andrew McCabe, then the FBI’s deputy director, approved the use of FISA warrants derived from unverified sources. His connection to the internal “insurance policy” discussion — described in a 2016 text by FBI official Peter Strzok to colleague Lisa Page — underscores the Bureau’s political posture during that election cycle.

The list of political enablers is long but revealing:

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who, as a former representative from California, chaired the House Intelligence Committee at the time and publicly promoted the collusion narrative while having access to intelligence that contradicted it.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), both members of the “Gang of Eight” with oversight of intelligence operations, advanced the same narrative despite receiving classified briefings.

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, exchanged encrypted text messages with a Russian lobbyist in efforts to speak with Christopher Steele.

These were not passive recipients of flawed intelligence. They were participants in its amplification.

The funding networks behind the machine

The deep state’s operations are not possible without financing — much of it indirect, routed through a nexus of private foundations, quasi-governmental entities, and federal agencies.

George Soros’ Open Society Foundations appear throughout the Durham annex. In one instance, Open Society Foundations documents were intercepted by foreign intelligence and used to track coordination between NGOs and the Clinton campaign’s anti-Trump strategy.

This system was not designed for transparency but for control.

Soros has also been a principal funder of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, which ran a project during the Trump administration called the Moscow Project, dedicated to promoting the Russia collusion narrative.

The Tides Foundation and Arabella Advisors both specialize in “dark money” donor-advised funds that obscure the source and destination of political funding. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was the biggest donor to the Arabella Advisors by far, which routed $127 million through Arabella’s network in 2020 alone and nearly $500 million in total.

The MacArthur Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation also financed many of the think tanks named in the Durham annex, including the Council on Foreign Relations.

Federal funding pipelines

Parallel to the private networks are government-funded influence operations, often justified under the guise of “democracy promotion” or counter-disinformation initiatives.

USAID directed $270 million to Soros-affiliated organizations for overseas “democracy” programs, a significant portion of which has reverberated back into domestic influence campaigns.

The State Department funds the National Endowment for Democracy, a quasi-governmental organization with a $315 million annual budget and ties to narrative engineering projects.

The Department of Homeland Security underwrote entities involved in online censorship programs targeting American citizens.

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

The Pentagon, from 2020 to 2024, awarded over $2.4 trillion to private contractors — many with domestic intelligence capabilities. It also directed $1.4 billion to select think tanks since 2019.

According to public records compiled by DataRepublican, these tax-funded flows often support the very actors shaping U.S. political discourse and global perception campaigns.

Not just domestic — but global

What these disclosures confirm is that the deep state is not a theory. It is a documented structure — funded by elite donors, shielded by bureaucracies, and perpetuated by operatives who drift between public office and private influence without accountability.

This system was not designed for transparency but for control. It launders narratives, neutralizes opposition, and overrides democratic will by leveraging the very institutions meant to protect it.

With the Durham annex and the ODNI report, we now see the network's architecture and its actors — names, agencies, funding trails — all laid bare. What remains is the task of dismantling it before its next iteration takes shape.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

The truth behind ‘defense’: How America was rebranded for war

PAUL J. RICHARDS / Staff | Getty Images

Donald Trump emphasizes peace through strength, reminding the world that the United States is willing to fight to win. That’s beyond ‘defense.’

President Donald Trump made headlines this week by signaling a rebrand of the Defense Department — restoring its original name, the Department of War.

At first, I was skeptical. “Defense” suggests restraint, a principle I consider vital to U.S. foreign policy. “War” suggests aggression. But for the first 158 years of the republic, that was the honest name: the Department of War.

A Department of War recognizes the truth: The military exists to fight and, if necessary, to win decisively.

The founders never intended a permanent standing army. When conflict came — the Revolution, the War of 1812, the trenches of France, the beaches of Normandy — the nation called men to arms, fought, and then sent them home. Each campaign was temporary, targeted, and necessary.

From ‘war’ to ‘military-industrial complex’

Everything changed in 1947. President Harry Truman — facing the new reality of nuclear weapons, global tension, and two world wars within 20 years — established a full-time military and rebranded the Department of War as the Department of Defense. Americans resisted; we had never wanted a permanent army. But Truman convinced the country it was necessary.

Was the name change an early form of political correctness? A way to soften America’s image as a global aggressor? Or was it simply practical? Regardless, the move created a permanent, professional military. But it also set the stage for something Truman’s successor, President Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower, famously warned about: the military-industrial complex.

Ike, the five-star general who commanded Allied forces in World War II and stormed Normandy, delivered a harrowing warning during his farewell address: The military-industrial complex would grow powerful. Left unchecked, it could influence policy and push the nation toward unnecessary wars.

And that’s exactly what happened. The Department of Defense, with its full-time and permanent army, began spending like there was no tomorrow. Weapons were developed, deployed, and sometimes used simply to justify their existence.

Peace through strength

When Donald Trump said this week, “I don’t want to be defense only. We want defense, but we want offense too,” some people freaked out. They called him a warmonger. He isn’t. Trump is channeling a principle older than him: peace through strength. Ronald Reagan preached it; Trump is taking it a step further.

Just this week, Trump also suggested limiting nuclear missiles — hardly the considerations of a warmonger — echoing Reagan, who wanted to remove missiles from silos while keeping them deployable on planes.

The seemingly contradictory move of Trump calling for a Department of War sends a clear message: He wants Americans to recognize that our military exists not just for defense, but to project power when necessary.

Trump has pointed to something critically important: The best way to prevent war is to have a leader who knows exactly who he is and what he will do. Trump signals strength, deterrence, and resolve. You want to negotiate? Great. You don’t? Then we’ll finish the fight decisively.

That’s why the world listens to us. That’s why nations come to the table — not because Trump is reckless, but because he means what he says and says what he means. Peace under weakness invites aggression. Peace under strength commands respect.

Trump is the most anti-war president we’ve had since Jimmy Carter. But unlike Carter, Trump isn’t weak. Carter’s indecision emboldened enemies and made the world less safe. Trump’s strength makes the country stronger. He believes in peace as much as any president. But he knows peace requires readiness for war.

Names matter

When we think of “defense,” we imagine cybersecurity, spy programs, and missile shields. But when we think of “war,” we recall its harsh reality: death, destruction, and national survival. Trump is reminding us what the Department of Defense is really for: war. Not nation-building, not diplomacy disguised as military action, not endless training missions. War — full stop.

Chip Somodevilla / Staff | Getty Images

Names matter. Words matter. They shape identity and character. A Department of Defense implies passivity, a posture of reaction. A Department of War recognizes the truth: The military exists to fight and, if necessary, to win decisively.

So yes, I’ve changed my mind. I’m for the rebranding to the Department of War. It shows strength to the world. It reminds Americans, internally and externally, of the reality we face. The Department of Defense can no longer be a euphemism. Our military exists for war — not without deterrence, but not without strength either. And we need to stop deluding ourselves.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Censorship, spying, lies—The Deep State’s web finally unmasked

Chip Somodevilla / Staff | Getty Images

From surveillance abuse to censorship, the deep state used state power and private institutions to suppress dissent and influence two US elections.

The term “deep state” has long been dismissed as the province of cranks and conspiracists. But the recent declassification of two critical documents — the Durham annex, released by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), and a report publicized by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard — has rendered further denial untenable.

These documents lay bare the structure and function of a bureaucratic, semi-autonomous network of agencies, contractors, nonprofits, and media entities that together constitute a parallel government operating alongside — and at times in opposition to — the duly elected one.

The ‘deep state’ is a self-reinforcing institutional machine — a decentralized, global bureaucracy whose members share ideological alignment.

The disclosures do not merely recount past abuses; they offer a schematic of how modern influence operations are conceived, coordinated, and deployed across domestic and international domains.

What they reveal is not a rogue element operating in secret, but a systematized apparatus capable of shaping elections, suppressing dissent, and laundering narratives through a transnational network of intelligence, academia, media, and philanthropic institutions.

Narrative engineering from the top

According to Gabbard’s report, a pivotal moment occurred on December 9, 2016, when the Obama White House convened its national security leadership in the Situation Room. Attendees included CIA Director John Brennan, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Secretary of State John Kerry, and others.

During this meeting, the consensus view up to that point — that Russia had not manipulated the election outcome — was subordinated to new instructions.

The record states plainly: The intelligence community was directed to prepare an assessment “per the President’s request” that would frame Russia as the aggressor and then-presidential candidate Donald Trump as its preferred candidate. Notably absent was any claim that new intelligence had emerged. The motivation was political, not evidentiary.

This maneuver became the foundation for the now-discredited 2017 intelligence community assessment on Russian election interference. From that point on, U.S. intelligence agencies became not neutral evaluators of fact but active participants in constructing a public narrative designed to delegitimize the incoming administration.

Institutional and media coordination

The ODNI report and the Durham annex jointly describe a feedback loop in which intelligence is laundered through think tanks and nongovernmental organizations, then cited by media outlets as “independent verification.” At the center of this loop are agencies like the CIA, FBI, and ODNI; law firms such as Perkins Coie; and NGOs such as the Open Society Foundations.

According to the Durham annex, think tanks including the Atlantic Council, the Carnegie Endowment, and the Center for a New American Security were allegedly informed of Clinton’s 2016 plan to link Trump to Russia. These institutions, operating under the veneer of academic independence, helped diffuse the narrative into public discourse.

Media coordination was not incidental. On the very day of the aforementioned White House meeting, the Washington Post published a front-page article headlined “Obama Orders Review of Russian Hacking During Presidential Campaign” — a story that mirrored the internal shift in official narrative. The article marked the beginning of a coordinated media campaign that would amplify the Trump-Russia collusion narrative throughout the transition period.

Surveillance and suppression

Surveillance, once limited to foreign intelligence operations, was turned inward through the abuse of FISA warrants. The Steele dossier — funded by the Clinton campaign via Perkins Coie and Fusion GPS — served as the basis for wiretaps on Trump affiliates, despite being unverified and partially discredited. The FBI even altered emails to facilitate the warrants.

ROBYN BECK / Contributor | Getty Images

This capacity for internal subversion reappeared in 2020, when 51 former intelligence officials signed a letter labeling the Hunter Biden laptop story as “Russian disinformation.” According to polling, 79% of Americans believed truthful coverage of the laptop could have altered the election. The suppression of that story — now confirmed as authentic — was election interference, pure and simple.

A machine, not a ‘conspiracy theory’

The deep state is a self-reinforcing institutional machine — a decentralized, global bureaucracy whose members share ideological alignment and strategic goals.

Each node — law firms, think tanks, newsrooms, federal agencies — operates with plausible deniability. But taken together, they form a matrix of influence capable of undermining electoral legitimacy and redirecting national policy without democratic input.

The ODNI report and the Durham annex mark the first crack in the firewall shielding this machine. They expose more than a political scandal buried in the past. They lay bare a living system of elite coordination — one that demands exposure, confrontation, and ultimately dismantling.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Trump's proposal explained: Ukraine's path to peace without NATO expansion

ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / Contributor | Getty Images

Strategic compromise, not absolute victory, often ensures lasting stability.

When has any country been asked to give up land it won in a war? Even if a nation is at fault, the punishment must be measured.

After World War I, Germany, the main aggressor, faced harsh penalties under the Treaty of Versailles. Germans resented the restrictions, and that resentment fueled the rise of Adolf Hitler, ultimately leading to World War II. History teaches that justice for transgressions must avoid creating conditions for future conflict.

Ukraine and Russia must choose to either continue the cycle of bloodshed or make difficult compromises in pursuit of survival and stability.

Russia and Ukraine now stand at a similar crossroads. They can cling to disputed land and prolong a devastating war, or they can make concessions that might secure a lasting peace. The stakes could not be higher: Tens of thousands die each month, and the choice between endless bloodshed and negotiated stability hinges on each side’s willingness to yield.

History offers a guide. In 1967, Israel faced annihilation. Surrounded by hostile armies, the nation fought back and seized large swaths of territory from Jordan, Egypt, and Syria. Yet Israel did not seek an empire. It held only the buffer zones needed for survival and returned most of the land. Security and peace, not conquest, drove its decisions.

Peace requires concessions

Secretary of State Marco Rubio says both Russia and Ukraine will need to “get something” from a peace deal. He’s right. Israel proved that survival outweighs pride. By giving up land in exchange for recognition and an end to hostilities, it stopped the cycle of war. Egypt and Israel have not fought in more than 50 years.

Russia and Ukraine now press opposing security demands. Moscow wants a buffer to block NATO. Kyiv, scarred by invasion, seeks NATO membership — a pledge that any attack would trigger collective defense by the United States and Europe.

President Donald Trump and his allies have floated a middle path: an Article 5-style guarantee without full NATO membership. Article 5, the core of NATO’s charter, declares that an attack on one is an attack on all. For Ukraine, such a pledge would act as a powerful deterrent. For Russia, it might be more palatable than NATO expansion to its border

Andrew Harnik / Staff | Getty Images

Peace requires concessions. The human cost is staggering: U.S. estimates indicate 20,000 Russian soldiers died in a single month — nearly half the total U.S. casualties in Vietnam — and the toll on Ukrainians is also severe. To stop this bloodshed, both sides need to recognize reality on the ground, make difficult choices, and anchor negotiations in security and peace rather than pride.

Peace or bloodshed?

Both Russia and Ukraine claim deep historical grievances. Ukraine arguably has a stronger claim of injustice. But the question is not whose parchment is older or whose deed is more valid. The question is whether either side is willing to trade some land for the lives of thousands of innocent people. True security, not historical vindication, must guide the path forward.

History shows that punitive measures or rigid insistence on territorial claims can perpetuate cycles of war. Germany’s punishment after World War I contributed directly to World War II. By contrast, Israel’s willingness to cede land for security and recognition created enduring peace. Ukraine and Russia now face the same choice: Continue the cycle of bloodshed or make difficult compromises in pursuit of survival and stability.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.