Posted on 05/11/2005 2:35:00 PM PDT by Lukasz
May 11, Moscow (RIA Novosti political commentator Pyotr Romanov). The VE Day celebrations left an ambiguous aftertaste.
On the one hand, the holiday was a success. For the first time, veterans seemed to be in the center of attention, as they deserved to be. In the past, veterans' medals were merely a decorative attribute for the top officials of the country.
Still, there is a fly in the ointment.
Our WWII and current ally in the anti-terrorist coalition, the United States, decided to teach Russians a lesson of true democracy in the run-up to the gala event. As usual, the Americans did not take the trouble of choosing the time, place and the appropriate tone. Political correctness has never been Washington's strong point. President Bush who recently surrounded Russia with an entire breed of "Bush men", i.e. countries that meet America's democratic requirements, chose to precede his Moscow visit with a trip to Latvia, and crowned his tour with Georgia. In both countries, he not unfavorably heard numerous insulting remarks about Russia.
Shortly before his arrival in Moscow, Bush said he supported the Baltic nations' demand to replace the word "liberation" with "occupation." In other words, in the midst of the VE Day celebrations the Russians were advised to assume the name of "occupants" and repent of the Molotov-Ribbenthrop Pact. However, the Americans forgot or preferred to forget that the pact had long been condemned by the Russians and, moreover, was preceded by the Munich agreement.
The hear-nothing, see-nothing and remember-nothing principle can be a big advantage in politics. The "leader of global democracy", for example, failed to notice Soviet veterans in Riga who fought side by side with American soldiers against the Nazis. Nor did he seem to see Latvian SS veterans who, blessed by the Latvian authorities, march proudly along the streets of an EU country. Surprisingly, the U.S. leader did not drop in to shake hands with the Lithuanian president, Valdas Adamkus, who is the only surviving head of state who fought for Nazi Germany in WWII. In August-October 1944, Adamkus served in the 2nd regiment of the brigade headed by Wehrmacht Colonel Georg Mader. Bush should have also visited the empty synagogue in Vilnius. Before the war, Jews dominated the population of Vilnius, but none of them have survived thanks to people like Adamkus and Mader. He could also have called in at Estonia to meet Estonian SS veterans, who were laying flowers to their "brothers-in-arms."
Politics is a dirty business. On the following day, Bush was standing next to our veterans and smiling brightly at the "occupants" carrying the Red Banner that was hoisted over Reichstag in 1945. A few hours later, he was listening to Mikhail Saakashvili in Tbilisi. The speaker did not hesitate to rank Russia together with the Persians who, incidentally, exterminated most of the Georgian population. Saakashvili, one of the "Bush men," decided to interpret history in a convenient way, forgetting that the Georgians had begged the Russian tsar for many years to include them in the Russian empire, which then happened. Bush listened carefully to this nonsense, as he did not study Georgian history at school. Saakashvili, in turn, lied to his guest with inspiration. The latter was pleased. The Russians were not.
The Russians have nothing against repentance. But it is something that should be done together. Tony Blair, for example, could bend down too in front of the Czechs and apologize for the Munich agreement whose co-authors were Chamberlain and Hitler, and for Churchill and Stalin cynically dividing East Europe. Adamkus and Estonian SS legionnaires could join him. Vaira Vike-Freiberga, a lady in black, should also ask for forgiveness, for she, as the Latvian president who is not indifferent to SS, spends no money at all on preserving the Salaspils death camp in a sign of indifference to its victims.
A recent television program showed an interview with a Latvian nationalist historian who said that calling Salaspils "where thousands of people died a death camp is tantamount to insulting the victims of Auschwitz, who were in the millions." It is an interesting logic for a person who considers himself to be a democrat. Salaspils was a death camp for children, who were used for all sorts of experiments and whose blood was pumped out for Nazi soldiers. Of course, the camp outside Riga could be renamed into "children's Auschwitz", if it so pleases Vike-Freiberga and the "math professor".
As for the U.S. president, he probably knows deep in his heart what American sins are all about: bleeding Iraqi children alone would have long wiped the smile off anyone else's face.
Hence, the Russians are ready to take a closer look at their history, and do justice to everyone. For example, Vike-Freiberga could have back the infamous Latvian snipers with Russian blood on their hands, and Saakashvili - Stalin and Beria. So why not repent, together?
I agree that the article misses W's biggest point, that liberation is not what it's called when the liberators don't leave, and don't allow self-determination for the liberated.
Thay's called tyranny, occupation, and repression.
The Russians are still in denial about communism, they can't fathom that their country's leaders were responsible for almost as much misery as Hitler, and for a longer period of time.
The Russians are having a bit of difficulty coming to grips with the realities of their collusion with pre-War Nazi Germany (and with their actions after the war). This debate is relatively new for them and quite a large portion of the population doesn't want to believe it. After all, we in the West have had decades to debate Chamberlain and Appeasement and Roosevelt's giving Stalin Eastern Europe (The article wrongly laid that on Churchill). Of course, the author conviently forgot about Pres. Bush lamenting Roosevelt's actions...
That's because Bush shook hands with him in Riga on this trip, having made a state visit to Lithuania a year or so ago.
But you must admit, claiming that anyone who fought Communists a Nazi is classic.
Neo-Nazis are complaining about our defeat of Germany in WWII, saying that it wasn't fair to defeat poor Hitler while allowing Russia to expand and take other countries.
And they don't mention the Nazi-Soviet Pact or the fact that our President is preventing Russian desire for expansionism now.
"Neo-Nazis are complaining about our defeat of Germany in WWII, saying that it wasn't fair to defeat poor Hitler while allowing Russia to expand and take other countries. "
No - it is intelligent humans that are demanding the realization that leftist obfuscation allowed the Communist Genocide to start in 1921 - giving rise to the Nazis and WWII and the Cold War which liquidated 130 million in the last century
"The Russians are still in denial about communism"
Agreed. They think that communism had nothing to do with them, with "real" Russia. In 1917 Russia was taken over by some indeterminate international conspiracy (presumably Jewish), and for the next 70 years Russians lived as a kind of zombi-nation. Now that the nightmare is over they can happily forget about everything, and about grievances of their neighbours (whom they conquered and oppressed in the meantime) in the first place.
No, really, the neo-Nazis are saying that we shouldn't have fought Hitler at all. Check this out.
Was World War II worth it? (Buchanan barf alert)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1401044/posts
IMO, we should have stopped both Germany and Russia, if we could have. But we couldn't then. So we're stopping Russia from expanding now. And communism didn't cause the poor, victim (irony, sarcasm) Nazis to become Nazis. They were socialists, too, and made their pact with Russia.
Communism, Nazism--same thing for any consideration on stopping them.
Nazis were not and are not simply "intelligent humans." They were and are pigs as much as the communists.
"The Russians have nothing against repentance. But it is something that should be done together"
Classic communist argument by fallacy - Straw Dog, straw men, blah, blah, blah.
How dare they equate a regime that liquidated 30 million and helped export the genoicide of another 70 milllion --with the United States of America that exports Freedom and Democracy.
Did we help create a Red China that murdered 60 million of its own? Or a Cuba that is reverting to the Stone Age?
Or did we take a Fascist Germany and Japan and turn them into prosperous and free partners?
Sad to say that this Kremlin mentality is dooming the Russian people - and after things were so promising just a few years ago before Putin.
Joe Stalin was a Georgian, not a Russian.
"Joe Stalin was a Georgian, not a Russian."
And so what? Ekaterina II was a German, President Eisenhower was German, the current Governor of California is ..what? German? And so what?
Stalin ruled from Moscow, Russians loved him as a kind of surrogate Czar, Russian was an official language in all the countries of the empire. Stalin was a russian Tsar, there's no two ways about it.
The point is that the Soviet Union was not an exclusively Russian institution. Communism attracted people from many different ethnic groups. It was internationalist in outlook.
So the image that the MSM portrays of poor little Georgia fille with patriotic peasants, dominated by the evil Russian masters, is just bunk.
Each of the former soviet republics contributed its share to the communist cadre, and in the case of Georgia, specifically, it contributed the evilist tyrant of the lot.
"So the image that the MSM portrays of poor little Georgia fille with patriotic peasants, dominated by the evil Russian masters, is just bunk."
In this case specifically, the picture portrayed by MSM is true. Stalin treated Georgians exactly the same way as Russians, i.e. like dirt, but he was a Russian leader nonetheless. How many Georgians has he introduced into the highest ranks of Russian communist party? Zero, zilch.
By the way, the first boss of NKVD was Dzherzhinsky, a Pole. Does it mean that Poles should be happy with NKVD slaughtering them (us - I'm a Pole for the record) just because one of its founders was a Pole?
Joe Stalin wasn't a Russian. He was a Georgian and joined the Georgian communist party while a student in Tiblisi. His early revolutionary work was in Georgia and the Caucasus, not in Russia. He later became the General Secretary of the Communist party and effectively dictator of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
Lavrenty Beria, who brought Georgians into the NKVD after purging it in the '30s.
Well, of course Stalin was not Russian. Have I said anything else? You say Beria brought Georgians into NKVD. I believe you, but what does it matter?
My point is: USSR was a continuation of czarist Russian Empire, and today's Russia is a continuation of USSR. Can you deny this?
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