Posted on 05/04/2006 5:36:51 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
Dick Cheney charges Vladimir Putin with limiting freedom and intimidating former Soviet satellites. A sure sign he's right: Russia's last communist premier, Mikhail Gorbachev, cries "provocation."
The most dishonest news story of the 20th century was the cover-up of the Soviet Union's forced famine in the Ukraine in the 1930s by New York Times Moscow correspondent Walter Duranty. The Stalin sympathizer knew as many as 10 million Ukrainians died, yet he wrote that famine was not happening. Disgracefully, his Pulitzer Prize was never revoked and his photo still has a place of honor in the Times' offices.
In a reminder of that horrific past, Russia was starving the Ukraine of natural gas last winter. Speaking Thursday to the pro-democracy Vilnius Conference in Lithuania, Vice President Cheney said: "No legitimate interest is served when oil and gas become tools of intimidation or blackmail. . . . And no one can justify actions that undermine the territorial integrity of a neighbor, or interfere with democratic movements."
Gazprom, a Russian state-owned monopoly, supplies Ukraine with 80% of its natural gas and Europe with about a quarter of its gas. In January, Gazprom cut off supplies...
Like the Ukrainian peasants who were starved for opposing Stalin's collectivization, 21st century Ukrainian voters are being punished for their own defiance of Moscow. Gorbachev's blast-from-the-past reaction that "Cheney's speech looks like a provocation and interference in Russia's internal affairs in terms of its content, form and place" betrays a Soviet-era mind-set: Ukraine hasn't been an "internal" Russian matter for 14 years.
President Putin's government seems more and more reminiscent of the Soviet Union. Its inexcusable assistance to Iran's nuclear program, for instance, reeks of the communist regime's determination in the 20th century to help U.S. enemies everywhere...
Putin is encouraging separatist movements in Georgia, Moldova and Azerbaijan.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
Maybe he should invite Putin on a hunting trip....
"In a reminder of that horrific past, Russia was starving the Ukraine of natural gas last winter. Speaking Thursday to the pro-democracy Vilnius Conference in Lithuania, Vice President Cheney said: "No legitimate interest is served when oil and gas become tools of intimidation or blackmail. . . . And no one can justify actions that undermine the territorial integrity of a neighbor, or interfere with democratic movements."
Nonsense, Nonsense... from what I hear the Ukraine isnt paying market price for the gas, and Yulia timoshenko, the now fired PM of Ukraine made billions selling stolen RUSSIAN gas.
In my book, no-account deadbeats get the meters switched off!
ping
Putin...Joseph Stalin with a make-over and professional image team.
Putin is a communist with a makeover and an image team.
Ping
Great Post - why dont Cheney take Putie pheasant hunting.
and ............ IBTRWC
Frigen Walter Duranty. Hmmm. Haven't heard that commies name mentioned in some time.
We'll see where this all goes.
Russia under Putin has tried to regain influence and reestablish itself as a regional hegemony. The states surrounding Russia are all feeling this reality.
Ukraine
Republic of Georgia
Republics that host US troops are pressured to ask us to leave.
Russia’s support of a pseudo dictator in Belarus…… But he's in their rear pocket so they back him.
The author only hits on a small part of a much larger picture in the last few years.
Backing Hamas
Backing Iran
Backing Syria
What Russia is trying to do is gain influence with these moves. Russia economically gains by it's moves in the Middle East and politically gains as well. They are trying to expand their influence in this region as well as in their former republics.
The hiring of former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder by the state run Gazprom…….. KGB tactics that are reminiscent of the Cold War (Dioxin for Ukraine president, blackmail of foreign diplomats using staged sexual encounters to get this material…).
Russia is playing it both ways. They want the GWOT and support it to a degree, but at the same time they want to profiteer for the situation and politically and economically gain ground and they at the same time try in certain situation to sabotage us. They want the US to deplete its resources. They want the US to get worn down, but at the same time they enjoy the US killing even Chechen fighters in Iraq.
Is Russia the threat of past? No- They don’t have the mass alone and the Warsaw Pact is gone. But are they an ally? No.
Russia who blamed the US as having ulterior oil motives in Iraq turned out to be the one profiteering from the Food for Oil Program and was the nation (along side France –Total and Fina) that had the majority of oil contracts in Iraq. Russia is an energy giant and while they finger point, and say “No blood for oil” (Echoed by many of the people in our allied countries even, it is in reality they that control a major share of the worlds oil supply and even if it is not they that own the real estate, it is their firms that are developing these oil/gas reserves.
I guess what is most disturbing about this situation is how indifferent our own media is to this issue, how poorly informed the public is and how apathetic our allies in Europe (who have the most to loose) are reacting to this.
Russia is a threat once again. They are a threat in that they are willing to accept a nuclear Iran to advance their ambitions of power base expansion.
Other than Vincente Fox, he means.
Like Walter Duranty, the Stalinists dream dies hard.
Listen to the shrill voices and hear their howls for blood.
Whoever said Communism is dead hasn't looked inside the Kremlin.
The KGB pals of Putin are running roughshed all over the country.
Even if not on the payroll, you can hear the howls for flesh here.
A country that is accustomed to nationalist socialism (including communism in Russia) of any kind won't easily be convinced of a better way. Such socialism through Russia's government owned media has been ground into the Russian psyche for a long time.
pong
What a nonsense.
not to mention ukraine's spiggit didn't so much as burp, they started stealing from the german bound gas in the line without interuption, there was no interuption in supplies! what morons buy this ukranian propaganda madness??!
"The most dishonest news story of the 20th century was the cover-up of the Soviet Union's forced famine in the Ukraine in the 1930s by New York Times Moscow correspondent Walter Duranty. The Stalin sympathizer knew as many as 10 million Ukrainians died, yet he wrote that famine was not happening. Disgracefully, his Pulitzer Prize was never revoked and his photo still has a place of honor in the Times' offices."
Why take the photo down? The New York Times is still proud of him and they're still doing the same thing.
Excellent post overall.
"Russia is an energy giant and while they finger point, and say “No blood for oil” (Echoed by many of the people in our allied countries even, it is in reality they that control a major share of the worlds oil supply and even if it is not they that own the real estate, it is their firms that are developing these oil/gas reserves."
As an energy giant, Russia is reaping large rewards from the sky-high price of oil. Meanwhile, prices would not be remotely this high without the Iranian crisis. The Iranian crisis would not exist without Russia---not anything close to its current form. The Russians are given the Iranians ICBMs, built nuclear reactors for them, they are obviously the source of the new high-speed anti-ship torpedoes they have, and they are selling them boatloads of anti-aircraft technology. The Russians created terrorism in the Middle East and the 20th century and now they have been the first major country to welcome a representative from Hamas into their capital. Since terrorism in general boost the price of oil, the Russians also benefit themselves this way.
"I guess what is most disturbing about this situation is how indifferent our own media is to this issue, how poorly informed the public is and how apathetic our allies in Europe (who have the most to loose) are reacting to this."
The MSM is an ally of Russia.
"Whoever said Communism is dead hasn't looked inside the Kremlin.
The KGB pals of Putin are running roughshed all over the country."
Using the word "communism" is getting tricky. Russia is now ruled by the KGB. There's no freedom inside Russia and the Russians are attacking us and our interests all over the world. Their style is different from the Cold War but the threat is still huge. I don't like to call the Russian government communist because they do not any longer have total government control of the economy. In addition, the rule by the KGB is henious, the KGB by itself does not constitute a Communist Party in my view. I realize some people think this is splitting hairs perhaps.
Communism is still very much alive. I would still call China communist because they're still ruled by the Communist Party, though they have modified their control of the economy quite considerably. It looks like Venezuela is moving in a communist direction, quite possibly. The key thing is that there is a massive worldwide alliance against the United States. It also includes Iran. All the governments are totalitarian, but the use of the term communism gets increasingly problematical.
the PPC has been heard from. Tell us more about your personal GULag stories and how you were interrogated by the KGB!
Once again a journalist destroys his own argument by failing to recognize that more than just Ukrainians died because of the Soviets forced collectivization program. And puts nary a word in there about how Stalin was assisted in this crime by Ukrainians (among others).
One cannot decry the Soviet crimes by selectively honoring the victims. That turns an argument that should be undebatable into a political issue setting ethnicities against each other. I have yet to see any Ukrainian leaders decry Soviet crimes that their own countrymen were involved in. But, they're quick to ask ethnic Russians to do so.
I see all the KGB pinkos are here x5452, GarySpcFc..
Do they want to explain $10,000,000 to HAMAS? Terrorist bastards!
Go Cheney!
There's a pattern here that you cannot ignore.
Heres a recent article 4/25/06
http://www.michnews.com/artman/publish/article_12577.shtml
How the Left's Walter Durantys Stalinize the Bush White House
By Doug Schmitz
But that’s exactly what the Left’s Walter Durantys and Dan Rathers, who continue to infiltrate the elite media, still don’t understand about the real cost of freedom: It always carries a price tag the Left thinks America shouldn’t pay – despite their daily abusing the free speech and press they employ to ruin their opponents. In effect, McCarthyism was never really about the so-called “blacklisting” that Communist sympathizers decried, as much as it was about exposing the very enemies that are still trying to destroy the U.S.
Yep - you sure do make your argument by a.) misunderstanding what I wrote, b.) calling me a KGB traitor - a laughable charge, c.) exploiting the very victims of the crimes by callously publishing their pictures in a political debate which robs them of their dignity, and d.) misrepresenting facts about the crime. Russians, Kazakhs, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Poles, Germans, etc., died in this SOVIET crime - to lay sole blame on Russians (when it was a Georgian that ordered it, and it was carried out by Russians, Ukrainians, etc., etc., etc.) shows you are not interested in the actual crime, but rather want to exploit it to further your ethnic based hatred. Sad, really.
Good article. Thanks.
As I've stated many times before on this forum, this is cold war by proxy. So if you're scoring at home the duplicitous communist strategy was 1) feign conversion to democracy, 2) be nice for a few years to start the flow of western capital, 3) rebuild your infrastructure and military with western capital, and 4) back to business as usual.
Ukrainians were 90%+ of those died in Holodomor.
It was ordered from Kremlin, Moscow, Russia not from Ukraine or USA.
And it was instrumented by a Ukranian and a Pole.
Explain Clinton protecting the AlQaeda backed KLA in Kosovo whilst AlQaeda hit the world trade center and bombed American ships.
You once again show your etnic bias. The highest population percentage to die as a result of the Stalinist democide was the Kazakhs - they suffered a huge loss:
Of the 3,963,000 ethnic Kazakhs counted in the 1926 census, somewhere between 1.0 and 1.75 million died. When talking about the percentage of a population such figures cannot be ignored or dismissed - overall they suffered the most but I don't see too many Ukrainians condemning the deaths of Kazakhs or Southern Russians.
One major difference between the democide in Kazakhstan SSR and the Ukrainian SSR - the party officials in Kazakhstan actually tried to help their people by importing grain. They were "rewarded" for these efforts by being purged and executed. In the Ukraine, the Ukrainian party officials did NOTHING to assist their people.
The constant revisionism vis-a-vis the democide (Soviet induced famine) to make it seem as ONLY Ukrainians suffered and ONLY the Russians were to blame does a tremendous disservice to the basic understanding on this horrific crime on people - this democide knew no borders and did not single out ethnicities. The victims, may they always be properly remembered, were those who resided in majority agricultural areas - the Ukrainians, Southern Russians, and Kazakhs ALL suffered and died NOT because they were Ukrainians, Southern Russians, or Kazakhs but because of what they were - farmers who were able to survive without government assistance and this was enemy number 1 to an ideology that wanted to bring each and every person under their tight and unwielding control.
Well, that makes it o.k., then. /sarc
The point is the soviet union was NOT only Russians, the vast majority of the soviet upper echelons were jews under lenin, and ukranians under stalin.
"It was ordered from Kremlin, Moscow, Russia not from Ukraine or USA."
By using your logic on this issue it would be accurate then to say that the Ukraine is guilty for all of Eastern Europe being enslaved by the Soviets since the "War Powers" carved up the spoils of WWII in Yalta.
"Well, that makes it o.k., then. /sarc"
That's not what anyone on here is trying to say. The bottom line is the SOVIET famine in Ukraine, Southern Russia, Kazakhstan, the Kavkaz, etc., was a SOVIET crime perpetuated by members of every major ethnic group in the Soviet Union UPON members of every major ethnic group in the Soviet Union. The Kazakhs suffered the most (proportionally), then the Ukrainians, and Southern Russians. The famine was a case of demicide and not necessarily genocide - the differences in these two crimes is worth noting.
That one ethnic group - the Ukrainians - would want to make this solely a nationality based argument is dishonest and is a huge disservice to those who a.) want to honor the victims, and b.) want to ensure governments are never allowed to perpetuate such horric crimes upon people. You can find numerous sources in the Russian Federation that denounce and decry Soviet crimes and the Russians who were involved in them. Try finding a source in Ukraine that does the same - it is nowhere to be found. Until such a time that ALL former Soviet republics come clean with their criminal complicity in the crimes of the Soviet Union there will be NO proper accounting for the same. And that's what is so damn sad and discouraging.
The PPC rears its ugly head again.
KGB is trying to minimize the genocide they were part of for 70 years.
You are not going to fool anybody!
Pinko commies go package some Top-M1 for Iran or go kiss your KGB masters rear!
I'd also like to see a condemnation of not only the Soviet crimes, but Nazi crimes in which some residing in the Soviet Union gleefully took part in:
"In the German-occupied Soviet territories local units represented over 80% of the available German forces providing a total of nearly 450,000 personnel organised in so-called "Schutzmanschaft" formations. Practically all of these units participated in the round-ups and mass-shootings. The overwhelming majority were recruited in the western Ukraine and the Baltic region, areas recently occupied by the Soviets for which the Jews were typically scapegoated, exacerbating existing anti-Semitic attitudes. Thus for instance, Ukrainian nationalists killed 4,000 Lviv Jews in July 1941, and an additional 2,000 in late July 1941 during the so-called Petliura Days pogrom German Einsatzgruppen, together with Ukrainian auxiliary units, killed 33,000 Kievan Jews in Babi Yar in September 1941. Ukrainian auxiliaries participated in a number of killings of Jews, among them in Romanian concentration camps in Bogdanovka and in Latvia."
You really don't understand much do you? What is actually happening is Americans (that's me, GarySpFc, x5452) are trying to get "former" Soviets - such as you, and your brethern Ukrainian nationalists to ADMIT Ukrainian participation in the crimes (Soviet and Nazi) against humanity. Soviet crimes are despicable and all who were involved should be condemned and punished. That includes Ukrainians who were complicit in these crimes, and like the Russians, enjoyed the percs of being a "Slav" in the Soviet Union.
You are a phoney, because you're putting your "homeland" (I'm assuming the Ukraine) ahead of your adopted homeland. Instead of denouncing communist crimes, you make it a Russian crime vs. a Ukrainian victim which is absolutely ludicrous. In this American's view, the Ukrainian communists are just as despicable as the Russian communists - I put you all in the same category - "Soviets" and as such you were my enemy throughout the duration of the Cold War and those who put their "former" country over the goals and aspirations of America and engage in nationalistic hate mongering on behalf of their former country are NOT true to the oath they took when they swore allegience to America.
So, with this in mind, it is you who have betrayed your adopted land. Shame on you. And shame on you for labeling Americans who actually served their country as traitors because they dare to criticize your "former" country. Your loyalty to your former country obviously clouds your judgment and I suspect you are not truly a loyal American. Go gack to your Banderovtsy if that's what you are pining for. And if you are a "native" American, i.e., born here and you are chosing to put the Ukrainian nationalist position over the US - double shame on you.
When Pol Pot kills hundreds of thousands the MSM does not care: “Vietnam was wrong”. When in Sudan you have hundreds of thousands killed and 3 million refugees, the media does not care: “No blood for oil”. When Russia enables a totalitarian regime to gain access to long range missiles and nuclear weapons the MSM does not care: “This war will be also fought under wrong pretences”.
Our MSM is full of buffoons. They see a small picture, don’t know what they are reporting on (are no SME’s), they press their agenda (They have pro left political economic orientation usually), need conflict to make a story (Conflict is at the heart of any good story that sells), distrust the government but give people like Muqtar Al Sadr equal credibility in their reporting, are easily manipulated, sometimes collaborate even with the enemy (CNN not reporting on events just so they can stay in Baghdad as the “exclusive” news channel there), they have no professional code of ethics, licensing or even formal education that is required. The MSM sees themselves as “professionals” but in reality are a bunch of clowns. Once uncovered most are like Dan Rather – a deep voice, expensive suit and hair cut, someone who can speak clearly at 170 words per minute and sound very knowledgeable; but in reality knows very little. “Talking Heads” is a very appropriate description. Occasionally you have an O’Reily who has unstructured conversation on his show and must think on his own two feet – he really is smart, but is also a small minority out there. For the most part, they read off of a teleprompter and are nothing but an aesthetic mouthpiece for that news corporation ( i.e. CNN news anchor) wants to put out. Turner = democrat, the Raging Cajun = democrat, guess what? Bush got bad media coverage by the self proclaimed neutral and objective CNN during the last elections.
Our MSM pushes it’s agendas and has long ago left the realm of “reporting”. They are today best described as “entertainment” which in is speckled with advertisement that brings in their revenue. What’s the difference between the Sally Jesse Raphael Show and Prime Time? Not much.
How many in the MSM today look back and see the Cold War in it’s full picture and context for what it really was? How many put Iraq into context of the larger GWOT today? How many really care about the involvement of Russia in Iran? Often news stories are written after the spin has already been determined. How many reporters go to Iraq to report about something positive or about the daily life there? The stories picked up by our MSM are only those that some politician can capitalize on or that the MSM thinks they can sell. Pictures often make the story; the context is then later made to fit the agenda of the media. Is Russia’s involvement in Iran something the MSM can sell? No. Hence it gets a little coverage, despite in reality being a huge event.
But all that said. Our MSM is still better than the case is in MOST of the world where the state owns or controls the media completely or to a high degree. In most places the MSM is nothing more than a sounding board of the “party-line” whatever that may be. Even our allies fall into this boat. Germany, France…… near all have largely state influenced media in their nation. It’s no coincidence that Schroeder said: “Iraq war wrong” and within two days ALL their state run media outlets were saying the same things, in fact the same message was being put out in a synchronized fashion. Coincidence? Hardly. So while our MSM is full of buffoons, not to confuse with baboons. At least they are no state run mechanism that feeds us government cheese as in Russia today.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.