Posted on 09/13/2013 3:14:49 AM PDT by Kaslin
Vladimir Putin is currently cashing in on an ill-advised promise made when two presidents thought no one was listening. You may recall President Obama’s whispered assurance, back in March of 2012, to then Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev: “This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility.”
We are now witnessing that promised flexibility. America’s foreign policy is becoming a caricature—international affairs according to Gumby.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is a mix of Joseph Stalin and Lavrenty Beria---an experienced strongman and savvy intelligence officer. He is hardly someone to be impressed by “flexibility.” Vladimir is all about power and the expansion of Russian influence on the world. He also enjoys it when America looks bad. It makes him smile—sort of.
A while back, I read Michael Dobbs’ account of what happened when the “Big Three”—Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin—met at Yalta to carve up what was left of Europe. The book is called, Six Months in 1945: From World War to Cold War. I heartily recommend it to anyone wondering if history repeats itself, or at least rhymes.
Dobbs gives a wonderfully detailed account of a weak president being bested by a determined Soviet dictator. FDR gave territory and history away to a ruthless tyrant. A war that started, in part, with a Soviet invasion of Poland, ended with Soviet dominance of Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe.
Now with Vladimir Putin inserting himself in a grand way into the current Syria crisis, not to mention joining the editorial staff of the New York Times, the voice of Yogi Berra can be heard crying in the wilderness: “It’s déjà vu all over again.”
We must learn from history’s clock. It was dangerous and wrong to trust the Russians back then, and it is dangerous and wrong to trust them now.
In May of 1945, George Kennan was an American diplomat living and working in Moscow. Most Cold War buffs know very well of Kennan’s memo writing skills. His February 1946 “long telegram” is considered to be one of the seminal documents of the Cold War. In it, he described the Soviet Union’s “neurotic view of world affairs” and the “instinctive Russian sense of insecurity,” not to mention their, “secretiveness and conspiracy.”
But ten months earlier, Kennan wrote a memo that was largely overlooked at the time due to his relatively insignificant role as “nothing more than a highly competent clerk.” It is, in fact, that memo Mr. Obama and team should revisit right now. In language similar to what he would use in 1946, he bluntly acknowledged that Joseph Stalin knew just what buttons to push to get the United States to do his bidding. The Russians were already manipulating reality and events and had been all along. Kennan wrote: “They observe with gratification that in this way a great people can be led, like an ever-hopeful suitor, to perform one act of ingratiation after the other without ever reaching the goal which would satisfy its ardor and allay its generosity.”
Franklin Roosevelt gave the store away to Mr. Stalin and company at Yalta. His inexperienced successor, Mr. Truman, didn’t do much better at Potsdam. But of course, they were dealing with a Soviet dictator and we are dealing with Vladimir Putin. Putin is nothing like Stalin, right?
Actually, Mr. Putin has more in common with the pock-faced “man of steel”—referred to at times by Roosevelt and later Truman as “Uncle Joe”—than most people care to notice. He is driven by power and is one dangerous dude. The decision to portray him in sinister terms in my novel, Camelot’s Cousin, was not just a fictional tool, but rooted in scary reality. There are good guys and bad guys in the world. And then there are dumb guys who can’t tell the difference. They may be the most dangerous of all.
As President Obama looks for solutions in Syria and the Middle East by dancing with Vladimir Putin, he is looking for love in all the wrong places.
Sixty-eight years ago, it took a glorified clerk and a recently-booted-out-of-office politician to remind the world that Russia could not be trusted. Kennan wrote his telegrams. And Winston Churchill gave a speech about “the sinews of peace” and that ominous “Iron Curtain.”
In many ways, the key to the present crisis and future success is a good long look at the past.
Vlad checkmated Obama.
He sure did
America. This is what you get when you elect a half-ass excuse for a President.
America reached its pinnacle in white guilt and coupled that with black racism and liberal know-it-all-ism and crowned him King - twice! Yet, with great narcissistic ‘I am never wrong’ aplomb, he has relegated himself to being King of the Crapper, IMO.
In the past, we largely sent out real men to deal with dictators like Putin. This time we sent a boy, and Putin is wiping his ass with him.
“In the past, we largely sent out real men to deal with dictators like Putin. This time we sent a boy, and Putin is wiping his ass with him.”
For the first time in my life I’m proud of Russia (and I’m not Russian); this guy got to publicly say what Obama’s media has squelched for years. Our president is a joke, and looks more like the caricature of GW Bush painted by the Dems every day. He should give his peace prize to Putin; he avoided a war under false pretenses...
Speaking at a White House News conference on Friday, he [Obama] said his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin reminded him of bored schoolboy. While insisting that he does not have bad personal relations with Putin, Mr Obama called on members of the press to assess Mr Putin's body language. President Obama described it as a "kind of slouch, looking like the bored kid in the back of the classroom."
That column in the paper, if nothing else, was payback.
Actually I’ve been thinking and pondering for a number of days about the politics of this war and the potential Biblical implications as well.
I am glad some FReepers are realizing 0bama/Kerry just got punked and will continue to be punked by Putin/Assad. Putin is not a man of peace, he is a man of power. He claims to want to protect Christians and kill jihadists etc. One should be very careful around this false messiah that one is not deceived.
Second, America must be made small on the world stage in the first part of the tribulation. And to that end we see that very thing happening with 0bama’s words and threats being torn apart like a paper tiger.
Lastly, this morning on local radio they are discussing moving/deploying antiballistic missile systems to an area less than 50 miles away from me. I can’t help but consider the threat of ‘catastrophic consequences’ we’ve heard in the past few weeks.
That's 0bama's problem right there...he is relies on the press to do assessments of his enemies instead of his government profilers.
It sure was
I’ve seen a few pics of Obama and Putin together .... the one with the body language ‘issues’ has always been Obama. Lately, his body language has been looking decidedly ‘pretzel-like’ .... no doubt due to Putin taking advantage of that extra ‘flexibility’ Obama said he’d have if he was re-elected.
Some years ago I heard the phrase “Political correctness will be the death of us all.” I scoffed at it at the time, but now I think it may well be true.
When obama wanted to show Putin ‘who’s the man,’ he met with Russian homo activists...
Our government has grown corrupt and power mad and they have divided and created hate amongst the people so that they can control the populace and cement their power and control over the wealth and those all important votes.
Much of what Putin says about our country is true. The liberals in both parties have denied GOD and allied with satan. You all know this is true. Gay marriage, outlawing anything dealing with GOD, protecting those that worship satan and wish to kill us and our way of life while illegally using every power of the government to suppress our ability to work within the system to defeat them.
Vlad here does not understand Americans... he understands the US Government but he does not know what makes us EXCEPTIONAL. We landed men on the moon and returned many times... the rooskies have not and may never... and the chicoms will probably leave a few mausoleums on the moon when they try. We did this because AMERICANS went to work and got her done... not because some government puke demanded it be done... they did it in spite of the government and not because of it. We will be back Vlad... and we have much in common with the Russian people. I suggest you remember that and try not to piss us off. We have long memories and longer knives. BTW Vlad, we despise obama and his government more than you ever could. You need to understand that also.
Good grief! Now we have this neo-con Troskyite comparing obuma to FDR. Talk about serving the dregs to your readership...
While i am walking a dangerous road and probably will have a ban for that i just had to ask, because i am rather concerned with “we are soooo special” posts -
“We landed men on the moon and returned many times... the rooskies have not and may never”
Well and we (rather, my great ancestors) send first sputnik in space, send first man in space, our man was the first to make a spacewalk and our people were first to establish space station. We created first civil nuclear station and created nuclear-powered ice-breaker.
Should we constantly brag about it and say how special we are?
Any nation, that managed to establish a country, cultue and language (and survive the test of time) is special. And every nation can teach other thing or two.
“I suggest you remember that and try not to piss us off. We have long memories and longer knives”
Great peacefull meassge here.
Can’t we all just get along?
He should never play chess with the Russians, they are really good at it.
No sheet, this author is right on, our idiot administration is getting pushed around and manipulated by the Russin killer-torturer
Why compare Putin to mass murderers Stalin and Beria? Why remind readers of Yalta, which enslaved half of Europe? Putin hasn’t done that.
This reads like it was written by an Obama supporter throwing a tantrum.
Hey, I have many Russian friends that I have made over several decades and through Amateur Radio. I respect them and some of them are as close to me as brothers. A few moved here and to Canada after the Soviet Union collapsed. You sound a bit like Chekov on Star Trek I. :-)
What I said is the truth. We are special people pal... we always have been. We are special because of how we decided long ago to live together and under what kind of system that would govern us. Our first coinage had on it “Mind your own business”. The problems that we have today are caused by an out of control federal government that has grown too large and too powerful and violates the tenets under which we were founded. We will return our republic to its righteous path.
You show me any document that is as touched by GOD HIMSELF as our Constitution is. Yes the Russian people have made many accomplishments and if they had not had the iron boot of stalin on their necks, there is no limit to what they could have done.
WE are not always talking about how special we are... PUTIN BROUGHT IT UP and I pointed out that Putin does no know why we are exceptional. He got it wrong in his ny slimes editorial. obama is not exceptional... our federal government is not exceptional... they have grown evil and corrupt and are trying to morph into what the Russians threw off through their revolution. Conservatives are trying to reverse that trend and return our country to it Foundational Principles.
I think that if you read my post again, I make several respectful remarks to the Russian people. I wish we were allied in many efforts including a manned mission to Mars and the eradication of radical islam and terrorism. We should have backed the Russians in Chechnya... we should work with them to turn them away from iran and to stabilize the ME.
As far as my message to Putin... it was an olive branch but a warning to not think that America’s best days are behind us. Look at the million plus individual Americans that showed up in DC this week... no organization... no formal group... no one financing and paying them... that is an example of American Exceptionalism. Show me where the citizens of any other country have done the same and did it without a single incident of violence or destruction.
LLS
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