Posted on 03/10/2014 12:09:23 PM PDT by chessplayer
Sure, Viktor Yanukovych might have murdered protesters and Vladimir Putin might have invaded a sovereign country. But what about Hiroshima? And the genocide of Native Americans?
Readers of a certain vintage will likely recall the oleaginous, Brooklyn-accented Vladimir Pozner, an American citizen domiciled in Moscow who regularly popped up on television in the waning days of the Cold War, propagandizing on behalf of the Kremlin. Pozner was a rather impressive practitioner of whataboutism, the debate tactic demanding that questions about morally indefensible acts committed by your side be deflected with pettifogging discussion of unrelated sins committed by your opponent’s side. Soviet tanks lumbering through the streets of Prague? Yes, but what about the mistreatment of the Native Americans? East Germany’s reluctant citizens penned in by an imposing cement wall, ringed by trigger-happy border guards? A necessary “anti-fascist protection barrier,” sure, but...what about Hiroshima?
Even after the collapse of the Soviet dictatorship, Pozner found it difficult to shake the whataboutist habit and rote moral equivalence. “Yes, there are dissidents and maybe they consist of one percent or two percent of the population,” he told PBS in 1999. “But you've had your dissidents and you don't treat them all that well.”
(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...
This was in the Daily Beast?
The silence must be deafening
To me the more relevant whataboutism is Kosovo, which the US and Europe detached from Serbia. The Serbs and Russians haven’t forgotten about that one.
Shocker, eh? And no comments so far. Maybe they are too busy demanding the article be deleted and it’s author punished.
We’ve more than a few FReepers who’d suck up to Vladimir Pozner and the Soviets based on their great cunning and Geo-politcal mastery. I mean they do it for Putin, and he was in the communist party and KGB Colonel who said the greatest calamity in the 20th Century was the collapse of the Soviet Union.
I’m coming more and more to the conclusion that Russian exerting direct influence and undermining a Ukraine recovery sans Russia has more to do with the rising Muslim population rather than the United States. That is of course aside from the pipelines that traverse the Ukraine into Europe.
“So that’s ok then. If the Ukrainian people’s desire to swivel towards Europe displeases Moscow, if the United States has made a number of unsavory foreign policy decisions in its recent past, and if Russia determines that its strategic interests are threatened by a sovereign country that it once occupied and brutalized, then who are we to object? Vladimir Putin might have flattened Grozny, propped up the vile regime of Bashar Assad, and turned his country into a one-party state where loud dissent can be punished by a stint in a Siberian work camp, but let’s not say the man is irrational.”
Why not...its propaganda.
I’ve never questioned Putin’s rationality or patriotism. His basic decency, sure, his ethics, absolutely, but his low animal cunning and unflagging defense of his pack, no.
I do doubt his patriotism, like Hitler or Napoleon, Putin sees his nation as a toy to be used for his own personal glory.
When the USSR collapsed, Europe and the US had a window of opportunity to attempt an easing of tensions with Russia.
Instead they chose to feed Russian paranoia and keep tensions high with their aggressive posture. The Cold War ended practically overnight but NATO maintained its wartime posture.
Attempts to recruit the old Iron Curtain countries into NATO, sending NATO military into Serbia and working to surround western Russia with missles all fueled Russian distrust of the West.
Now we are heading back to square one except this time we have a scatterbrained, weak-willed Nancy Boy in the White House and a genuine ass kicker in the Kremlin.
Europe and NATO seemed determined to start another war with Russia and the next time it won’t be a Cold War.
You forgot that those old Iron Curtain countries requested membership for NATO, so as to prevent future Russian domination.
I think it’s a pretty reasonable worry for countries that have lived under Russian domination for a century to be a bit paranoid about it happening again.
I didn't forget that.
And I understand the motivations.
But the fact remains that NATO's encroachment into the old Russian sphere of influence did fuel Russian mistrust and paranoia.
Truthfully, the end of the cold war was the time to defund NATO and let it die on the vine. It has outlived it's original purpose and has done more damage than good in the last 20 years.
Putin wants a strong Russia as his toy, unlike his counterpart who actively wants to destroy “his” country.
I guess not being born in the country you rule gives one a different attitude. (Napoleon, Corsica; Hitler, Austria; and someone else, reputedly from Kenya, perhaps?)
“To me the more relevant whataboutism is Kosovo, which the US and Europe detached from Serbia. The Serbs and Russians haven’t forgotten about that one.”
Yes I thought at the time that the precedent set by our actions would come back to bite us sooner or later. Interestingly enough it also provides justification for parts of the US to secede from the union. Surprised that Putin has not brought this up, although it would be a two edged sword in that it would be reminding the Russian people about past failures as well as putting it in the US and EU face.
Putin spent 16 years in the KGB, entering it when the KGB was still waging a daily war on the Russian people. Back then, no conservatives were fond of the Soviet Union, as some are today with its follow on party. Putin served the KGB well enough to become a Colonel. The communist party played down national loyalty and supported an internationalist approach. Putin is like Milosevic. He needed a platform. He chose ultra-nationalism. It’s all a fraud, though.
“I do doubt his patriotism, like Hitler or Napoleon, Putin sees his nation as a toy to be used for his own personal glory.”
Hmmm, and Obama does not? Kind of like the pot calling the kettle black if you ask me as our hands are not clean either. We have no strategic interests in Ukraine, and since the dawn of time nations have been doing these sorts of things so I don’t see why we should even care let alone risk anything on this Russian incursion.
Better would have been to have the former soviet republics form a BUND Buffer Unaligned Nations Defense.
Criticism of the tyrant Putin is in no way diminishes my contempt for Obama. It seems odd that those who criticize Putin are treated as if you must support either Putin or Obama. They’re both threats to our freedom. And I don’t think we can ignore the rest of the world and hope it all turns out swell. That’s as naive as Obama and what we tried to do after WWI.
I agree. Ukrainians who want to be part of the West should be encouraged and supported by us. If Crimeans want to be Russians, so be it. I doubt that most Ukrainians see Crimea as part of their nation.
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