Posted on 05/20/2005 7:49:59 AM PDT by Chi-townChief
President Bush continues the practice of the big lie as prescribed by Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda ace. If you tell a big enough lie often enough, people will believe you. Bush does not apologize even when he's caught in a falsehood. All right, there were no "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq. But it was not his fault that he believed all the intelligence agencies of the world, was it?
The parents of the young men and women killed and wounded in Iraq as well as the relatives of all the Iraqis blown up since the American arrival might have a different view of things. They might be inclined to think that the buck stops at the desk of the U.S. president.
During his recent trip to Europe, when he wasn't telling Vladimir Putin how to preside over Russia, he retold one of the biggest lies of the 20th century. He apologized for the Yalta agreement that handed, as he said, eastern Europe over to Soviet domination. Because one can hardly expect the president to read history books, one supposes that he does not realize that the serious studies of the Yalta conference reject that analysis. It's a Republican big lie that has become true because of 60 years of fervent repetition. It is still a lie, however -- just like the claim in a New York Times article that the big powers had "carved up" Europe at Yalta.
The Yalta meeting occurred in February 1945. Consider a map of Europe at that time, such as the one opposite Page 246 of Max Hasting's book Armageddon. By February 1945, Marshals Zukov and Konev were about to cross the Oder River, which was well inside Germany (and is now the border between Germany and Poland). It had occupied or surrounded every Eastern European capital except Prague. Stalin obtained nothing at the Yalta agreements that he had not already captured.
Despite President's Bush's willingness to accept American responsibility for Soviet occupation of Europe, this remains the Republican big lie of the 1940s: A senile President Roosevelt had given Poland and the Baltic countries over to Stalin.
Roosevelt was not at his best at Yalta. He still thought he could "get along with Stalin." However, there was nothing much he could do to extirpate the Red Army from those or any other countries they occupied except drive them out by brute force.
The Republican response then -- and in Bush's apology even now -- was that the United States should have driven the Soviet Army out of Eastern Europe. It is not clear now that it would have been possible; probably it would not have been. Moreover, there was still a war to be finished with the Japanese. Nor would the American people have been willing to accept the casualties of an attempt to push the Red Army back to its 1939 frontier. Napoleon and Hitler had learned the lesson of fighting a land war with Russia. Was the United States supposed to do a better job while at the same time defeating Japan, especially since -- as few are willing to remember now -- the public was already sick of war. Would a Republican president raise the battle cry "on to Moscow''?
Not very likely. Certainly, the Republican candidates in the 1944 election (''Get the boys home with Dewey and Bricker'') were not calling for an invasion of Russian occupied eastern Europe.
Thus, Bush's "apology" was valid only if he believes that the United States should have driven the Red Army out of Germany (a geographically necessary first step) and then out of Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia (and Ukraine, for good measure). How many millions more would have died on both sides in this continuation of the war?
Why did no one ask President Bush if he would have gone to war with the Soviet Union in 1945? He could have used the Iraq excuse: to rid the world of a monstrous dictator. Like the Iraq conflict, such a war between the United States and Russia might have continued for a long time. Indeed, it might still be going on. Our cities would be in ruins. Most of us would be dead and many of us would never have been born.
Right, like repeating that Clinton's impeachment "was all about sex."
Joseph Goebbels? Was he at Yalta?
Right, like repeating that Clinton's impeachment "was all about sex."
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Yes, the spinmeisters of the leftist media just keep at it, don't they? The real problem is that there are still fools that buy their newspapers, those that must be fed the liberal re-written, spun perspective so they can get through a day...
Might not have been such a bad move.
"Thus, Bush's "apology" was valid only if he believes that the United States should have driven the Red Army out of Germany (a geographically necessary first step) and then out of Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia (and Ukraine, for good measure). How many millions more would have died on both sides in this continuation of the war?"
So, Andrew, it's not a "lie" we're talking about, but rather who had the strongest will to stand up for what they believed. Apparently it was Stalin, and Greeley serves as his apologist.
So Greeley thinks the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe was a good thing?
Sure he did: permission to keep what he had captured.
Stunning. Now they don't even care that the intel was pretty uniform that Saddam probably still had WMDs. Bush was, you know, supposed to KNOW. As if he could go to Iraq and see for himself.
Greeley can't help but repeat a big lie to open his article.
The left is notorious for doing what they claim not to be doing. Or blaming behavior on others that they are engaged in themselves.
And the business management of print media wonders why there is a decline in readership!
Greeley is basically a "fallen away" priest with communist sympathys who
also is allowed to pollute the mush minds of students (attendees} at the University of Arizona. His opinions are always suspect.
So what? That doesn't mean that it was legitimate for Stalin to annex the Baltics and de-facto annex those parts of Europe that he had captured.
To go further... that is like saying in 1941 "Well, we should just settle with Germany that they control Europe, we wouldn't be giving them anything that they haven't already captured."
"Sure he did: permission to keep what he had captured."
Bingo.
I am really getting sick of this infantile Bush lied stuff. I feel like I am stuck in a room with a bunch of imbeciles who keep saying the same thing over and over. Even if one grants him the point that there was not much more America could do or wanted to do, it does no harm to acknowledge that living under Soviet opprssion was bad and liberation is a cause for rejoicing. It also goes without saying that their security is their own responsibility both then and now, and if they want to be free they'd better wise up and forget about the 35 hour work week and stuff like that.
Greeley staes that there was nothing much that could have been done to extirpate the USSR from states in Eastern Europe which it had already occupied. Funny, I don't remember the Allies occupying France, Italy, Netherlands or anyplace else after the War except West Germany and West Berlin. These were occupied long enough for the Germans to gather themselves up as a democratic nation. Pinkos like Greeley continued to love and laud the Commies knowing full well that they had stretched their empire by means of a boot on the throats of the occupied. Paging Alger (Ales) Hiss, Comrade Hiss, your bosses are calling.
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