Posted on 10/11/2001 11:50:49 AM PDT by art vandelay
Rafe's editorial for October 4, 2001
My remarks today are directed at the "however" faction you know who I mean "the events of September 11 were horrible however" followed by a litany of complaints against the United States.
I was born in the Great Depression, grew up during World War II, and spent my adult life in varying degrees of fear that I and my family would be consumed in a nuclear holocaust. I recall the Cuba Missile crisis of 1962 like yesterday I had my wife and four little kids ready to run to the Interior to avoid the nuking we knew was coming.
Now, all you howevers, listen very carefully. At the close of the Second World war another one started it was called the Cold War but no less a war for that. It was a battle where essential goodness and evil were clearly defined.
Have you any idea what communism was? Do you not understand that vile and horrible as the holocaust was, in terms of innocent deaths it pales when compared to what Stalin and Mao Zedong did? Do you not understand that communism wasnt some political party you could try then reject if you didnt like it once in, it was there forever. That there was no free speech no free elections no freedom of assembly to protest what you saw as bad things and bad people there was no freedom of religion. Communism, no matter where it was found, was a brutal police state.
In 1945 with the consent, indeed the active encouragement of the non communist world the United States of America took on its defence. When Britain could no longer defend Greece from Communism President Harry Truman stepped in and pronounced what became known as the Truman Doctrine which essentially drew the line in the sand and said to communism, no further.
The stakes were freedom or slavery. Make no mistake on that point of course there were economic and political considerations but the central and constant issue was whether we would live free to do as we wished or as slaves.
Contrary to what some would have you believe, Communism was an attempt at world domination. And let me remind all you howevers out there that the Berlin Wall wasnt built to keep the nasty capitalists out but to prevent East Germans from leaving. For forty years people in Eastern Europe were held in subjugation were jailed, tortured and often killed for speaking their mind it was this that the United States undertook to protect the rest of the world from.
This was a global battle. Every region of the world was involved. This wasnt a boxing match to be played under the Marquess of Queensbury Rules but war. And it was a war where only one sides actions came under public scrutiny.
And you howevers had a field day. And Ill tell you why you did. It was because, mortal though the stakes were, those fighting communism always permitted free speech in the fullest.
The United States was damned if it did and damned if it didnt. If it supported odious regimes, such as Batista in Cuba it was damned for that yet the alternative was communism and I remind you that since Castro took over in 1959 there has never been a free election.
The philosophical battle for the hearts and minds of populations also was a strategic battle. Neither the Soviet Union nor the United States were prepared to be strategically outflanked. Why was Allende toppled and murdered in Santiago in 1973 admittedly a horrible thing? Because he was about to take Chile into the Communist fold which would likely have seen some neighbours follow suit. Tough dirty but were talking war here and, as Sherman said, war is hell.
Did the United States make errors? Egregious errors? Of course it did. Its policy, and that of Britain, in Iran was stupid and brought about calamities down the road. The refusal of John Foster Dulles to fund the Aswan dam in Egypt was a colossal blunder. And theres Viet Nam. That turned out to be a disaster but whats forgotten is that the United States got in there in the first place to defend the international Geneva agreement that divided the country into North and South Viet Nam.
By 1990 the struggle between the two powers was over and the United States had won. But was this just a victory of the American bully boys over the Russians?
Ask that question of the Poles, the East Germans, the Hungarians, the Romanians, the Czechs and the Slovaks. Ask it of the Bulgarians. Ask the Latvians, the Lithuanians and the Estonians. Ask the citizens of former Russian republics. Indeed ask the Russians themselves. Many of these people have had desperately tough times since the Cold War ended but they would never consent to go back in time.
While youre at it, ask the people of Malaysia and Singapore whether or not theyre sorry the British fought the Communists there after the war.
What you howevers do is an old trick, a verbal conjuring act. First, you take all the sins of the United States, as you see them, out of context and collect them into a one size fits all condemnation. Secondly, you imply that if the United States had not stepped in the people would have been deliriously happy with what was bound to happen. The Grenadians would have been delighted to live under Castros Cuba and Chileans would have just loved communism. You want us to believe that Viet Nam is just a bursting with democracy thanks to Ho Chi Minh and the Sandinistas were freedom loving democrats. Then, with stunning naiveté you assume that if the United States had simply gone home after World War II and let the rest of the world go by that Communism would have beat a peaceful retreat.
During the Cold War, the United States and her allies had to put up with a lot of crap. Its because they were democracies fighting for the preservation of freedom that they tolerated all you howevers, marching for peace or for whatever country you thought had been last wronged by the United States while in the Soviet Union and its satellites no protest was permitted.
When two super powers tangle, a hell of a lot of other people are going to get bumped and bruised. Great mistakes Russia in Afghanistan and the US in Viet Nam will be made. National dignities will be bruised. Injustices some very serious will be committed. But get this all you howevers out there the fact that Sunera Thobani can make an outrageous speech while financed by our government, and the fact that you can echo her sympathies the fact that Im here and you can call and express your opinion is due to one thing and one thing only the United States fought the cold war, and with precious little help from us, won it.
So remember as you shout your anti American slogans, re-write history while chanting the latest Noam Chomsky mantra, that you owe the right to do so to the country that you so despise and whose martyred dead of September 11 you so basely and so casually dishonour.
what's this got to do with anything? anyone born anywhere in the world at the same time as this guy lived this. Actually, maybe not totally -- the soviet union wasn't hit by the depression.
WARNING: Violent Graphics
Link to:
DIPLOMACY: KUMBAYA - Peace Vigil
Turn up the volume for best viewing.
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No, they weren't hit by it...they were already there...read your history! Find out what life was like under Stalin. Even in the depths of the Depression, we had it much better than the Soviet Union did!
While there was a time that Communism was over there' somewhere and hated here. Today we have loonie-tunes on practically every street corner, in Congress and at the highest levels of business and the entertainment industry that sing the praises of Communism - and doing their best to see their dream-government installed in the US.... just as soon as they can permanently rid the nation of that inconvenient Constitution thing, and dump all those religious people and any other freedom lovers in the nearest land-fill.
Fifteen years ago you rarely heard someone referred to as a socialist' by national media - today it is common. But that isn't enough - the socialist is a Communist in drag. Someone once said that the only difference between a socialist and a Communist is that the Communist is in a hurry. The slow freedom-killing socialist eventually gets what he wants - full recognition as a Communist tyrant - unless you kill his agenda before he kills your freedom. It's time to stop calling socialists leftists or Democrats. A Communist in drag is still a dangerous Communist and ought to be called one.
The prison system is mined by them as well.
Cheers Tony
LOL! Great comment.
Have you heard the latest news? United Nations (news - web sites) Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson called on Friday for a suspension of air strikes against Afghanistan (news - web sites) in order to provide aid to civilians before the onset of winter. Speaking on Irish state radio, she said the situation for civilians in Afghanistan was ``desperate.'' ``This is the real wish of the humanitarian agencies...the desperate urgency now is to use this window until about the 15th or 16th of November when the winter snows will prevent access and the people will freeze and starve to death because they will have neither food nor shelter,'' she said. ``We must have a pause in order to enable huge humanitarian access and to allow a number of Afghans to come across the borders,'' she said.
Haven't we had a belly-full of these snobbish elitist parasites who leech off of the good people of the United States? Somebody needs to tell Robinson and her cronies to "put up or shut up!" Or better yet, "Pack up!"
I wonder if Kofi is going to donate all of his prize winnings to the "peace" effort? Yeah, right.
BTW: Let's air-drop Robinson into Afghanistan so she can spearhead the relief effort financed by Annan's peace prize winnings. Imagine
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Hi Curtis, what were you doing in Russia? Was it for work or was it personal travel? I am looking for personal accounts of time spent in Russia. An area of great interest for me.
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