Posted on 11/30/2007 12:25:11 PM PST by OldCorps
Yes, that pretty much sums up Pat’s worldview. Those Jews are the cause of every problem. If they would just go away!
Don’t forget Lech Walesa too. He and the Polish workers exposed the folly of the communist system. Unfortunately, Pat has glommed on to Putin as a hero and he ignores the real heroes. Pat’s a blow hard for dictators. It’s a sad fact of phenomena that Pat’s decided to waste his aging years puffing up and apologizing for every brutal dictator who hates America, especially if they share his animus for Jews.
That's funny! Has Pat caught whatever Paul Craig Roberts has?
Let’s make a free trade deal with them and export them some money. Our presses are at full production and we need the oil.
“I guarantee, even if we’d followed Pat’s formula, Putin would still be moving towards an autocracy.”
What is or would be prevailing in Russia should not be the point. No matter what Russia is or would be under Putin, there is nothing in the entire Chinese government or its structure that makes them any better, or shows any promise of every making them “liberalize” politically and particularly in that area Russia and China are on an equal plane.
So why do we cow-tow to every slight in the eyes of the Chinese dictators, give them a seat at the table over North Korea - a place, regarding any “former” Russian satellite we would not even think of giving Russia an “observer” position to; refuse to use any supposed leverage our supposed “friendly relationship” with China should have on issues like Burma and the Sudan; arrest and try a U.S. diplomat for supposedly transferring “secrets” to a Taiwanese girlfriend who was employed by Taiwan’s defense agency, while thousands of Chinese spies rome our country on “commercial business”, while we even entertain the idea of a merger between 3Com and Chinese company take place, while Intel plans to expand chip production in China, while GM sets Shanghi as where it will build its new design center - and nearly EVERYTHING WE DO AND SAY REGARDING RUSSIA is as if Russia is a devil compared to China’s saints.
The total disconnect, in American policy, between the total similarities of the political realities in Russia and China and a foreign policy that ignores those similarities has one single crass dimension and in its crassness it is divorced from our security interests - money.
I am not a Buchanan fan, or a Putin fan. Nor am I a fan of the Chinese dictators and it is not strange for Putin to observe that our statements about “rights”, democracy and democratic norms, and our claims that those things regarding Russia are in the mix of things disturbing our relationship, while he sees that in reality they extend no further than the latest imported toy from China. Why shouldn’t he feel we are insincere regarding our objections? He has a right to.
Again, I am not in his fan club and many of his actions deserve some of our criticism. But, he has a lot from which to believe he should question our motives, because there is too much for which we are hypocrites.
Had we not incorporated the newly free nations into Nato, they would have had to drift back into the Soviet orbit as Putin blackmailed them with gas supplies, electricity, food and troops on their borders. Today, they can become modern prosperous countries. That is not possible as a Russian vassal state. Today, their resources and land are not available for Russia to threaten Western Europe and the rest of the world. They would be if Pat had his way.
In fact, we would have had to actively interfere with the integration of Eastern Europe into Europe to prevent it happening. None of these countries wanted to remain in the Russian's jackboot orbit. So what Pat is really suggesting is that we should have actively interfered to prevent the Russians from losing their empire because they "extended the hand of friendship" to us. In foreign policy, Pat is as stupid as Noam Chomsky.
As to the missile defense argument, the Russians have orders of magnitude more missile capabilities than are necessary to overwhelm any defense we can construct. What upsets them is that they want to be able to hold the threat of nuclear attack by their proxies in the middle east over Europe and and America's interests in Europe. The missile shield blunts that strategy and they don't like not being able to play the "insane little brother" game in the middle east.
I guess I just don't care that much if the Russians don't like us. Eventually they will be driven back into an uneasy alliance with us as China starts looking north for resources. In the meantime, it's better that they do not control all of Eastern Europe. They are, as a result, weaker and less able to threaten our interests.
He’s right.
We hsould have brought Russia into NATO. We hsould have helped stabilize the Russian ecomony with expert advice and aid vis-a-vis a Marshall plan after they kicked out the Commies. We should have worked towards a new political, economic and military union with Russia and Eastern Europe and given the shaft to the ingrates in Western Europe.
We didn’t and we got Putin. And I blame Bush I, Clinton and Bush II.
As a start to mend fences, we should be supporting the Serbs against the Muslim Kosovars.
Does Pat really think the despots ever lost power in Russia? Who does he think controls the country? Only a wacko would think we could be friends with the same people who gave us the cold war to begin with. I wonder if PCR is also a proponent of Putin's managed capitalism?
Let’s just hand them all of our technology like we handed to China
Blame America First.
Russia would have STILL done their deals with Iran, would have still trucked out all those WMD’s to Syria, and Putin would have still rolled back the reforms no matter what we did.
I think W was smart to roll the borders back on Russia to the extent that he did.
With both Georgia and the Ukraine, there is enough hatred of Russia remaining in those two places that NATO membership was moot. Putin is attempting to push the US around because he thinks he can.
His real problem is a wealthy Chinese adversary. It’s why he nationalized his oil.
No doubt.
So the similar, we brought this upon ourselves line doesn’t sound like RP? Ok. Sure.
As someone who grew up in Eastern Europe, I thank you for expressing my own thoughts so well. I could not have said it better myself.
Modern Russia is quite different than the Soviet Union.
They are a lot more free market and have a flat tax:
http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed032403.cfm
Thanks. Pat is so far out on these issues, it's hard to understand how he gets there. At one time, he understood the dangerous world we live in and that you assess other countries by capabilities and historic behavior, not by "expressions of friendship." He's become a sucker just like the rest of the "retreat to our borders" crowd.
The only place I agree with him is Kosovo. That was a significant strategic blunder that poked Russia in the eye in order to preserve a radical muslim enclave in the heart of Europe. But, I'll admit, at the time, I was not so concerned with the muslim problem in Europe as I am today and much more concerned about ethnic cleansing.
Do you really believe that's what happened?
Eventually he’s going to be quoting Marx and Lenin in his columns. Visiting Chavez and A'manutonajihad. One of the mourners at Castro's funeral.
A mind is a terrible thing to lose.
Well, maybe some exaggeration. In Vilnius, the vaunted Soviet military managed to kill fourteen civilians, in a tactical victory probably still taught as part of the curriculum at Smolensk War Academy in a course titled, “Tank Driving Basics.”
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