Blowback from Moscow

WorldNet Daily ^ | Nov 30, 2007 | Pat Buchanan

[WoofDog123]

“They are doing a LOT more in the background that you people know, or understand, and you won’t take the damned time to research it.”

Rather than make vague allegations, can you educate us people with specifics?

[WoofDog123]

I read a report prepared by the British in 1945 on the viability of war with the USSR at that time. There was no ‘sure thing’ solution to going to war with the Soviet Union, based on many of the rather detailed projections.

[WoofDog123]

“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”

I am certain it is because they have tremendous monetary and political influence on the US and US corporations in a way Russia cannot compare.

[A Longer Name]

I don't know what's really in Vilnius but it's definitely not protesters with candles chasing out tanks. Do you you realize that Russian Army could've easily killed 14,000 civilians, or indeed half of the Lithuanian population? The only reason they didn't was because they didn't want to, not because something the protesters did or didn't do.

Did you know that in the 1990s the global Islamists were certain they defeated the American Army and expelled it from Somalia and Lebanon. They had rather more justification for this point of view because they actually did some shooting back. Anyway, later events had shown that such delusions are potentially dangerous for the "defeated" side but they are disastrous for those deluded.

[A Longer Name]

determined to stand up to a West Russians believe played them for fools when they sought to be friends.

That's funny! Has Pat caught whatever Paul Craig Roberts has?

You didn't pay much attention to this in the 1990s, did you? Pat is an idiot on most issues but he is absolutely right on this one.

[ChinaThreat]

I didn’t say you had to like them. With our forces extended in the GWOT,the last thing we need to be doing is agitating a much larger foe who is currently selling oil at $90 a barrel. What purpose does it meet? Especially to prop up muslim fundamentalists. Save your hyperbole for others.

[A Longer Name]

It was Ronald Reagan...

Here is the thing that frustrates me about this invocation of Reagan in connection to our current Russia policy. Yes, in his first term Reagan confronted the Soviet gerontocrats and that was absolutely the right thing to do. But in his second term, after the emergence of Gorbachev, Reagan's policies were quite different. Reagan didn't treat Gorbachev as the enemy. Reagan talked to Gorbachev, he met him many times, he made treaties, he "trusted but verified," he was constantly slammed for that by the hard-line Cold warriors but he was vindicated. He managed to convince Russian leadership, Russian elite, and, most important, Russian people that the West wasn't the enemy.

That is how we should've treated the new Russia. That's the Reagan way. Do you realize that the current policy of constantly poking a stick into Russia's face was designed by CLINTON? Why do Republican feel so attached to it?

[pissant]

You have an odd reading of history. As Reagan ‘talked’ to Gorby, he was making sure we were bankrupting them. And he was constantly adding to their internal pressure with his calls for freedom. He wanted to avoid war, to be sure, but he knew exactly what he was doing. And he was working in concert wit JPII and the Iron Lady to see that their collapse was imminent.

If you look at the post Reykavik summit, where he returned with no deal after getting so close to disaraming large swaths of weapons systems, he walked away with nothing becasue he would not budge on missile defense systems. The media crucified him, the dems crucified him, and many republicans did too. But the game to Reagan was not some arms deal to give the USSR life support, it was the death of communism. After that summit, it was only a matter of time. While most hardliners could not see what was going on, one guy, Duncan Hunter sure did, and there is no more right wing than that.

Excerpt:

A perfect illustration of Hunter’s leadership and vision on these matters occurred in 1987. President Reagan walked away from the summit in Reykjavik, Iceland without any agreements with Soviet Premier Gorbachev, a summit that had very high expectations worldwide. When the media found out it was Reagan’s ‘fault’ – he refused to put SDI on the table – they went ballistic. The press in the US and around the globe heaped scornful article after scornful article on the President. The Democrats in congress were equally apoplectic, accusing Reagan of setting back US-Soviet relations by decades. The hysteria carried over into the House Armed Services Committee (HASC), of which Hunter was a member. Though nearly equal in numbers of Democrats and Republicans, a 13 member HASC subcommittee released a scathing assessment of the Reykjavik negotiations. “The result has been ‘the appearance of confusion and frustration’, a worried NATO alliance, and the retrospective possibility that ‘the United States was `snookered’ by a clever Soviet scheme’ to gain unbalanced U.S. concessions or to fix the blame on Reagan for failure of the negotiations”, reported the Chicago Sun Times. Les Aspin, Chairman of the committee, added that the summit meeting became “the textbook case on how the superpowers should NOT negotiate.”

Also, according to the Sun Times, “One member of the 13-member panel, conservative Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), filed a sharply worded six-page dissent, calling the report ‘unprofessional’ and a ‘celebration of form over substance’ dominated by ‘political sniping.’” In other words, Hunter knew what Reagan did in Iceland: He put the Soviet Union in a very tight corner. With hindsight, most everyone has since agreed that it was Gorbachev, not Reagan, who got snookered. The Berlin wall came crashing down 2 years later. But only Hunter, amongst the supposed hawks (democrat and republican) on the HASC, had the vision to see clearly what was happening at the time. Hunter went to the mat for Reagan when even his own party was in despair. And Hunter was right.

http://dhgrassrevolt.wordpress.com/2007/08/21/mr-madison-is-back-saving-the-gop-from-itself-duncan-hunter/

[Cold Heat]

Bull! They screwed with us for two or three decades....Still doing it.

Buchanan is a Paleocon that does not yet know the era of capitulation and turn the other cheek is over, as is Ron Paul.

[elhombrelibre]

We're not "agitating" Russia. You still make it sound like Putin's belligerence is our fault. Putin doesn't want his neighboring country's to pursue freedom from his ukases. Poles, Ukranians, and Georgians, among many, want to be free to pursue normal relations with the world as civilized countries. Putin is selling weapons to Chavez in Venezuela, building Iran's nuclear plants, selling Iran and Syria missile systems, and opposing the US having an anti-missile system. In other words, he’s doing all he can to exacerbate world tensions. Buchanan, as often happens with him, has too much sympathy for the devil in order to make sure what's happening in the world fits his ideology of isolationism.

[unspun]

It was neither, you old fool. It was Ronald Reagan, Maggie Thatcher and Pope John Paul II and a supporting cast of millions of people demanding freedom.

If we're going to name just a few names, I'd add Lech Wałęsa.

[elhombrelibre]

Yes, I realize that. But the policies of containment were caused by the Soviet Unions expansionist activity. Today’s desire for Russia’s neighbors to join Nato and the EU are the result of historic Russian predations and the extreme cruelty of the Soviet Union. Pat’s taking Putin’s position mostly because it is a way for Pat to justify his isolationism. But the world is as it is and no amount of sophistries or contortions by Pat can change that. Putin is selling massive amounts of weapons to Chavez, Syria, and Iran. He’s not an innocent babe even if Buchanan thinks he is.

[elhombrelibre]

Sure there is a lot in common in Pat Buchanan’s “thoughts” with Run Paul and Jane Fonda. In fact, Run Paul is the Jane Fonda of the war on terror. And he’s an apologist for America’s enemies, like Buchanan. On FreeRepublic, Run Paul has his blind followers who take his word as Gospel even when he’s smearing America and blaming the US. Buchanan has slid off the deep end like Run Paul.

[ChinaThreat]

I don’t disagree that Putin is a dictator in the making and that his motives are not a result of our policies for the most part. However, we need to be practical. The simple cost in gas for intercepting Bears in the North Atlantic is tremendous and we have an enemy that we are not done with yet. The entire Kosovo debacle is a ridiculous PC issue that serves us no purpose other than agitating the Ruskies.

We need to keep in mind that the world has changed since the Cold War. We know have the ME, China, Venezuela and Islamists to deal with. We need to pick our battles carefully. I don’t like, or trust the Russians. I grew up in the Cold War so I am no stranger to their ways. The point I am trying to make is there is no reason to start up a brawl while we are already in several others. It doesn’t serve our interests.

[Hardastarboard]

a swastika armband

Don't think of them as swastikas. Think of them as broken crosses. And since we know Christianity is the root of all evil, they symbolize our stand against real fascists.

/idiot politically correct re-interpretation of history

[Just mythoughts]

It was not NATO that liberated Eastern Europe. Moscow did – by pulling out the Red Army after half a century. Why, then, did we think moving NATO into Eastern Europe was a surer guarantee of their continued independence than the goodwill of Russia?

Well if this isn't all fuzzy with redness. I cannot remember any time in my lifetime where I can attribute 'goodwill' to anything out of Russia. Now they may well have gotten a raw deal by Clintons and company, but the Clintons did adopt off their hands a starving mass of N.Koreans. Hmmmm, wonder if Clintons and company had refused to feed and arm with nukes the N.Koreans where we would be today.

I too this day still have no reason why the Clintons went into the Balkans. I remember a paralyzed Europe who did nothing while this area was pillaged and burned. But why it became our responsibility to step into I cannot begin to explain. What I remember was CNN broadcasting continuous daily reporting of the ethnic cleansing, death, destruction and carnage.

[Dr. Frank fan]

Is it me or does this sound like Ron Paul? Change Russia to Islamic radicals and the story line is the same. We did things they didn’t like, we’re wrong, and “who can blame them?”

Boy, are you right. The only difference lies in which group of people the person in question has chosen to form romantic fantasies about. Romanticizing Arabs endlessly fighting against "occupiers" fits in with Paul's libertarianism, and romanticizing Russia's paranoid nationalism fits in with Buchanan's...whatever it is exactly that Buchanan's ideology is.

[enough_idiocy]

Thanks for your replies. The thing about Paul/B et al that pisses me off is they essentially excuse the behavior of these animals. Criticizing American policy, fine. Suggesting that’s part of the problem, ok, I can swallow that (whether or not I agree), but suggesting it’s justifiable for these morons to do this crap is unreal. Re: terrorists for example, the governments of the countries which we “occupy” have never asked us to leave. These people don’t represent any government, nor mos to the populations at large. It’s like rationalizing Tim McVeigh. If they don’t want our troops there, they should pressure their gov’t or install a new one who will ask us to leave, not blow up women and kids in a school.

[elhombrelibre]

Agreed. Run Paul doesn’t have to excuse the implacable hatred of America’s foes that is truly based on their own crazy ideas. In playing the role of their apologists, he’s encouraging them, spreading defeatism, and in general being a Jane Fonda of our times.

[Dr. Frank fan]

The thing about Paul/B et al that pisses me off is they essentially excuse the behavior of these animals. [...] Re: terrorists for example, the governments of the countries which we “occupy” have never asked us to leave. These people don’t represent any government, nor mos to the populations at large. It’s like rationalizing Tim McVeigh. If they don’t want our troops there, they should pressure their gov’t or install a new one who will ask us to leave, not blow up women and kids in a school.

There's a worse aspect which you sort of touch on here but I wanted to expand upon. It is when the complaints move beyond criticism and even beyond rationalizing, and end up declaring terrorists to be in the right and ceding their every claim.

Ron Paul actually just did it in the Youtube debate. After reciting the litany about how our troops being in Saudi Arabia led inevitably to 9/11, he connected the dots by saying it happened because we were occupying "their country". Wait! "their" country! Whose country? Al Qaeda's?!?

I couldn't believe my ears. Rhetorically, in one fell swoop, Ron Paul blithely declared all of Saudi Arabia to belong to Al Qaeda. It's "their country". But says who? Well, says Al Qaeda. And: (1) they kill people, and (2) Ron Paul romanticizes their justifications for doing so. So they must be correct. Nevermind that the actual government of Saudi Arabia requested our troop presence; Al Qaeda didn't want it and it's "their" country, not that of the government or even of the people of Saudi Arabia.

Isolationism is one thing but instinctively ceding territory and claims to whoever's the most vicious killer on the block is a particularly crazy flavor of masochism. And Ron Paul postures that he takes such positions in the name of the national interest, of course.