May 10, 2005

Cowboy In a Glass House Throwing Stones

This guest post is by first time blogger Epictetus.

I write this shortly after our duly selected president had the chutzpah to lecture Vladimir "the Chekist" Putin about the Soviet Union's actions in Eastern Europe following the Yalta Conference in February, 1945.  The Cowboy emphasized that he would not repeat FDR's mistake in giving the Commies a free hand in Poland, et al., by abandoning today's Middle East to tyranny.

Like so many others, the neofacist chickenhawk staffer who gave the Cowboy his fifteen minute situation report on Roosevelt's sellout got it wrong.

FDR's fatal mistake at Yalta was not selling out to Uncle Joe.  FDR knew before the conference that with the Red Army occupying Eastern Europe, it would be futile to try to ensure free postwar elections in those areas controlled by the Soviets.  Churchill was also well aware of this—it was simply contemporary Realpolitik.  Rather, FDR went wrong in giving the world the impression that Stalin had agreed to hold free elections, especially in Poland, when Stalin had agreed to nothing of the kind.

After Roosevelt's death in April, 1945, he was succeeded by Harry Truman, for whom Yalta was terra incognita, along with everything else FDR had done.  Harry the Unready was ill-served by his advisers who were equally unaware of what had taken place at Yalta.  When, instead of withdrawing his minions and holding free election, Stalin clamped down, Truman concluded that this blood-drinking troll had violated the agreement he made with FDR.  Cue the Cold War.

Roosevelt's failure to be straight with the American people re what did and did not transpire at Yalta opened the door for 60 years of Republican sniping, second-guessing and accusations that the Democrats were soft on Communism.  The Cowboy's recent remarks are the latest manifestation of a charge that will not die.

Epictetus

By EPICTETUS in Foreign Affairs, Guest Authors | Permalink  | 

Comments

Interesting. It seems there is more interest in this period than ever before. The simiarities between the cold war and the war on terror indicate that the neocons' plan, come what may, is perpetual war.

Posted by: SheaNC | May 13, 2005 10:37:34 PM

[Ed. note: this comment contained a bunch of anti-Semitic tripe, so I deleted it.]

Posted by: Rob | May 14, 2005 6:49:53 PM

Rob, you are one seriously fucked-up racist hate-monger. You must be thrilled that your president comes from an old Nazi family.

Posted by: SheaNC | May 15, 2005 9:17:47 AM

Epictetus ~ Soft on communism? Soft on communism? There were, without any shadow of doubt, communists in FDR's administration controlled by Moscow. Venona has shown this decisively.

SheaNC ~ You may not have noticed that it was Al Qaeda who attacked US on 9/11 after having declared war on US more than once prior to that. Would you mind pointing to a CREDIBLE Bush/Nazi link?

Rob ~ I see that Liberal Elite equals anti-semite.

Posted by: Elite?delete | May 15, 2005 11:05:16 AM

Elite?delete - Your comments are nonsensical. You are informing me that Al Qaeda attacked the US? Is your juvenile sarcasm supposed to make a point? If so, you've failed. As for your request for a "CREDIBLE Bush/Nazi link," there are too many to list them all here; it is common knowledge. However, here are a few:

http://www.nhgazette.com/cgi-bin/NHGstore.cgi?user_action=detail&catalogno=NN_Bush_Nazi_2

http://www.nhgazette.com/cgi-bin/NHGstore.cgi?user_action=detail&catalogno=NN_Bush_Nazi_Link

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1312540,00.html

By the way, for you to associate Rob's antisemitism with this blog demonstrates that you either do not know the difference between a blog post and a comment, or you simply aren't paying attention. Try to keep up.

Posted by: SheaNC | May 15, 2005 11:20:07 PM

SheaNC ~

My comments to Epictetus are on point. My comment to you in all its' juvenile sarcasm makes the point that you seem blind to the fact that we are at war with an enemy who attacked us. You further seem unable to divorce the concept of retaliation from some delusional conspiracy theories.

I accept your criticism concerning Rob. I am new to the internet and will try to keep up. I also note that his comments have been removed.

I found most interesting the following in the Guardian article concerning the author of the "credible" Bush/Nazi story you point me to:

{In the article, Buchanan, who has worked mainly in the trade and music press with a spell as a muckraking reporter in Miami, claimed that "the essential facts have appeared on the internet and in relatively obscure books but were dismissed by the media and Bush family as undocumented diatribes".

Buchanan suffers from hypermania, a form of manic depression, and when he found himself rebuffed in his initial efforts to interest the media, he responded with a series of threats against the journalists and media outlets that had spurned him. The threats, contained in e-mails, suggested that he would expose the journalists as "traitors to the truth".

Unsurprisingly, he soon had difficulty getting his calls returned. Most seriously, he faced aggravated stalking charges in Miami, in connection with a man with whom he had fallen out over the best way to publicise his findings. The charges were dropped last month.}

To suggest that our present President is part of a Nazi family (as the grandson of an international industrial banker with international ties) based on what you have shown me, is less than credible. No wonder respectable media will not touch this story.

Posted by: Elite?delete | May 16, 2005 4:42:13 PM

Elite?delete - I am not blind the facts. It seems you are, though. We are not at war with "an enemy who attacked us". We have invaded and overthrown two countries, neither of whom attacked us. The first one, Afghanistan, did not attack us. We invaded them because the people Bush accused of attacking us happened to stay there sometimes. The second country, Iraq, also did not attack us. We invaded Iraq because Bush & Co had been planning to do so prior to 9/11. We are the aggressors in both of these conflicts (by the way, war has never been officially declared). On the other hand, the people who "attacked us," by which I assume you mean 9/11, were from Saudi Arabia, who are given very favorable status by the Neocons. The Saudis behead people too - but you right-wingers are okay with that, aren't you?

Posted by: SheaNC | May 16, 2005 9:05:32 PM

SheaNC ~

President Bush stated that countries which harbored those terrorists who attacked the U.S. would be included in our efforts to rid the world of these evil pests. It was al Qaeda who declared war on the U.S.

You are correct that the U.S. has not officially declared war. When was the last time that stopped a president from protecting our interests. I, for one, wish the congress had been called upon to declare war. We do not wage war upon the people of Afghanistan or Iraq. In both countries fledgling democracies threaten to establish themselves. Millions of people have been freed from ruthless murderers and rapists. Those who continue to murder and rape are terrorists plain and simple. They are religious fanatics who pose a far greater threat to civilized folks the world over than even even the failed collectivist paradises you leftists mourn.

If left unchecked, the brand of Islam they espouse will murder more people than the HUNDREDS of millions your beloved Soviet Union, Red China, Cambodia, Cuba, and Vietnam exterminated.

Every U. S. administration has maintained friendly relations with the Saudis. This is not some "neocon" invention. We need oil - they have it. The Saudis export their virulent antisemitic Wahhabism and many of the terrorists are of Saudi origin. Personally, I have no love for them.

So sell your SUV, hop on that bike and peddle your BS to someone you can fool.

Posted by: Elite?delete | May 17, 2005 10:35:13 PM

Elite?delete -

So you and the president define "being included in our efforts" as being invaded and overthrown. Nice. I can see how grateful they are for it, too.

You say, "We do not wage war upon the people of Afghanistan or Iraq." You're wrong. Wars are waged against people. The Iraqis and Afghans who oppose the US are still Iraqis and Afghans, and they're still people. You can't deny their existence just because you want to reshape their countries according your own vision of what they should be. Get real, and turn off the bullshit ideological semantics.

You describe "religious fanatics who pose a far greater threat to civilized folks the world over." You're right about one thing, religious fanatics pose such a threat. In America we have to deal not only with the ones to which you refer, but also with the Christian variety, which operate in insidious ways that are even more damaging to democracy. As for the terrorism which you address, you would do well to keep in mind that it is reactive, not proactive.

As for your statement "...the failed collectivist paradises you leftists mourn." You demonstrate your ignorance by making accusations based on assumptions. You continue with your asinine statement about "...your beloved Soviet Union, Red China, Cambodia, Cuba, and Vietnam." The fact that you resort to lies, because you can't make your point using the truth, speaks volumes. It's a typical right-wing tactic: the truth is not on your side, so you have to make things up. Try sticking to the facts next time.

So sell your bike, hop in your hummer, peddle your BS to someone who is willing to listen your inaccuracies, generalizations, and lies.

Posted by: SheaNC | May 18, 2005 8:39:06 AM

SheaNC ~

Did we overthrow Hitler? Did we invade Germany? Did we drop bombs on innocent civilians in that conflict? Yes we most certainly did. Wars are sometimes waged against people who have come under the sway of indecent collectivist ideologues. Are all wars wrong? In that innocent people are killed, maimed, inconvenienced or otherwise denied their right to live in peace – yes. Why don’t you get real and realize, hoever, that some wars are justified to end the reign of tyrants and muderous miscreants who crave power at all costs?

Some of the Afghans and Iraqis are upset that they have lost their places of power and privilege. Some are upset for a variety of other reasons, which to them are valid. Let us not ignore the elections in both countries that could possibly lead to more freedom and safety than these folks have ever dreamed. There is plenty of good news in this region now, why don’t you avail yourself of it? Is it because Bush is the source of it?

If you really believe Christians in this country pose a greater threat to democracy than it faces from these terrorists, you are truly delusional. This country was founded in large part by very religious Christians who thought the Creator granted our freedom. Rational argument is not possible with the delusional.

You accuse me of making assumptions and of lying, but cannot name one.

It is you, my friend, who failed to respond with facts to bolster the accusations you made. The Bush/Nazi claim dissolves in embarrassed silence as the author of the tale is exposed as a tin foil hat wearing kook, a stalker. Did you in your smug, superior, leftist fog assume a dumb right-winger incapable of reading and comprehending the article to which you sent her?

I know you to be a leftist with collectivist sympathies through your warm agreement with Epictetus’ assessment of Mr. Bush as a dumb cowboy surrounded by chickenhawk “neofascists” who misunderstand historical fact.

I am an immigrant, a grateful adoptee of this great country, and am proud to love her and the freedoms for which she stands. No one is perfect. No country is perfect. I’d sure as hell rather live here than most other places. This country has done more to bring freedom to others than any other; has made more sacrifices and given more lives.

I pity the ingrates and “useful idiots” who savor every opportunity to belittle and denigrate the United States. So you folks on the left wonder why you can’t win an election? How in the world could the stupid cowboy chimp bush/hitler/nazi win? How could he bring about these wonderful changes in the Middle East where people now contemplate freedom and democracy? It has to be galling that he is so RIGHT! It is the left that is bankrupt of ideas, that ignores fact and dispenses vitriol , obfuscation and hatred in place of reasoned argument.

So in closing, you lost and I hope you continue losing out to people with a vision of the future which includes less social planning, more individual freedom, free markets, limited government, gun ownership, and well, you may assume all the rest, LOSER. Oh, I am so sorry, that’s right, I can’t use that epithet, it belongs to Harry Reid as he labels our humble, winning president. No ideas, just name-calling.

I’ve wasted enough time with you, my friend. You may have the last word if you like. Rest assured you’d be writing it for your own benefit. I won’t be back.

Posted by: Elite?delete | May 18, 2005 12:05:26 PM

For my own benefit, I suppose (although I expect Elite?delete will return and not post a comment, coward that she is): Elite?delete's arguments are full of holes and she lost the argument, so her tactic is to scream "LOSER!" and run away. Ha ha! Listen, Elite?delete, if making cheap accusations and running away makes you feel like "the winner" then go run wild and free, baby.

I will say before I go on to other adventures that my assessment of Elite?delete as basing her statements on assumptions and lies is dead-on accurate. She had no facts to go with, so she had to make inflammatory accusations to try to deflect attention from her obvious shortcomings. So be it. With regards to the source I gave about the Bush/Nazi link, she tries to assert that my source is invalid, except she only found fault with 1 of my sources, while I gave 3 - and there are more where those came from! Besides, blaming the messenger doesn't disprove my assertion. She was completely unable to prove me wrong.

Her statement that begins "I know you to be... " is pure fantasy. She doesn't know me, but she says she does, so she is obviously delusional. She then goes in to a Coulteresque hatespeak diatribe which is presumably supposed to reinforce her argument. Instead, she further erodes her own credibility by making assumptions and generalizations.

I am glad this thread is here: Elite?delete offers excellent examples of very typical right-wing debate tools: smug self-righteousness; distortion/deletion of facts; inflammatory accusations based upon lies; and healthy dose of talk-radio propaganda. One need only examine her comments to observe the irrational, reactionary nature of the right-wing electorate.

Posted by: SheaNC | May 18, 2005 3:01:50 PM

Wow. And who says our country is divided. But as for Epictetus's claim, which is "FDR's fatal mistake at Yalta was not selling out to Uncle Joe...[rather, he] went wrong in giving the world the impression that Stalin had agreed to hold free elections, especially in Poland, when Stalin had agreed to nothing of the kind" -- any comments on that topic?

Posted by: Overseas Will | May 19, 2005 7:49:17 AM

I doubt anyone here will offer comment. If you would like to read for yourself some comment and some history:

http://powerlineblog.com/archives/010390.php#010390

http://www.reason.com/hitandrun/2005/05/yalta_once_more.shtml#009465

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yalta_Conference


Posted by: ToozeNoireaux | May 19, 2005 5:09:12 PM

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