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OfflineDivided_Sky
Ten ThousandThings

Registered: 11/02/03
Posts: 3,171
Loc: The Shining Void
Last seen: 15 years, 9 months
One of Bush's better days
    #4149237 - 05/08/05 02:45 AM (18 years, 10 months ago)

This is why I didn't vote for Kerry (well, actually I didn't vote at all).

Bush: Baltics betrayed by transfer to Soviet control
President on four-nation trip to commemorate end of WWII
Saturday, May 7, 2005 Posted: 11:35 PM EDT (0335 GMT)

RIGA, Latvia (CNN) -- President Bush, in a speech to the Latvian people on Saturday, called three Baltic nations' transfer to Soviet control after World War II '"one of the greatest wrongs of history."

"The Baltic countries have seen one of the most dramatic transformations in modern history, from captive nations to NATO allies and E.U. [European Union] members in little more than a decade," Bush said.

He was in Riga, Latvia, speaking at a press conference with Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga, Lithuanian President Valdus Adamkus and Estonian President Arnold Ruutel, after meeting with the three leaders.

Bush referred to the 1945 conference at Yalta, often cited as the beginning of the Cold War, and acknowledged the United States' role in it.

U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt participated in the conference, along with Soviet leader Josef Stalin and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and FDR later faced criticism for what critics saw as giving Eastern Europe away to Stalin.

The conference, he said, resulted in the captivity of millions -- "one of the greatest wrongs of history." Bush also called Soviet oppression "evil."

"When powerful governments negotiated, the freedom of small nations was somehow expendable," he said.

"We have a great opportunity to move beyond the past and learn the lessons of that painful history," he told reporters. The countries were annexed by Moscow after the fall of Nazism and chafed for decades under the Kremlin's iron-fisted rule.

"The Baltic peoples kept a long vigil of suffering and hope," Bush said. "Though you lived in isolation, you were not alone. The United States refused to recognize your occupation."

Bush, on the first leg of a politically sensitive European trip marking the end of World War II, earlier told reporters the end of the war 60 years ago "meant peace" for much of the world but "brought occupation and communist oppression" to the Baltic states.

Kremlin's concerns
In answer to a reporter's question about Russia's displeasure with Bush's trip to Latvia, he said he would "continue to speak as clearly as I can to [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin that it's in his country's interests that there be democracies on his borders."

"The idea of countries helping others become free, I hope that would be viewed as not revolutionary, but rational foreign policy, as decent foreign policy, as humane foreign policy," Bush said.

The Kremlin has expressed concern about Bush's visits to Latvia and Georgia, which the president will also visit on this trip, because of Moscow's strained relationships with its former satellites.

Russian officials also have objected to Bush's use of the word occupation in reference to the fate of the Baltics. (Full story)

Baltic leaders have urged Putin to renounce a 1939 pact between Russia and Nazi Germany that led to communist rule in their countries. The Associated Press reported that Putin told German television that Russia had renounced that deal in 1989. (Full story)

Bush also called for free elections, set for next year, in the former Soviet republic of Belarus, which his administration has repeatedly referred to as the last dictatorship in Europe.

The people of Belarus "should be allowed to express themselves in free and open and fair elections," Bush said.

Three Star Order
Earlier, Vike-Freiberga presented Bush with her country's highest honor, the "Three Star Order," calling him a "signal fighter of freedom and democracy in the world."

"I admire your country's courage," said Bush, who along with Vike-Freiberga laid wreaths at the foot of Freedom Monument, a towering obelisk that marks the country's independence from communist rule.

After his talks in Lativa, Bush flew to the Netherlands where he landed Saturday evening. There, as part of the events marking V-E Day (for victory in Europe), Bush plans to lay a wreath at the Netherlands American cemetery on Sunday. Later he will join world leaders for a victory celebration in Moscow that will include a military parade in Red Square.

Bush also is scheduled to visit Georgia before returning to the United States.

CNN's Dana Bash and John King contributed to this report.


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1. "After an hour I wasn't feeling anything so I decided to take another..."
2. "We were feeling pretty good so we decided to smoke a few bowls..."
3. "I had to be real quiet because my parents were asleep upstairs..."

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OfflineAncalagon
AgnosticLibertarian

Registered: 07/30/02
Posts: 1,364
Last seen: 15 years, 1 month
Re: One of Bush's better days [Re: Divided_Sky]
    #4152729 - 05/09/05 08:24 AM (18 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

"When powerful governments negotiated, the freedom of small nations was somehow expendable," he said.



Really, no offense, but as long as people keep getting swells of pride when our Presidents spew this disgustingly deceitful rhetoric, our country will continue on its miserable path. If I were to mention the word 'Iraq' would it seem like the President had any strong convictions about the words you saw fit to embolden?


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?When Alexander the Great visted the philosopher Diogenes and asked whether he could do anything for him, Diogenes is said to have replied: 'Yes, stand a little less between me and the sun.' It is what every citizen is entitled to ask of his government.?
-Henry Hazlitt in 'Economics in One Lesson'

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OfflineDivided_Sky
Ten ThousandThings

Registered: 11/02/03
Posts: 3,171
Loc: The Shining Void
Last seen: 15 years, 9 months
Re: One of Bush's better days [Re: Ancalagon]
    #4155745 - 05/10/05 12:16 AM (18 years, 10 months ago)

Neither he nor I thought the freedom of Iraqis was expendable. As I recall you were among those who thought that Saddam Hussein wasn't any of our business.


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1. "After an hour I wasn't feeling anything so I decided to take another..."
2. "We were feeling pretty good so we decided to smoke a few bowls..."
3. "I had to be real quiet because my parents were asleep upstairs..."

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OfflineAncalagon
AgnosticLibertarian

Registered: 07/30/02
Posts: 1,364
Last seen: 15 years, 1 month
Re: One of Bush's better days [Re: Divided_Sky]
    #4157908 - 05/10/05 02:26 PM (18 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

Divided_Sky said:
Neither he nor I thought the freedom of Iraqis was expendable. As I recall you were among those who thought that Saddam Hussein wasn't any of our business.



The tens of thousands (hundreds of thousands?) who died would, I think, certainly disagree with you. I'm not sure those who currently have to deal with the ever-present threat of attack, those who have to deal with their cities being wrapped in barbed wire, those who have to carry around their papers at all times, those who have their property demolished, those who are seized and held without being formally charged with a crime, etc, etc, would agree with you either.


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?When Alexander the Great visted the philosopher Diogenes and asked whether he could do anything for him, Diogenes is said to have replied: 'Yes, stand a little less between me and the sun.' It is what every citizen is entitled to ask of his government.?
-Henry Hazlitt in 'Economics in One Lesson'

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InvisibleDieCommie

Registered: 12/11/03
Posts: 29,258
Re: One of Bush's better days [Re: Ancalagon]
    #4157913 - 05/10/05 02:28 PM (18 years, 10 months ago)

Your talking about under saddam?

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OfflineMushmonkey
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Re: One of Bush's better days [Re: Ancalagon]
    #4157932 - 05/10/05 02:35 PM (18 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

Ancalagon said:
Quote:

"When powerful governments negotiated, the freedom of small nations was somehow expendable," he said.



Really, no offense, but as long as people keep getting swells of pride when our Presidents spew this disgustingly deceitful rhetoric, our country will continue on its miserable path. If I were to mention the word 'Iraq' would it seem like the President had any strong convictions about the words you saw fit to embolden?




How can you take any issue with that quote?

Whoever wrote it gets a giant thumb's up in my book.

There's no deceit behind it. Maybe you could argue that Bush is being double-faced; however, to do so you must also argue that we have taken freedom away from the Iraqis.

Last I checked the Iraqi people appeared to be much more free to govern themselves today than before US intervention, however, so that argument might be a tough one to pull off.


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i finally got around to making a sig
revel in its glory and quake in fear at its might
grar.

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OfflineAncalagon
AgnosticLibertarian

Registered: 07/30/02
Posts: 1,364
Last seen: 15 years, 1 month
Re: One of Bush's better days [Re: DieCommie]
    #4158091 - 05/10/05 03:18 PM (18 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

DieCommie said:
Your talking about under saddam?



I'm talking about Iraq today.


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?When Alexander the Great visted the philosopher Diogenes and asked whether he could do anything for him, Diogenes is said to have replied: 'Yes, stand a little less between me and the sun.' It is what every citizen is entitled to ask of his government.?
-Henry Hazlitt in 'Economics in One Lesson'

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OfflineAncalagon
AgnosticLibertarian

Registered: 07/30/02
Posts: 1,364
Last seen: 15 years, 1 month
Re: One of Bush's better days [Re: Mushmonkey]
    #4158192 - 05/10/05 03:40 PM (18 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:


How can you take any issue with that quote?



The same way I would take issue with a debtor saying "A penny saved is a penny earned," and Adolph Hitler saying "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." I don't take issue with the quote itself, it's an excellent quote -- I take issue with the fact that it's coming from the mouth of a man who has shown utter contempt for the philosophy that quote would seem to represent.

Quote:


Whoever wrote it gets a giant thumb's up in my book.



I'm sure whoever that is is ecstatic.

Quote:

here's no deceit behind it. Maybe you could argue that Bush is being double-faced;



:confused: :confused:

Quote:

owever, to do so you must also argue that we have taken freedom away from the Iraqis.



We've certainly taken freedom away from the Iraqis that have been killed and maimed in this fruitful endeavor. Iraq today isn't exactly the quintessence of freedom -- as I listed above, many hallmarks of a police state exist in present day Iraq.

Quote:

Last I checked the Iraqi people appeared to be much more free to govern themselves today than before US intervention, however, so that argument might be a tough one to pull off.



Would you say having your house destroyed by an occupying power falls under the perview of governing oneself? What about being unable to leave your home (if you're lucky enough to have one intact) after a certain hour? What about having to carry around papers just like they did in nice, self-governing places like Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. Perhaps on the whole (I don't see how you can quanitify this, feel free to enlighten me) Iraq is marginally more free, for whatever its worth -- what price freedom though? Was it worth up to a hundred thousand human lives? Would you have given your life to give Iraq the fata morgana freedom it enjoys today?


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?When Alexander the Great visted the philosopher Diogenes and asked whether he could do anything for him, Diogenes is said to have replied: 'Yes, stand a little less between me and the sun.' It is what every citizen is entitled to ask of his government.?
-Henry Hazlitt in 'Economics in One Lesson'

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OfflineDivided_Sky
Ten ThousandThings

Registered: 11/02/03
Posts: 3,171
Loc: The Shining Void
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Re: One of Bush's better days [Re: Ancalagon]
    #4158746 - 05/10/05 06:13 PM (18 years, 10 months ago)

Ancalagon, your 100,000 dead figure is highly debatable. Pretty much everybody else came up with around 20,000, and most of them were not killed by US forces but rather by terrorist attacks and crime which we are not directly responsible for. Moreover, if that one statistic is correct, that death toll is barely a third of the estimated number of people Saddam Hussen killed or disapeared since the first Gulf War. If you claim that these figures have not been solidly proven I can say the same of your own.


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1. "After an hour I wasn't feeling anything so I decided to take another..."
2. "We were feeling pretty good so we decided to smoke a few bowls..."
3. "I had to be real quiet because my parents were asleep upstairs..."

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InvisibleDirtMcgirt
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Registered: 10/20/04
Posts: 2,213
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Re: One of Bush's better days [Re: Divided_Sky]
    #4158992 - 05/10/05 07:17 PM (18 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

Ancalagon, your 100,000 dead figure is highly debatable. Pretty much everybody else came up with around 20,000, and most of them were not killed by US forces but rather by terrorist attacks and crime which we are not directly responsible for. Moreover, if that one statistic is correct, that death toll is barely a third of the estimated number of people Saddam Hussen killed or disapeared since the first Gulf War. If you claim that these figures have not been solidly proven I can say the same of your own.





1991 to to 2003 is 12 years


If you check your math you'll see that 20,000 after two years of the Iraq War part duex (2003 - 2005) times 6 (for 12 years) equals 120,000. Thats a little more than your claim of how much Saddam killed. I wonder where Iraq will be in 12 years...probably under Chinese control or something. But much less crowded.

We aren't responsible for all those deaths but it wouldn't have happened if we never invaded. And the quality of life in Iraq wouldn't be a whole lot different I assume. And than more of my tax money could go to something more fruitful like blowing somebody else up.


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"And we, inhabitants of the great coral of the Cosmos, believe the atom (which still we cannot see) to be full matter, whereas, it too, like everything else, is but an embroidery of voids in the Void, and we give the name of being, dense and even eternal, to that dance of inconsistencies, that infinite extension that is identified with absolute Nothingness and that spins from its own non-being the illusion of everything."

Edited by DirtMcgirt (05/10/05 07:20 PM)

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OfflineAncalagon
AgnosticLibertarian

Registered: 07/30/02
Posts: 1,364
Last seen: 15 years, 1 month
Re: One of Bush's better days [Re: Divided_Sky]
    #4159068 - 05/10/05 07:31 PM (18 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:


Ancalagon, your 100,000 dead figure is highly debatable. Pretty much everybody else came up with around 20,000,



I wrote:
The tens of thousands (hundreds of thousands?)
doesn't that seem to indicate to you that I wasn't sure of the credibility of the high-ball figure? It most certainly would unless you were trying to score points.

Quote:

and most of them were not killed by US forces but rather by terrorist attacks and crime which we are not directly responsible for.



Directly or indirectly we were certainly responsible for them in a sense. How many terrorist attacks were there per month during Saddam's brutal reign? I'm genuinely curious -- how many?

Quote:

Moreover, if that one statistic is correct, that death toll is barely a third of the estimated number of people Saddam Hussen killed or disapeared since the first Gulf War. If you claim that these figures have not been solidly proven I can say the same of your own.



Hitler was arguably not as bad as Stalin. Heil Hitler?

I think if you billed that as it might be billed (we've only destroyed a third of the lives Saddam destroyed in a lengthier period of time!) you'd realize the mind-boggling nature of your argument.


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?When Alexander the Great visted the philosopher Diogenes and asked whether he could do anything for him, Diogenes is said to have replied: 'Yes, stand a little less between me and the sun.' It is what every citizen is entitled to ask of his government.?
-Henry Hazlitt in 'Economics in One Lesson'

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OfflineTwirling
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Re: One of Bush's better days [Re: Ancalagon]
    #4163928 - 05/11/05 09:02 PM (18 years, 10 months ago)

What I thought was ironic about the Bush quote, was that in the 1980's, the US funded various small countries in the Mid-East to fuel a proxy war against Russia. This includes Iraq and al-Qaeda. The CIA, which Bush's father was head of at the time, supplied Iraq with chemical weapons which were used against Iraq's own people.

Bush was certainly accurate in saying "When powerful governments negotiated, the freedom of small nations was somehow expendable".... although I doubt he was referring to his dad.

http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/dictators/saddam-hussein/


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The very nature of experience is ineffable; it transcends cognitive thought and intellectualized analysis. To be without experience is to be without an emotional knowledge of what the experience translates into. The desire for the understanding of what life is made of is the motivation that drives us all. Without it, in fear of the experiences what life can hold is among the greatest contradictions; to live in fear of death while not being alive.


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OfflineCatalysis
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Registered: 04/23/02
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Re: One of Bush's better days [Re: Twirling]
    #4163954 - 05/11/05 09:09 PM (18 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

.... although I doubt he was referring to his dad.




Why is that?

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OfflineTwirling
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Re: One of Bush's better days [Re: Catalysis]
    #4164000 - 05/11/05 09:23 PM (18 years, 10 months ago)

"U.S. companies were recruited and encouraged, both covertly and overtly, to ship poisonous chemicals and biological agents to Iraq, by the administrations of both Reagan and George Bush Sr...."

His father helped supply Iraq with chemical weapons which were used against it's own people. This was a method of trying to fight Russia through a proxy war, thus it fits with Bush's quote above. Two nations trying to use smaller nations to negotiate.

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OfflineCatalysis
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Re: One of Bush's better days [Re: Twirling]
    #4164020 - 05/11/05 09:31 PM (18 years, 10 months ago)

Right, I thought that was the whole point of Bush saying this. He was not only speaking of other countries, but the US as well (i think that was the whole point of divided_sky's post).

Maybe im wrong but i find it ironic that you are arguing that Bush inferred the US has clean hands when he never said anything like that. I would think that you would try to argue just the opposite and try to say that Bush admitted the US is really responsible for everything bad that has happened over there.

Then again, the whole "america doesn't think its shit stinks" angle is working very well as a talking point and Im sure it would suck for that to come to an end.

Edited by Catalysis (05/11/05 09:45 PM)

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Invisiblekaiowas
lest we baguette
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Re: One of Bush's better days [Re: Divided_Sky]
    #4164094 - 05/11/05 09:51 PM (18 years, 10 months ago)

no wonder other countries hate us so.

going around telling others how to behave when we don't behave either. So a government is telling another government to set up democracies when we can't even do it for one country?

whether you agree or disagree with the iraq war, one thing is pretty certain, we went unprepaired. look at all the lost money, and much more imnportant the lost lives...

..and bush goes around telling other countries what to do.


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Annnnnnd I had a light saber and my friend was there and I said "you look like an indian" and he said "you look like satan" and he found a stick and a rock and he named the rock ooga booga and he named the stick Stick and we both thought that was pretty funny. We got eaten alive by mosquitos but didn't notice til the next day. I stepped on some glass while wading in the swamp and cut my foot open, didn't bother me til the next day either....yeah it was a good time, ended the night by buying some liquor for minors and drinking nips and going to he diner and eating chicken fingers, and then I went home and went to bed.

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OfflineTwirling
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Re: One of Bush's better days [Re: Catalysis]
    #4165629 - 05/12/05 08:18 AM (18 years, 10 months ago)

Right, he was referring to the conference in Yalta in which FDR negotiated with Russia in the post WWII situation. I'm not arguing that Bush is saying the US has clean hands. What I'm referring to is Bush's critism of FDR, and yet the forgien policy model he is currently using has its roots in "When powerful governments negotiated, the freedom of small nations was somehow expendable".

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OfflinePhred
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Re: One of Bush's better days [Re: Twirling]
    #4166126 - 05/12/05 11:27 AM (18 years, 10 months ago)

So which small nations do you believe have had their freedom threatened by Bush's actions?



Phred


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OfflineRonoS
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Re: One of Bush's better days [Re: Phred]
    #4166142 - 05/12/05 11:38 AM (18 years, 10 months ago)

Venezuela


--------------------
"Life has never been weird enough for my liking"

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OfflinePhluck
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Re: One of Bush's better days [Re: Divided_Sky]
    #4166151 - 05/12/05 11:43 AM (18 years, 10 months ago)

If only Bush wasn't talking about a McCarthy era myth:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/A...ment/TopStories

(And yes, I know Conrad Black is a douchebag, but when he's right he's right).

Quote:


Yalta was no betrayal, Mr Bush
By CONRAD BLACK

Tuesday, May 10, 2005 Page A19Key

In his otherwise eloquent remarks at Riga on the weekend, U.S. President George W. Bush, as has been his habit when in Eastern Europe, revived the Yalta myth about the origins of the Iron Curtain and the postwar division of Europe. He said that "the Yalta Agreement followed in the unjust tradition of Munich and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Once again, when powerful governments negotiated, the freedom of small nations was somehow expendable."

Yalta's Declarations on Liberated Europe and on Poland were all that the most ardent democrat would have wished: assurances of free, multiparty elections, secret ballots and the benefits of Western standards of freedom. Apart from these two declarations, Yalta did not otherwise dispose of Eastern Europe. As historian Ted Morgan wrote: "Yalta was a defeat for the Soviets and they so regarded it. What they won at the negotiating table, their armies already possessed. If Yalta was a sell-out, why did [Stalin] go to such lengths to violate the agreement?" The problem with Yalta was not that it was a bad agreement but that Stalin ignored it.

Eastern Europe was not written off, as Mr. Bush implies. At Tehran in November of 1943, it was agreed to move the Soviet and Polish western borders 200 miles to the west, rewarding Russia for her mighty war effort and compensating Poland at the expense of Germany. Stalin made it clear that the USSR would reoccupy the Baltic states of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, which had been Russian provinces for 200 years from the time of Peter the Great to the end of the First World War. He dismissed Franklin Roosevelt's request for a referendum in those countries and pointed out that the British and Americans had never asked the Romanovs to hold referendums there.

Mr. Bush is correct that the liberty of small countries must be protected against the aggressions of larger powers, but there was no practical step the Western leaders could take to assist the Baltic countries as the 360 divisions of the Red Army rolled into Central Europe.

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In February of 1944, the European Advisory Commission, against the wishes of the United States, produced a plan for the division of postwar Germany into three approximately equal zones. This was a triumph for the British, who would have only a fraction of the forces of the Americans in Western Europe at the end of hostilities, much less the Russians. Not knowing that Tehran had a secret agreement and changed the Polish borders, the commissioners awarded most of the Russian zone of prewar Germany from territory that would be Polish.

This condemned Poland to Russian occupation, but also assured that Germany would move demographically to the West and become an unambiguously Western country for the first time. About 10 million Germans decamped to the West ahead of the Red Army. It was a tragedy for the Poles but a good geopolitical trade for the West. The United States had not wanted to demarcate occupation zones in Germany but leave it to where the armies ended up. Roosevelt correctly believed that the Germans would resist more fiercely in the East against the Russians than against the Western Allies, who generally observed the Geneva Conventions.

Winston Churchill, who was hardly soft on communism and was leader of the opposition to the 1938 Munich agreement, went to Moscow in October of 1944 and agreed that the Soviet Union would have pre-eminent influence in Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary; that the West would prevail in Greece; and that Yugoslavia would be a 50-50 division between them. This was essentially what occurred. It was, in Churchill's phrase, a "naughty" arrangement, made against Roosevelt's wishes, but it reflected military realities on the ground. Apart from these agreements, Eastern Europe was not formally carved up or assigned among the Great Powers.

The Russians were taking almost 90 per cent of the casualties among the Big Three Allies in fighting the Germans. It has never been clear how Roosevelt and Churchill were to deny Stalin what he considered his share of the spoils. Roosevelt wanted the Russians to take some of the anticipated one million casualties that would be involved in subduing Japan, if atomic weapons did not work. The first atomic test was only in July of 1945, more than five months after Yalta.

Roosevelt had hoped that the existence of atomic weapons in the hands of the U.S., plus a promise of immense economic assistance and co-operation in the durable demilitarization of Germany, could induce Stalin to be comparatively flexible in Eastern Europe. Stalin's rejection of this offer from Roosevelt and Harry Truman was a colossal blunder. The violated Yalta accords furnished much of the moral basis for the Western conduct of the Cold War, which ultimately the Russians could not win and which led to the collapse of the Soviet Union and of communism itself.

Mr. Bush should remember, even if he does not want to repeat it to live audiences in Eastern Europe, that, of all those countries, only the Czechs were politically distinguished before the war. The Hungarians and Poles jubilantly joined in tearing up Czechoslovakia after Munich. Munich was a bad arrangement, undertaken with good intentions by British prime minister Neville Chamberlain, because he knew that Britain and France could not go to war against the desire of the Sudeten Germans to join Germany.

The Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939 was an act of stupefying cynicism, carving up Poland and the Baltic states, and submitting them all to brutal occupation. Yalta was an unexceptionable arrangement that required 45 years of vigilant containment to enforce. Mr. Bush should not perpetuate the Yalta myth and should not give ammunition to the forces of anti-Americanism in Europe, which claim that the English-speaking countries betrayed Eastern Europe. The West went to war for Poland. The English-speaking countries liberated Western Europe and, with those liberated countries, withheld recognition of Stalin's violation of his Yalta promises until Eastern Europe, too, was liberated.

Sixty years after V-E Day, this Republican president should stop parroting McCarthyite defamations of Roosevelt, Churchill and Truman. He cannot seriously lament that the West did not go to war with the USSR over Eastern Europe in 1945. He should stop apologizing for what was not, in fact, a discreditable episode in American diplomatic history.

Lord Black of Crossharbour,

former chairman of Hollinger Inc., is author of Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom.




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"I have no valid complaint against hustlers. No rational bitch. But the act of selling is repulsive to me. I harbor a secret urge to whack a salesman in the face, crack his teeth and put red bumps around his eyes." -Hunter S Thompson
http://phluck.is-after.us

Edited by Phluck (05/12/05 11:45 AM)

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