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Obama and the Cold War
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07/08/09 04:18 AM ET
Perhaps with the wall-to-wall coverage of the Michael Jackson memorial service (some would say excessive extravaganza) yesterday you missed President Obama's remarks to the graduates of the New Economic School in Moscow. Once again, the president has left the United States and gone abroad to denigrate his country — our country — to elevate himself as some sort of übercitizen of the world.
This time, Mr. Obama failed to pay tribute and honor the sacrifices of our brave men and women in uniform who protected the United States and Western Europe from the threat of Soviet aggression during the Cold War. Moreover, he failed to mention the steadfast determination of America's 40th president, Ronald Wilson Reagan, who stared down the threat posed to the free world and brought communism to its knees and ultimate defeat utilizing the doctrine of peace through strength.
Apparently, America's 44th president is incapable or unwilling to attribute any success to any former president. I say this because I was stunned to hear President Obama's re-working of history to deny our servicemen and -women their honor by protecting us from evil and communism while President Reagan caused the former Iron Curtain to fall and end the Cold War.
In his own words, this is how President Obama saw the Cold War reach a peaceful conclusion:
"And then, within a few short years, the world as it was ceased to be. Now, make no mistake: This change did not come from any one nation. The Cold War reached a conclusion because of the actions of many nations over many years, and because the people of Russia and Eastern Europe stood up and decided that its end would be peaceful."
The ignorance of American and world history, evinced in just two short sentences, is shockingly revealing. First, Mr. President, I daresay the people of Russia and Eastern Europe hardly decided to stand up and decide that the Cold War's conclusion would be peaceful. You might ask the citizens of Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Belarus, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria — to name a few countries — if their polite request for the Soviet Empire to withdraw from their borders was met with a peaceful response.
Second, I fail to comprehend how a sitting president of the United States would travel to Russia and announce that the end of the Cold War was not the result of "any one nation." How about the country Mr. Obama was elected to lead? The United States held the Russians at bay while supporting the Solidarity movement led by Lech Walesa in Poland and others who dared to rise up against the Soviet Union in their quest for freedom and democracy.
Another trip abroad by Mr. Obama. Another opportunity to insult his country. Another reason the 2012 presidential elections couldn't arrive soon enough.
This time, Mr. Obama failed to pay tribute and honor the sacrifices of our brave men and women in uniform who protected the United States and Western Europe from the threat of Soviet aggression during the Cold War. Moreover, he failed to mention the steadfast determination of America's 40th president, Ronald Wilson Reagan, who stared down the threat posed to the free world and brought communism to its knees and ultimate defeat utilizing the doctrine of peace through strength.
Apparently, America's 44th president is incapable or unwilling to attribute any success to any former president. I say this because I was stunned to hear President Obama's re-working of history to deny our servicemen and -women their honor by protecting us from evil and communism while President Reagan caused the former Iron Curtain to fall and end the Cold War.
In his own words, this is how President Obama saw the Cold War reach a peaceful conclusion:
"And then, within a few short years, the world as it was ceased to be. Now, make no mistake: This change did not come from any one nation. The Cold War reached a conclusion because of the actions of many nations over many years, and because the people of Russia and Eastern Europe stood up and decided that its end would be peaceful."
The ignorance of American and world history, evinced in just two short sentences, is shockingly revealing. First, Mr. President, I daresay the people of Russia and Eastern Europe hardly decided to stand up and decide that the Cold War's conclusion would be peaceful. You might ask the citizens of Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Belarus, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria — to name a few countries — if their polite request for the Soviet Empire to withdraw from their borders was met with a peaceful response.
Second, I fail to comprehend how a sitting president of the United States would travel to Russia and announce that the end of the Cold War was not the result of "any one nation." How about the country Mr. Obama was elected to lead? The United States held the Russians at bay while supporting the Solidarity movement led by Lech Walesa in Poland and others who dared to rise up against the Soviet Union in their quest for freedom and democracy.
Another trip abroad by Mr. Obama. Another opportunity to insult his country. Another reason the 2012 presidential elections couldn't arrive soon enough.
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Comments (56)
Give us a break. Was it OK for your old boss, [***] Cheney, to trump up a cause for war and send our troops into harm's way in a country that posed no threat to us whatsoever — simply because he gushed over what great men and women they were?
Oh, by the way — you yourself point to Poland and the Solidarity movement as a major contributor to communism's demise in Eastern Europe. So you're actually agreeing with Obama that this wasn't the doing of "any one nation."
Of COURSE the U.S. was instrumental in dismantling the Iron Curtain; I don't think Obama was denying that. He was simply giving credit to the Eastern Europeans who also had a hand in it. (And by the way, he was doing this while in Russia — to pay respect to the contributions of Czechs, Poles, Latvians, etc., while speaking to Russians ain't exactly being cowed by your audience …)BY Rosicky on 07/08/2009 at 09:34
Here is an article by Lech Walesa, a Nobel Peace Prize Winner. In it, he states what Obama can not bring himself to acknowledge.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110005204
In Solidarity
The Polish people, hungry for justice, preferred "cowboys" over Communists.
by LECH WALESA
Friday, June 11, 2004 12:01 A.M. EDT
GDANSK, Poland—When talking about Ronald Reagan, I have to be personal. We in Poland took him so personally. Why? Because we owe him our liberty. This can't be said often enough by people who lived under oppression for half a century, until communism fell in 1989.
Poles fought for their freedom for so many years that they hold in special esteem those who backed them in their struggle. Support was the test of friendship. President Reagan was such a friend. His policy of aiding democratic movements in Central and Eastern Europe in the dark days of the Cold War meant a lot to us. We knew he believed in a few simple principles such as human rights, democracy and civil society. He was someone who was convinced that the citizen is not for the state, but vice-versa, and that freedom is an innate right.
I often wondered why Ronald Reagan did this, taking the risks he did, in supporting us at Solidarity, as well as dissident movements in other countries behind the Iron Curtain, while pushing a defense buildup that pushed the Soviet economy over the brink. Let's remember that it was a time of recession in the U.S. and a time when the American public was more interested in their own domestic affairs. It took a leader with a vision to convince them that there are greater things worth fighting for. Did he seek any profit in such a policy? Though our freedom movements were in line with the foreign policy of the United States, I doubt it.
I distinguish between two kinds of politicians. There are those who view politics as a tactical game, a game in which they do not reveal any individuality, in which they lose their own face. There are, however, leaders for whom politics is a means of defending and furthering values. For them, it is a moral pursuit. They do so because the values they cherish are endangered. They're convinced that there are values worth living for, and even values worth dying for. Otherwise they would consider their life and work pointless. Only such politicians are great politicians and Ronald Reagan was one of them.
The 1980s were a curious time—a time of realization that a new age was upon us. Communism was coming to an end. It had used up its means and possibilities. The ground was set for change. But this change needed the cooperation, or unspoken understanding, of different political players. Now, from the perspective of our time, it is obvious that like the pieces of a global chain of events, Ronald Reagan, John Paul II, Margaret Thatcher and even Mikhail Gorbachev helped bring about this new age in Europe. We at Solidarity like to claim more than a little credit, too, for bringing about the end of the Cold War.
In the Europe of the 1980s, Ronald Reagan presented a vision. For us in Central and Eastern Europe, that meant freedom from the Soviets. Mr. Reagan was no ostrich who hoped that problems might just go away. He thought that problems are there to be faced. This is exactly what he did.
Every time I met President Reagan, at his private estate in California or at the Lenin shipyard here in Gdansk, I was amazed by his modesty and even temper. He didn't fit the stereotype of the world leader that he was. Privately, we were like opposite sides of a magnet: He was always composed; I was a raging tower of emotions eager to act. We were so different yet we never had a problem with understanding one another. I respected his honesty and good humor. It gave me confidence in his policies and his resolve. He supported my struggle, but what unified us, unmistakably, were our similar values and shared goals.
I have often been asked in the United States to sign the poster that many Americans consider very significant. Prepared for the first almost-free parliamentary elections in Poland in 1989, the poster shows Gary Cooper as the lonely sheriff in the American Western, "High Noon." Under the headline "At High Noon" runs the red Solidarity banner and the date—June 4, 1989—of the poll. It was a simple but effective gimmick that, at the time, was misunderstood by the Communists. They, in fact, tried to ridicule the freedom movement in Poland as an invention of the "Wild" West, especially the U.S.
But the poster had the opposite impact: Cowboys in Western clothes had become a powerful symbol for Poles. Cowboys fight for justice, fight against evil, and fight for freedom, both physical and spiritual. Solidarity trounced the Communists in that election, paving the way for a democratic government in Poland. It is always so touching when people bring this poster up to me to autograph it. They have cherished it for so many years and it has become the emblem of the battle that we all fought together.
As I say repeatedly, we owe so much to all those who supported us. Perhaps in the early years, we didn't express enough gratitude. We were so busy introducing all the necessary economic and political reforms in our reborn country. Yet President Ronald Reagan must have realized what remarkable changes he brought to Poland, and indeed the rest of the world. And I hope he felt gratified. He should have.
Mr. Walesa, winner of the 1983 Nobel Peace Prize, was president of Poland from 1990 to 1995.BY Robert Rosencrans on 07/08/2009 at 10:59
Hiding behind self praise and arrogance and using national pride to utter agenda based rubbish for me is low. It not only denigrates yourself but it also in turn lowers the value of those dedicated servicemen and women.
With all due respect to your namesake President who achieved much, he was not nor was the US the major contributor to the downfall of Communism. It failed because it was a failing system and if the US did anything, it stopped the spread and it showed the example of what free-economy is capable of. That is all.
I think Obama said it correctly, that it was the subjegated people living under such systems that paved the way, shed the real blood and made the change.
So really Ron, except for just another anti-democrat political agenda spat, your posting was in reality a waste of time.BY Solkhar on 07/08/2009 at 15:02
Like many Alaskans, I resent Palin’s claims that she speaks for all of us, and cringe when she tosses off her stump speech line, “Well, up in Alaska, we….” Not only did I not vote for her, she represents the antithesis of the Alaska I love. As mayor, she helped shape Wasilla into the chaotic, poorly planned strip mall that it is; as governor, she’s promoted that same headlong drive toward development and despoilment on a grand scale, while paying lip service to her love of the place.
As for that frontierswoman shtick, take another look at that hairpiece-augmented beehive and those stiletto heels. Coming from a college-educated family, living in a half-million-dollar view home, basking in a net worth of $1.25 million, and having owned 40-some registered motorized vehicles in the past two decades (including 17 snowmobiles and a plane) hardly qualifies Palin and her clan as the quintessential Joe Six-Pack family unit — though the adulation from that quarter shows the Palins must be fulfilling some sort of role-model fantasy.
Palin can claim to know Alaska; the fact is, she’s seen only a minuscule fraction of it — and that doesn’t include Little Diomede Island, the one place in Alaska where you actually can see Russia. So she can ride an ATV and shoot guns. Set her down in the bush on her own and I bet we’d discover she’s about as adept at butchering a moose and building a fire at 40 below zero as she is at discussing Supreme Court decisions; And that mountain-woman act is only the tip of a hollow iceberg.
Palin, and by extension, the McCain campaign, has hijacked our state for political purposes, much to the chagrin of the tens of thousands of Alaskans who loathe what she stands for. Her much-touted popularity among residents has eroded over the past six weeks to somewhere in the mid-60s…not exactly what you’d expect in support of a home girl making a White House run.
There are no doubt a variety of reasons for this decline, but many Alaskans are embarrassed, not just by her, but for our state and for ourselves. What’s with the smug posturing, recently adopted fake Minnesota accent, and that "gosh-darn-it" hockey mom pitch? Maybe it plays well in Peoria (and presumably Duluth), but it’s all an act. “She’s definitely put on a new persona since she’s been a vice-presidential candidate,” says Kertulla, who has worked closely with Palin for the past 18 months. “I don’t even recognize her.”
…And if a citizen, wants to talk to Sarah Palin?…Well then as governor, she has been accessible only on her carefully chosen terms, a trend we’re now witnessing on the national stage. And how about those Katie Couric moments when she drifts just a skosh off a well-rehearsed script? Are those a recent phenomenon, brought on by all this new information, pressure and the liberal-gotcha media? Nah. She’s been spouting “political gibberish” (to quote gubernatorial opponent Andrew Halcro) since she arrived on the Alaska scene…and yet somehow, the media, continues to let this BIMBO, get away with all the psychobabble.BY JOE PLUMBER on 07/08/2009 at 17:31
Don't you guys ever get tired of exploiting veterans for your selfish political agenda? It stopped working for you a long time ago. The vets voted just like the rest of the country. Didn't you get the message? You party was thrown out. Vets don't buy the transparent BS you guys have been shoveling. Nobody likes it when you insult good Americans to get your way. When you question our Presidents patriotism you just sound foolish and petty.
We are not alone in this world and the old republican philosophy of treating everyone who isn't a Neocon ideologue like trash is over. We didn't win the Cold War alone, and you know what? It's okay to say that. I served during the Cold War, how about you? The Presidents speech didn't bother me a bit.
I'm looking forward to 2012 too though. This country will be in far better shape than when Bush/Cheney left.
By the way, which 'family values' republican adulterer will you be pulling for?BY Jeff on 07/09/2009 at 02:25
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