May 08, 2005

Bush: U.S. Had Hand in European Divisions

Second-guessing Franklin D. Roosevelt, President Bush said Saturday the United States played a role in Europe's painful division after World War II - a decision that helped cause "one of the greatest wrongs of history" when the Soviet Union imposed its harsh rule across Central and Eastern Europe.
[Well, Hallelujah!
The 8-ton elephant in the living room was finally acknowledged!
'Bout time, too!
Between "reforming" Social Security and beginning the demythologizing of Yalta, President Bush is finally popping the balloon of the Dimocrats' great and infallible "god" Roosevelt and putting his legacy in the cold light of reality. Once again, thank you, President Bush!--Jen]

Bush said the lessons of the past will not be forgotten as the United States tries to spread freedom in the Middle East.

"We will not repeat the mistakes of other generations, appeasing or excusing tyranny, and sacrificing freedom in the vain pursuit of stability," the president said. "We have learned our lesson; no one's liberty is expendable. In the long run, our security and true stability depend on the freedom of others."

In recent days Bush has urged Russia to own up to its wartime past. It appeared he decided to do the same, himself, to set an example for Vladimir Putin, the Russian president.

Bush also used his address to lecture Putin about his handling of the emergence of democratic countries on Russia's borders. "No good purpose is served by stirring up fears and exploiting old rivalries in this region," Bush said.
[This is in response to Vladimir's displeasure that Bush was even visiting these Baltic countries as the leader of the free world and its chief promoter of democracy and denouncer of tyranny.--J.T.] "The interests of Russia and all nations are served by the growth of freedom that leads to prosperity and peace."

Bush spent the day with the leaders of three Baltic republics - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Many in the Baltic countries are still bitter about the Soviet annexation of their countries and the harsh occupation that followed the war for nearly 50 years. Acknowledging that anger and frustration still linger, Bush said that "we have a great opportunity to move beyond the past." His message here - and throughout his trip - is that the world is entering a new phase of freedom and all countries should get on board.

While history does not hide the U.S. role in Europe's division, American presidents have found little reason to discuss it before Bush's speech.
[I wonder why...except that it's clear that even 60 years on from the end of WWII and Roosevelt's death, that poking holes in the fabric of the mythically marvelous legacy of the Great FDR isn't for the faint-of-heart.
Not even President Reagan, by his own admission a former Democrat, had the honesty and courage to admit the truth about Yalta...or maybe he was just too busy dealing with the consequences of Yalta, as were Bush's other post-war WWII predecessors.
Sad to say, President Eisenhower didn't do anything when the Russians reined in Hungary's growing democratic revolution with an iron fist in 1956 and President Nixon sat by and watched Russian tanks roll into Czechoslavakia in 1972, which the Commies did also for the purpose of crushing a democratic uprising.
We can only presume that this was because of Yalta and that every U.S. President after FRD felt bound by it, until Chief Two Stones President Bush came to town.]

"Certainly it goes further than any president has gone," historian Alan Brinkley said from the U.S. "This has been a very common view of the far right for many years - that Yalta was a betrayal of freedom, that Roosevelt betrayed the hopes of generations."
[It's not just a "view...of the far right"--Oppressive Communist occupation and domination was a fact for the peoples of Eastern Europe from the end of the war until the evil empire fell and this was made possible by concessions we made at Yalta to Stalin.]

Bush said the Yalta agreement, also signed by Britain's Winston Churchill and the Soviet Union's Joseph Stalin, followed in the "unjust tradition" of other infamous war pacts that carved up the continent and left millions in oppression. The Yalta accord gave Stalin control of the whole of Eastern Europe, leading to criticism that Roosevelt had delivered millions of people to communist domination.
[Well, yes. Exactly.--Jen]

"Once again, when powerful governments negotiated, the freedom of small nations was somehow expendable," the president said. "Yet this attempt to sacrifice freedom for the sake of stability left a continent divided and unstable."

Bush said the United States and its allies eventually recognized they could not be satisfied with the liberation of half of Europe and decided "we would not forget our friends behind an Iron Curtain."
[...]
At a news conference, Bush rejected the suggestion that Washington and Moscow work out a mutually agreeable way to bring democracy to Belarus - the former Soviet republic that Bush calls the "last remaining dictatorship in Europe."

"Secret deals to determine somebody else's fate - I think that's what we're lamenting here today, one of those secret deals among large powers that consigns people to a way of government," Bush said.
[Again, good call, Mr. President!]
He called for "free and open and fair" elections set for next year in Belarus, now run by authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko.
[...]

Bush placed a wreath at the Latvian Freedom Monument, a towering obelisk symbolizing this small country's struggle for independence. While he is unpopular across much of Europe because of the Iraq war, Bush got a warm welcome here.

Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga presented Bush with the nation's top honor, the Three-Star Order, calling him a "signal fighter of freedom and democracy in the world."

Bush has irritated Russia by bracketing his visit to Moscow Sunday with stops in two former Soviet republics, Latvia and Georgia. He arrived in the Netherlands on Saturday night, ahead of a speech Sunday at an American cemetery.

Good old Al-Presseera strikes again with their Bush-bashing and America-hating!
I don't suppose we'll ever know what really happened at Yalta, but my own theory is that FRD was too sick and tired at that time, literally weeks away from his untimely death, to press Stalin for real concessions in Eastern Europe.
(Some on the "far right" claim that Communist-sympathizer Harry Hopkins, who served as FDR's right-hand man and the eminence griseof that Administration, was responsible for the many concessions the U.S. made to the U.S.S.R. at Yalta.)
Seeing his weak state, Churchill went reluctantly along, fearing he couldn't stand alone against both Roosevelt and FDR.
While the U.S. hadn't lost as many men as the USSR, we lost a lot and paid just as dearly for liberating Western Europe from the Nazis as the Russians did in the East.
All in all, Gen. George Patton was right: we should have stayed there, finished the job and kick the Soviets' butts back to Moscow while we had the men and materiel handy.
Soviet Communism was every bit as bad as Nazism and probably worse.
I'm delighted that President Bush came out and dealt honestly with these ex-Soviet satellites about the folly of Yalta and what freedom and democracy should and must mean, since Vladimir Putin seems so desirous of reconstituting the USSR and returning totalitarian communist rule to the same countries that suffered under the Hammer and Sickle before.
Needless to say, Bush's meeting with Pooty Poot later today(Sunday) should be very interesting!