August 26, 2008
PJB: Pushing Russia Into the Cold
By Patrick J. Buchanan
A year after taking power, in June 1934, Adolf Hitler made his first visit abroad — to his idol Benito Mussolini in Venice.
Babbling on incessantly about “Mein Kampf “and the Negroid strain in Mediterranean peoples, the Fuhrer made a dismal impression.
“What a clown this Hitler is,” Mussolini told an aide.
Two weeks later, Hitler executed the Roehm purge and murdered scores of old Stormtrooper comrades. In late July, Austrian Nazis, attempting a coup, assassinated Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss, a friend of Mussolini whose wife and child were then his guests.
Il Duce ordered four divisions to the Brenner Pass and flew to Vienna to vent his rage and disgust with Hitler. He called a summit at Stresa with Britain and France to agree on military action should Hitler make any new move in violation of Versailles.
At the time, however, Il Duce was also plotting revenge on Abyssinia for a bloody border clash with Italian Somaliland.
Mussolini thought his Allies would understand if he invaded the Ogaden to add an African colony to his new Roman Empire, just as the British and French had so often done in previous decades.
Mussolini miscalculated. Morally outraged, Britain and France went before the League of Nations and had sanctions imposed on Italy that were too weak to defeat her but punitive enough to insult her.
Friendless, isolated and condemned as an aggressor by Europe, Italy and Mussolini had nowhere to turn now but Hitler’s Germany.
Thus, over the fate of an Abyssinian slave empire, Britain drove her faithful World War I ally into the arms of a Nazi dictator Mussolini loathed and had wished to confront beside Britain. And Abyssinia was overrun.
Are we making the same mistake in the Caucasus?
Mikheil Saakashvili started this war with his barrage attack and occupation of South Ossetia. Russia’s war of retribution was far less violent or excessive than the U.S. bombing of Serbia for 78 days over Kosovo, or our unprovoked war on Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, which has brought death to scores of thousands, or Israel’s 35 days of bombing of Lebanon for a border skirmish with Hezbollah.
Yet, declared John McCain of Russia, “In the 21st century, nations don’t invade other nations.” Even Dick Cheney must have guffawed.
Russia must get out now, adds Bush, for South Ossetia and Abkhazia belong to a sovereign Georgia. But when did Bush demand that Israel get off the Golan Heights or withdraw from the birthplace of Jesus, which Israelis have occupied for 41 years, as he demands that Russia get out of the birthplace of Joseph Stalin, which Russia has occupied for two weeks?
As Israel was provoked in 1967, so, too, was Russia provoked.
Russians died in Saakashvili’s attack, as American died in Pancho Villa’s raid on New Mexico in 1916. We sent “Black Jack” Pershing, future Gen. George Patton and a U.S. army 300 miles into Mexico to kill Villa. Was this proportionate?
If we proceed on a course of isolating Russia from the West, keeping her out of the World Trade Organization, throwing her out of the G-8 and ending cooperation with NATO, where do we think Russia will go? Where did Il Duce go, when he was excommunicated from the West?
Condi Rice compares Vladimir Putin’s action in Georgia to Leonid Brezhnev’s crushing of the Prague Spring in 1968. She raced to Warsaw to ink a deal to put 10 anti-missile missiles and U.S. Patriot missiles manned by Americans into Poland.
Does the Stanford provost have any idea where the end of this road lies, upon which she and Bush have started the United States?
What do we do if Russia responds to our Patriots in Poland with the Russian S-300 anti-aircraft system in Iran and Syria?
If the United States intends to bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO and arm them to fight Russia, why should Russia not dissolve the Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe and move her tank armies into Belarus and up to the borders of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania?
Would we send U.S. troops into the Baltic republics to signal that we will fight Russia to honor our NATO war guarantees? Which NATO allies would fight alongside us against a nuclear-armed Russia?
If we bring Ukraine into NATO, what do we do if Russified east Ukraine secedes and Russia sends troops to back the rebels? Do we send warships into Russia’s bathtub, the Black Sea, and commit to fight as long as it takes to restore Ukraine’s territorial integrity?
In March 1939, Britain pledged to declare war and fight Germany to the death to guarantee the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Poland. How did that one turn out for Britain and Poland?
Before we start down the road of isolating and encircling Russia with weak NATO allies, let us think through Gen. Petraeus’ question in 2003 about Iraq, “Tell me, how does this thing end?”
But, then, these folks never seem to think anything through.
Tags: Iraq, Israel, John McCain, Mikheil Saakashvili, NATO, Russia, Vladimir Putin
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Loading ...![Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War](http://patbuchananbooks.com/wp-content/uploads/bk-pjb-chuw165.jpg "Churchill_Hitler_the_Unnecessary_War\")
Brilliant again, my liege.
Being Italian, I like the references to il Duce.
Condi Rice….give me a break. She was trained by Madeline All’brights’ father. Nuff said.
Bring back Colin Powel, lol!!!
Eisenhower had the wisdom to keep us out of a similar trumped up adventure, the Suez Crisis.
Amazing how many of the same players are involved. For some real humor, read how Bush/Baker tried to keep Slovenia in the Yuogslav Republic. Seems the Serbian President at time was another New York educated man of the World. Where is he now?
PJB has been picking on Georgia for a long time now for some reasons unknown to me. Unlike PJB, I know problems surrounding Georgia pretty well, and I can assure all fellow readers that most PJB columns on Georgia are factually inaccurate and intellectually dishonest. It is shameful that once a proud republican turned into a KGB spokesperson! He is worried about Russians feelings so much that he is ready to betray 20 or so Eastern European countries which could become real friends to this country. Unlike PJB’s privileged life in USA, peoples in those countries have experienced life under Kremlin satraps, and are fed up with Russian “friendship”. I value readers time to much not to engage in long comments dismantling each and every stupid argument by PJB. Having responsible foreign policy doesn’t mean dumping your allies whenever it seems advantageous at the moment! PJB is becoming a political dinosaur!
Every major western country will be destroyed. Through wars, weak families, and massive immigration.
These are the three instruments neocons are using to destroy the west and Russia is facing all three.
70 years of neo-con communism destroyed the families, brought wars and illegal invasion of Russia. And look how its collapsing.
Today russia, tomorrow europe, day after tomorrow US. This is what the neocons want.
Hey gogilia, I could care less about your Georgian nationalism, or Russian nationalism. So take your foreign bias somewhere else.
I think the reference to the situation in Europe of 1930th is quite sobering. I’ve read about it in Pat’s book ‘Churchill, Hitler and Unwanted War’. The war adventures next to Russian boarders, playing with missile toys and manipulating with baby puppet’s minds in Lithuania, Ukraine, Poland can bring the least wanted and the least expected consequences for everybody. It won’t be like Clinton’s anabasis to Bosnia or Bush’s war games in Iraq.
Also, Saakashvili did exactly what Saddam Hussein did and hung for that.
I would definitely recommend this article along with Pat’s books
Why didn’t CNN/FOX show Saakashvili eating his tie? It was on BBC and is now all over YouTube. Why don’t they show South Ossetians telling instances of Georgian genocide during their surprise offensive? It is all over Russian TV. I do not say Russians are perfect; all great powers have their interests and do not follow universal “justice” pattern. But is it in our USA interest to confront Russia with its nukes and large conventional army over a small country in the middle of nowhere? If this oil is so important to Europe, why don’t they defend Georgia and its agression against minority people? Germany, Italy do not want to do it so far.
As a country, we were afraid of the falling domino’s of communism in Southeast Asia 50 years ago and so we got involved there. We had no serious national interest in the area other than safe navigation of sea lanes none of which revolved around Hanoi. Harry Truman turned down Ho Chi Minh who asked for US aid to set his country free from the French. Seven years later, we had the Geneva Accords that split the country in two. What did we get for that decision? 58,000+ kia in Vietnam, our nose bloodied, and our national pride tarnished. LBJ and Robert McNamara both knew after Nov 1967 that we would loose the war and chose to do nothing about it. Why? Because LBJ did not want to be the first American President to loose a war. McNamara and his Wiz Kids were to smart to let it happen.
Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski, a sharp minded person in the Kennedy, Johnson, and Carter administrations had the comment to make about the Middle East and Afghanistan “What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?” Somehow we are now involved confronting both with no resources to back up our strategy.
When I look at Georgia, I do not judge the people that live there. I know several and they are wonderful people. When I look at the leader, I see somebody who has suppressed the free press and opposition parities before the short little war he started and had a 30 day no criticizing policy following the war. That doesn’t look like free speech that we have here in America. That looks more like strong handed politics that went out of control.
As a retired military person, I don’t think our foreign policy should be guided by arrogance, but rather with wisdom. No body in the current administration has talked about the fact the treaty the French wrote came out in 4 different versions, the original in French, one in English, one given to the Georgians, and one given to the Russians. All 4 were different. I am not a Russophile, a Georgiaphile, a Chinaphiile or anything else. I am an American and thankful for the chance to grow up here. I understand that each country has a different social pscyhe. Russians have always gravitated towards a strong central leadership, whether it happen under the Tsar, Communism, or Democracy. China, when you get away from Bejing, still has some of the warlord there. We expect these countries to change based on our history of only 230+ years. While we have freedom here, it comes also with a price of having broken more treaties in less time that most other countries. Our word has not really been worth much because of it. What are we really doing in foreign policy now?
Bush supports Georgia because his name is George. If we elect Russ or Ron to be our next president, he will have better relations with Russia. Lets vote for Ron. Hehe
The U.S. should push for a rapprochement with Russia. The old alliance systems, such as NATO and SEATO, could be scrapped and be replaced by one huge alliance system of Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Canada, the U.S., Europe and Russia. Such a vast alliance would ensure peace among its members and could keep China contained. The alliance would have plenty of food and resources to defeat any enemy imaginable and the West would not have to rely on middle-eastern oil for much longer.
Also, perhaps we and the Russians could learn to trust each other after a time and then we could finally “bring the boys home” from Europe after 60+ years, saving us billions of dollars each year!