Yalta redux
By a certain time in the evening, like about now, I become less certain in my understanding of some of Beck's quasi-mystical sentences. That said, he has put together a good long post on the great surrender of Eastern Europe to the Soviets that was effectively accomplished at the Yalta Conference 60 years ago, near the end of World War II.
The big questions: whether or not it was sheer war weariness, or lack of moral spine, or simply spiritless thinking, or all three that led to FDR's big sell-out of Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe to Stalin. There is also the factor of Soviet influence inside the American government to consider. That influence probably had implanted itself simultaneous with FDR's inauguration in 1933. Was it virtue or moral vanity or the effectiveness of Soviet propaganda, at the end of the war, that ruled out threatening the use of nuclear weapons to move the Soviets back out of what would become known as the Iron Curtain countries?
The "what if?" school of history isn't one of my favorites, but Beck certainly thinks that the ensuing rot of the Cold War, its cost in lives and its cost in allowing the Soviet sickness to grow further inside Western minds, left a gaping wound here in the U.S. and throughout the West that might never heal. One aspect of that wound is the dead virus forms of Communism -- academic Marxism and its derivatives -- that continue to flourish throughout American universities. (Well, perhaps not so dead at the moment, now that we are in another war. The vindictive anti-Americanism inculcated into elite minds throughout the Cold War era is rearing up, as it did during the Vietnam War.)
All of this raises the question of whether, in this current contest with radical Islam, Bush or perhaps his successor will be faced with a crisis that might require putting "the big one" down the pipe somewhere, over thataway. And will the requirement be met should it arise. I ask because I don't think it's necessarily healthy to go through a second 50 years of bullshit similar to the Cold War.
The big questions: whether or not it was sheer war weariness, or lack of moral spine, or simply spiritless thinking, or all three that led to FDR's big sell-out of Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe to Stalin. There is also the factor of Soviet influence inside the American government to consider. That influence probably had implanted itself simultaneous with FDR's inauguration in 1933. Was it virtue or moral vanity or the effectiveness of Soviet propaganda, at the end of the war, that ruled out threatening the use of nuclear weapons to move the Soviets back out of what would become known as the Iron Curtain countries?
The "what if?" school of history isn't one of my favorites, but Beck certainly thinks that the ensuing rot of the Cold War, its cost in lives and its cost in allowing the Soviet sickness to grow further inside Western minds, left a gaping wound here in the U.S. and throughout the West that might never heal. One aspect of that wound is the dead virus forms of Communism -- academic Marxism and its derivatives -- that continue to flourish throughout American universities. (Well, perhaps not so dead at the moment, now that we are in another war. The vindictive anti-Americanism inculcated into elite minds throughout the Cold War era is rearing up, as it did during the Vietnam War.)
All of this raises the question of whether, in this current contest with radical Islam, Bush or perhaps his successor will be faced with a crisis that might require putting "the big one" down the pipe somewhere, over thataway. And will the requirement be met should it arise. I ask because I don't think it's necessarily healthy to go through a second 50 years of bullshit similar to the Cold War.
Comments
But one impression I got from reading Blly this morning was, as I said a my own place... a re-examination of how and WHy Patton got canned. There've been many people since that time that considered Patton a war mongering idiot. (then again, to the largest degree notable, these are the same ppele who consider FDR and Bill Clinton good Presidents).
But it does give one pause, the situation surrounding Patton's wanting to take the Russians out, and the reaction here at home.
And your point about whether or not it was sheer war weariness or lack of moral spine or simply spiritless thinking or all three, seems spot on. Some combo of those three it must have been to not see (Even in retrospect) Patton's point about the problems those bastards were going to cause.
And of course there's always the idea too, that htere was much oin the way of symaothy for the socialist cause... more on FDR than on Truman...
Any typos in the preceeding are my own, and do not indicate the typing ability of the Blog owner.
Well not only did that not happen, but you can imagine the response from poeple like Ike and particularly Truman.... he was relieved of the command of the 3rd Army.
I've always wondered; had we done so, would 50 years of cold war have been averted?