Kismet on the Yalta discussion of yesterday… (Which I note Billy joining in on last night)
In reading through the small mountain of clippings my system generated form last night’s runs, I see one fromJonah Goldberg this morning [1]. Jonah apparently gets it, more than he lets on…
What is Schlesinger saying? He writes [2]:
The Yalta conference in February 1945 produced, according to President Bush, “one of the greatest wrongs of history.” The Yalta agreements “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.”
The American president is under the delusion that tougher diplomacy might have preserved the freedom of small East European nations. He forgets the presence of the Red Army. No conceivable diplomacy could have saved Eastern Europe from Soviet occupation. And military action against the Soviet Union was inconceivable so long as the Pacific War was still going on. Our military planners, in order to reduce American casualties, counted on the Red Army to enter the war against Japan. At Yalta Stalin promised a firm date in August. And in February the atom bomb seemed a fantasy dreamed up by nuclear physicists.
Putting aside his argument about what was or was not possible at the time, is he saying that the codification of the Soviet occupation wasn’t one of the “greatest wrongs of history”? It is an odd moral argument which says that because (alleged) necessity requires acceptance of a great wrong, it is no longer a great wrong because it was (allegedly) necessary.And, as it has long been of personal interest to me, does he think the forced repatriation of Soviet deserters, refugees and rebels (such as General Vlasov’s army) to the Soviet Union was necessary? Because of Yalta, the U.S. and Britain returned perhaps hundreds of thousands of former Soviet troops to the Soviet Union who were subsequently slaughtered. Alexander Solzhenitsyn called this war crime the “last secret” of World War Two. I recall reading how the troops under British control went so far as to use the glass from their bathroom mirrors rather to slit their own throats rather than be sent back to Stalin’s Russia. Did we have to do that because the Red Army was already in Eastern Europe? And if so, why? Or is that FDR can never be wrong in Schlesinger’s eyes?
Clearly, Goldberg’s on the right track here.
And Schlesinger, as usual, is laughably off the mark. Note his first leaning is toward Diplomacy. But who’s talking about Diplomacy, here?
As I suggested yesterday, we had the Patton option of re-arming the Germans and bringing them along with us. Between those added troops and Stalin killing off his own troops, our dealing with Stalin via military options, would have been far less a problem than Schlesinger makes it.
OK, before you start… granted that there’s a little bit of mud in this creek;
Stalin had stolen the plans for The Bomb by this time, but firstly, we didn’t know that… didn’t even suspect it, yet… and secondly,even if we DID know… it would have taken him at least 6 months to get anything going based on what he managed to steal.
No… I submit that then… that moment, was the time to strike, and win the freedom of all those people. They had the option for freedom available to them…and they didn’t take it. So, the central issue is why did Churchill and FDR make the choices they did?
I dare to suggest to you that the only logical way FDR and Churchill could have been fighting against the Nazis, and then bend over on the Balitics, is if there were Socialist geo-political motivations on their part. Motivations which… what do you know… were already taking effect in the form of laws and social changes in the US and the UK during the war, as I pointed out yesterday. [3]
And look, I’m a strong believer in the politics of the possible. I am fully aware there are places where compromises need be made, and have advocated for them when the need is there. I’ve taken serious heat over the years in various arguemnts, for doing so. So be it; it’s part of the deal. I still maintain that compromise is a great tool to get to the ends desired… when the situation requires it.
However; what I’m suggesting here is that given the tools we had to hand, that this was not one of the times such compromise was needed…. and that thereby we have proof that Churchill and FDR were motivated by something other than the spirit of compromise. The most logical answer, given the Social Democrat history of all three men, was the desire to make the world safe for socialism.
And dare I say it, Schlesinger, as quoted above by Goldberg, seems slightly miffed that the ploy didn’t work, and seems now posessed in attempts to cover for FDR’s obvious socialist intentions.
Oh, and of course, Schlesinger uses the chance to “dis” President Bush,and to bang the drum for Diplomacy, “dis-ing” the military option. Gee, no motivation there for a demonstrably failed career diplomat, huh?
Schlesinger, for all his bluster has yet to figure out that there are some people who simply cannot be negotiated with. Which is perhaps why he was still in the camp for further negotiations with Saddam.
Idiot.