Gwynne Dyer: Bush picked a poor moment to display his ignorance

[question everything]

Gwynne Dyer: Bush picked a poor moment to display his ignorance
Gwynne Dyer

Published May 10, 2005

Presidents aren't expected to know much history, but their speechwriters are. President Bush's speech in Riga on Saturday did not measure up... What he did was to condemn the Yalta agreement of February 1945, signed by Franklin D. Roosevelt for the United States, Winston Churchill for Britain and Joseph Stalin for the Soviet Union. It didn't actually "carve Europe up" between the victors, but it did give each of them responsibility for getting certain liberated countries back on their feet.

Bush condemned Yalta, claiming that the Western allies had needlessly sold the Eastern European countries into 40 years of Communist rule and Soviet control. "We will not repeat the mistakes of other generations, appeasing or excusing tyranny, and sacrificing freedom in the vain pursuit of stability," Bush promised, implicitly accusing Roosevelt and Churchill of just those crimes -- and then he flew off to Moscow to shake the hand of his host, Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Bush was going to Moscow to commemorate Russia's sacrifices in the struggle against Nazi aggression, which were far greater than America's. The two countries had roughly equal populations at the time, but about 27 million Russians died in the war, compared to only 405,000 Americans. Moreover, it was the Soviet Army that tore the guts out of the Nazi military machine. When the U.S., British and Canadian armies landed on the Normandy beaches in June 1944, they were faced by about 50 German Army divisions; at the same time, the Soviets were facing over 200 German divisions.

By 1945, the Soviet Army was the strongest ground fighting force in the world. It physically controlled the Eastern European countries that became Moscow's responsibility at Yalta. Moscow later installed Communist regimes there (partly because it wanted a buffer zone of friendly regimes between it and Germany, and partly just because it could) -- and there was absolutely nothing that Roosevelt or Churchill could do about it. President Bush is in favor of wars to overthrow undemocratic regimes, or so he says, but against the Soviet Union in 1945? That's just crazy.

(snip)

Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians and Poles have a right to resent both what Stalin did to them and the present Russian government's refusal to apologize openly for the past. President Bush has the right to support them. But it was simply not fitting for Bush to talk like this while he was on his way to Moscow to join the Russians in mourning their 27 million dead.

London-based correspondent Gwynne Dyer's new book is "Future Tense: The Coming World Order."

http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/5394065.html

[Demit]

1. Presidents who major in history at Yale should.

Fucking idiot, with his gentleman Cs.

[nightfire]

22. Where 'gentlemen' get Cs for work that reaps the rest of us Fs.

[marmar]

2. His ignorance is always on display...

remember, this is the president who was shocked that there were black people in Brazil.

[whistle]

6. Actually he was shocked that there were STILL black people....

...in Brazil. I guess he thought they had all been sent back to Africa.

[triguy46]

3. I read the comments

and figured it was just another * attack on FDR. I had a hard time making sense of it, (no wonder, there is no sense there). This is the first time I've heard this new revisionism of the right, that the US was at fault.

But I'm just a regular guy, I kind of wondered where the press was on this, (in the bar, probably), because of the new tack of the ship of state's rewriting of history

[flordehinojos]

4. have you all noticed how bush takes pleasure in stepping on everyone's one

last nerve?

Darn if he ain't stepped on mine one too many times!!!!!!!!!

[triguy46]

5. Our local CBS affiliate, KWTV covered this story, but...

had a newsreader the morning of the speech, referring to the
"Lativians" (la-tee-vee-uns). With the usual morning news repititions every 15 minutes, she made the same mistake 4 times in one hour.

[1956]

7. If * wasn't so

tragically ignorant, it would actually be funny, that he could still be in office. ANyone noticed any photos with the bulgegate apparatus lately?

[yellowcanine]

8. My take on the * "history lesson"...

First of all, Bush doesn't understand enough history to have a high schooler's grasp of the geopolitical situation that existed in Europe at the end of WWII. The Red Army was sitting in eastern Europe and the U.S. still had a war to finish in the Pacific. Besides, the domination of eastern Europe by the Soviets was not predictable and there is simply no comparison to the appeasement of Hitler, despite all of Shrub's talk about Munich. Whether Bush likes it or not, the Soviets were our ally in WWII and we could not have won the war in Europe without them, at least not for another four or five years and maybe not then. Without the Soviets tying down the Germans in the east, Hitler most certainly would have successfully invaded and occupied England and the U.S. would have been denied a staging area for the Normandy invasion. We would have had to fight our way up from Italy and hopefully forced a negotiated settlement with the Germans that would have had them withdraw from England. Nazism would have survived and dominated Germany, France, and England, as well as most of eastern Europe. So it is indeed idle talk on the part of Bush. He really doesn't know what he is talking about.

[question everything]

12. But you would think that someone among his handlers would understand

and prepared him ahead of time.

Perhaps someone did but was too complicated for him to follow..

Certainly papa would have..

[Jackpine Radical]

19. It's not a matter of Bushco's collective ignorance.

In fact, I imagine some of them actually know more history than that. They're just trying to discredit FDR, and they're counting on the ignorance of the American public to help them. And of course they want to take down Roosevelt as a preparatory step to destroying his heritage of social legislation.

BTW--after they kill SocSec & Medicare, can unemployment compensation be far behind?

[Martin Eden]

20. You nailed it

We shouldn't make the mistake of "misunderestimating" the Busheviks.

Rather than shake our heads at what we perceive as stupidity or ignorance, we should be aware of the calculation behind all of chimpy's prepared remarks -- and of their reliance on the ignorance of the American public.

[Larkspur]

9. It was a designed tactic to undermine FDR, not console Eastern Europe

The dig at FDR had nothing to do with foreign politics. It was a designed tactic to bolster a particular Bush domestic policy. By undermining FDR, Bush thinks he can strengthen his goal of privatizing Social Security.

[DrZeeLit]

18. It's a cornerstone rightwing Repub/conservative belief that FDR sold

out the US at Yalta, that he was "in bed" with Stalin, that FDR wanted to make the US more in the communist mold.

You and I (and about every other "sane" and "intelligent" person) know better.
Sadly, many on that far side of the aisle HATED FDR.
This included my grandfather who felt that FDR supported quite a lot of legislation that hindered his patents, lifted tariffs, and hurt his manufacturing/factory, hence his livlihood, during the admin. All I do know about this is that it led to my grandfather's move to the Repubs, and some blah, blah way back family history.

Still, I have read and heard about this hatred of FDR, the sellout.
Bush, being from an "aristocratic" family, who perpetuated these myths over the dinner table, has been brainwashed with the same swill.

Doesn't matter what these neo-cons "know"... they just go with the bashing and believe that life in the "glow" of the past is an aspiration for today.

Sheesh.

I'mjustsayin'

[Inland]

10. But even an idiot wouldn't blame FDR and Truman and the USA

without thinking twice.

Bush's problem isn't that he's stupid. It's that he doesn't care. He has a goal, namely, to convince us that freedom is his goal and no cost is too great to bear, and if lying about the US and blaming the US gets him there, he couldn't care less.

[reprehensor]

11. Gynne Dyer rocks.

Eat it, *.

[oppositionmember]

13. On the other hand, Stalin made a pact with Hitler

and they divided up Poland between them. What goes around...

[question everything]

27. And interesting that when Hitler invaded the one part of Poland

Great Britain felt it needed to come to the aid of Poland against Hitler, but did not feel the same about going against Stalin who did the same on the other part

[agincourt]

14. I can't believe this ass actually passed Yale.

He must have bribed or cheated like hell to get through. I swear his REAL GPA must have been lower than his blood alcohol level

[Skittles]

15. he was legacy - his daddy was very important and very rich

George JR is as dumb as a box of rocks

[shantipriya]

16. BUSH & history

It is a shame this guy is the "leader" of the Free World.It is a sad reflection on the people of our country for electing such an idiot. The guy has no intelligence ,is poorly read,has no cuoriosity about anything,doesn't read anything of substance,etc.

[PATRICK]

17. If not the technically best

the Soviets also had the largest air support force, something we had not contended with after the Germans had decimated their own to nothingness.

The slaughter and the doubtful issue and the popular support are only three of the mammoth considerations despite Churchill's iron will to ignore non-Brit casualties. Churchill by the way got discarded by his own people. There was a lot of tragically unfinished business in the wrap up of the war..

not the least of which was leaving war profiteers and fifth columnists like the Bushes, Harrimans and the multi-nationals and American corporations from being even checked against a repeat of fascist dreams.

Yeah, a healthy FDR could have mopped up your Bush buddies too and we'd be free, prosperous and at peace and maybe never even have suffered the extremes of the Cold War through which we escaped mindless extinction by the whimsical skin of our teeth.

[baby_bear]

23. very interesting comments

I'd appreciate you fleshing them out more. The politics of WWII is still a mystery to me.

b_b

[PATRICK]

26. Simply

read up on it and put yourself in their place. Junior certainly wouldn't have made a tiny part of the necessary commitments and probably would have sold off a lot more to get the spoils of victory and moved in totally disastrous direction, sans Marshall Plan(or no money), the results of which would be unimaginably bad. More nukes would have been dropped. The Cold War would have been a lot more vicious and fascism immediately more on the uprise. There would have been much less freedom and fewer countries not under dictatorships under W.

But then we might have lost WWII as well under a Bush. Sadly this is so likely judging by his inflexible negative traits that it is easier to characterize this alternate history than for W to re-characterize what FDR actually did.

[agincourt]

21. The image that comes to mind of this incident,

Is a little foul rodent performing body functions on FDR's marble statue. Don't know where that would come from.

[nightfire]

24. Bush can no more pick a moment to be ignorant than

a minnow can pick a moment to be small.

[bklyncowgirl]

25. This wasn't a mistake

Bush was relating basic right wing claims that FDR sold the Eastern Europeans out. Many of the believe that we should have turned on our former allies right then and there and marched on to Moscow.

Tarnishing FDRs reputation also plays into Bush's domestic agenda where he is trying to drum up support for Social Security privatization.

This stuff may sound outlandish but these guys know exactly what they are doing and where they are going.

[GetTheRightVote]

28. It is bad enough he knows nothing of history but his speak writers too ?

:kick: