Exclusive: Last year’s U.S.-backed coup in Ukraine followed by violence and tensions has soured plans for the May 9 commemoration in Moscow of World War II’s V-E Day, the Allied defeat of Nazi Germany, a war which cost the Russian people nearly 27 million dead, as ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern describes.
By Ray McGovern
The controversy over alleged Russian “aggression” in Ukraine is already raining on the Kremlin parade with which Russia will mark the 70th anniversary of the Allies’ victory over Adolf Hitler and the Nazis on May 9. U.S. President Barack Obama set the tone by turning down the Kremlin’s invitation to take part in the celebration, and allies in Western Europe have been equally uncouth in saying No.
The fanfare on Red Square will be a “Last Hurrah” for most surviving World War II veterans, since few are likely to be able to be there for the 75th or 80th anniversaries. Though I was only five years old on V-E Day marking the victory in Europe I was delighted to receive an invitation to go to Russia this week for a smaller-scale celebration marking an equally important 70th anniversary April 25, 1945, the historic day on which U.S. and Russian troops met at the Elbe River.
American and Soviet troops symbolically shake hands across the Elbe River on April 25, 1945, in the final days of World War II in Europe.
On V-E Day, which came a couple of weeks later on May 9, 1945, I recall the thundering celebration as one of my most vivid early memories. So I find it a particular shame that for this year’s 70th anniversary the usual thunderclaps of applause will be muted.
Tragically divided once again by hate, greed, and power-lust, Europe lies in the shadow of war, as the violence percolating in Ukraine threatens to result in wider, more open military intervention from outside. Equally sad, responsibility for the turmoil in Ukraine lies mostly at the doorstep of Washington. Worse still for one who normally pretends to understand what drives foreign policy, how shall I explain to my hosts what lies behind U.S. actions in central Europe, when try as I may to come up with cogent explanations that make some sense the reasons elude me.
For those who may find my straightforward allocation of blame surprising, do not feel you must rely on me (although I have been watching what happens in Russia and Europe for half a lifetime). I strongly recommend the trenchant insights of John Mearsheimer, pre-eminent political science professor at the University of Chicago, and professor Stephen F. Cohen of Princeton and New York University, a distinguished Russianist who has been a Kremlin watcher even longer than I have.
Last fall, a year into the burgeoning troubles in Ukraine, Mearsheimer stunned those who had been misled by hate-Putin propaganda when he placed an article in the Very-Establishment journal Foreign Affairs entitled “Why the Ukraine Crisis is the West’s Fault,” and more recently followed up with a more recent op-ed entitled “Don’t Arm Ukraine.”
As for Professor Cohen, if you have not already done so, please take the time to read his recent “Why We Must Return to the US-Russian Parity Principle: the Choice is Either a New Détente or a More Perilous Cold War.” and his earlier “Patriotic Heresy vs. the New Cold War.”
You will emerge from that reading far better educated on the realities than those malnourished on the thin gruel of the co-opted corporate media, which unashamedly are well into a redux of their familiar drum-beating to send people from our poverty draft merrily off to war. And for extra credit, I highly recommend veteran journalist Patrick L. Smith’s recent interview of Professor Cohen, Part 1 of which Salon has published under the title “The New York Times Basically Rewrites Whatever the Kiev Authorities Say.”
Some Visitors to Moscow
U.S. leaders along with its foreign “vassals” as Russian President Vladimir Putin has called them have responded to the Kremlin’s invitations to the V-E celebration with “regrets.” Not so Chinese President Xi Jinping, whose plan to come for the anniversary observance was announced in January. The President of India, Pranab Mukherjee, will also take part. Signs of the times.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has devised a compromise. So as not to appear to be breaking ranks with other “vassals,” she will shun the parade but will travel to Moscow on May 10 to lay a wreath at a war memorial. The U.S. will be represented by U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Tefft.
It may be difficult for history-starved Americans to understand why it should be that most Russians react so negatively to what they regard as something more serious than a mere gratuitous snub. From watching Russian media one gets the clear impression that veterans and most men/women-on-the-street view the boycott as more serious than a petulant slight but rather as a supreme indignity.
For example, during Putin’s four-hour TV tour de force Q&A with Russian citizens on April 16, one questioner said the world leaders who boycott the celebration “insult the memory of war veterans of the Red Army. … We liberated them out of that Nazi plague, or they would still be shouting ‘Heil!’”
And a retired colonel, who fought in the five-month-long, pivotal World War II battle of Stalingrad as a 19-year-old battery commander, had this to say: “In the first years of the war, the Red Army, our people, were fighting all of Europe singlehandedly. … Yes, we had allies, but they opened the second front too late.”
Putin replied with a mix of condescension and feigned understanding: “Some simply do not want to go, but some are not being allowed to go by the ‘Washington apparatchiks,’ who say, ‘No way.’ And they say, ‘We won’t go,’ although many would like to come.”
Putin then underscored what he sees as the importance of the anniversary observance: “We pay tribute to a generation of victors. We do this so that the present generation, both here and abroad, never forgets about this and never allows anything like this to happen again.”
But what about those aging Russian veterans claiming the lion’s share of credit for defeating Germany? Do they exaggerate?
The Facts
As journalist Martin Sieff keeps pointing out, the current crop of young Americans and Russians has grown up fairly ignorant of how crucially important the Grand Alliance of WWII was to the survival of both their great nations, but all serious Western historians recognize that the Russian people made the greatest sacrifices. The nearly 27 million total of Soviet military and civilian dead was more than twice the death toll of all Americans, Britons, Commonwealth citizens, French and even Germans killed in the war combined.
None other than British War Premier Winston Churchill publicly acknowledged, “It was the Red Army that tore the guts out of the Wehrmacht.” Over 80 percent of the German soldiers killed in World War II died fighting the Red Army.
These facts have been largely forgotten on both sides of the Atlantic, in the United States and Western Europe. At next month’s anniversary observance, pity the squandering of such an excellent opportunity to remind the world that there is strength in unity.
It is altogether understandable, of course, that at the end of WWII, many Europeans looked at their liberation by the Red Army with very mixed emotions. To begin with, in central Europe, liberation was followed by decades of Soviet occupation with harsh rule by Kremlin-installed satraps. So V-E has always been regarded there with considerable ambiguity.
In his extended Q & A on April 16, Putin made an unusual allusion to that dark period in addressing “the ugly nature of the Stalin regime” and the reaction that persists to this day. He conceded: “[It] “may not be very pleasant for us to admit. But in truth, we, or rather our predecessors, gave cause for this. Why? Because after World War II, we tried to impose our own development model on many Eastern European countries, and we did so by force.
“This has to be admitted. There is nothing good about this and we are feeling the consequences now. Incidentally, this is more or less what the Americans are doing today, as they try to impose their model on practically the entire world, and they will fail as well.”
More Recent History
The Ukraine crisis and other circumstances now clouding the May 9 celebration are perhaps the inevitable consequence of another lost opportunity, the chance for an enduring peace in Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall. That hope was squandered by Western leaders who reneged on earlier promises to welcome a very new kind of Russia into European security arrangements, as the Soviet empire fell apart.
In sum, instead of President George H. W. Bush’s 1990-91 vision of a “Europe whole and free” from Portugal to the Ural mountains, the world got the “Wolfowitz doctrine” of 1992 embodied in the draft Defense Policy Guidance drafted by then-Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Paul Wolfowitz: “Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union.”
While George H. W. Bush softened the rhetoric, the Wolfowitz approach did become the core principle of a “We-Won-the-Cold-War” triumphalist policy, with which Bush the Elder, Bill Clinton and Bush the Younger went back on the elder’s promise “not to take advantage” of the fall of the USSR and not to paint Russia as the big loser.
During an interview late last year, former Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev reminisced about what could have been: “I remember the Paris Summit in 1990. Europe offered an example of how to build … a new relationship. The Americans and Bush senior, talked about it. And I spoke about it. … And one wonders how people can object to their own decisions.
“It all began with the fact that the United States suddenly started talking about the creation of a ‘new empire.’ An over-empire, a super-empire. Alas, God and fate had put the task before them. Yes, they thought their moment had come.”
Despite promises by top U.S., German and NATO leaders not to move NATO to the east of a reunited Germany (which joined NATO in 1990), 12 new members all of them to the east subsequently joined, bringing total NATO membership to 28. Worse still from Moscow’s point of view, a NATO summit meeting in Bucharest declared on April 3, 2008: “We agreed that these countries (Ukraine and Georgia) will become members of NATO.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had sternly warned U.S. Ambassador to Russia William Burns two months earlier that the Russians would say a loud NYET to that. They did. Accordingly, it should have come as no surprise that the Russians decided that the U.S.-arranged coup d’état of Feb. 22, 2014, in Kiev was one “regime change” too many.
I have watched many government overthrows oops, sorry, the present term of art is “regime change” but the way this coup was advertised in advance, for me, that was a first. The key U.S. dramatis personae Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and U.S. ambassador in Kiev Geoffrey Pyatt had been overheard plotting the coup more than two weeks before Feb. 22 in an intercepted telephone conversation that was posted on YouTube. George Friedman, head of the well-connected STRATFOR think tank, has said, “It truly was the most blatant coup in history.”
Annexation of Crimea
What prompted the Kremlin’s strong reaction? Was it the coup d’état on Moscow’s doorstep or the prospect of Ukraine joining NATO or the risk of losing Russia’s only warm-water naval port to NATO or was it concern over U.S. plans for missile defense? The correct answer, of course, is all-of-the-above; indeed, they are inextricably linked.
Putin has been very upfront about what moved him to action on Feb. 23, 2014, the day AFTER the putsch in Kiev. By the way, there is not one scintilla of evidence that either Putin or any other Russian leader planned to annex Crimea BEFORE the Feb. 22, 2014 coup.
After the Crimeans voted overwhelmingly to be rejoined to Russia, Putin permitted himself a somewhat jocular passage following a serious one, in addressing this very serious missile issue in a speech on March 18, 2014. to the Russian Duma and other officials at the Kremlin:
“Let me note too that we have already heard declarations from Kiev about Ukraine soon joining NATO. What would this have meant for Crimea and [the naval base at] Sevastopol in the future? It would have meant that NATO’s navy would be right there in this city of Russia’s military glory, and this would create not an illusory but a perfectly real threat to the whole of southern Russia. These are things that could have become reality were it not for the choice the Crimean people made, and I want to say thank you to them for this.
“NATO remains a military alliance, and we are against having a military alliance making itself at home right in our backyard or in our historic territory. I simply cannot imagine that we would travel to Sevastopol to visit NATO sailors. Of course, most of them are wonderful guys, but it would be better to have them come and visit us, be our guests, rather than the other way round.”
Putin has not disguised Moscow’s motives regarding the annexing of Crimea. This, for example, is what he said on April 17, 2014, during last year’s marathon Q & A on live TV:
“I’ll use this opportunity to say a few words about our talks on missile defense. This issue is no less, and probably even more important, than NATO’s eastward expansion. Incidentally, our decision on Crimea was partially prompted by this.” (emphasis added)
Clear enough? In Putin’s eyes, missile defense systems in European countries near Russia and in adjacent waters would pose an existential threat to the forces upon which Russia relies as a deterrent. In recent weeks, several top Russian national security officials have weighed in strongly on this issue.
This is not only a mark of their genuine strategic concern; Russian leaders also see it as increasingly difficult, in present circumstances, for the U.S. to justify a European missile defense system by using the same paper-thin rationale that such is needed to defend against missile attack from Iran.
During an interview on April 18, Putin again drew attention to George W. Bush’s unilateral withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty of 1972 a key anchor for deterrence. Putin listed it high on the list of serious problems with the U.S.
(On Dec. 13, 2001, President George W. Bush gave Russia notice of the U.S. withdrawal from the treaty, in accordance with the clause that required six months’ notice before terminating the pact. This was the first time in recent history that the United States has withdrawn from a major international arms treaty.)
Speaking the day before at an International Security Conference in Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov insisted on the need for “joint efforts based on respect for the legitimate interests of all partners,” if peace is to be preserved. He, too, focused on the U.S. missile defense programs as the primary cause of concern:
“Ground-based missile defense systems will be deployed in Romania this year and in Poland by 2018. More ships with missile defense systems are being deployed. We perceive all this as part of a global project that is creating risks for Russia’s strategic deterrence forces and upsetting regional security balances.
“If the global missile defense program continues to be implemented without any adjustments, even as talks on the Iranian nuclear program are making headway, … then the specific motives for establishing the European missile defense system will become obvious for everyone.”
Lavrov was more soft-spoken than the official statement issued by his own ministry a week before on April 10. That statement quoted President Obama’s public assurance in a speech in Prague in April 2009 about how the elimination of the “Iranian threat” would also eliminate the main reason for the deployment of a missile defense system in Europe.
The Russian Foreign Ministry statement adds: “Against this background, the statements that ‘the missile defense program is not directed against Russia’ look even less convincing.”
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. During his 27-year career as a CIA analyst, he served as chief of the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch, and was in Moscow for the signing of the ABM Treaty and other agreements concluded in May 1972. He is now on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
Dear Ray,
thank you for this article. I have never been particularly interested in politics but the unjust reporting by the so-called ‘free journalists’ on what has been happening in Ukraine makes me really worried. I consider myself a cosmopolitan even though I grew up in Russia and still have a lot of family members, friends and colleagues there and visit this country once/twice a year. I do have Ukraine friends as well (one of my great grandfathers was from Ukraine).
There is so much talking on the internet and in the news about the terrible Russian propaganda machine, about the Russian fairy tales about the Ukrainian Nazis. And I truly believe that not all Ukrainians are Nazis, but …
I really wish these people would not be real:
Iryna Farion, a politician from Lviv, who was a member of parliament from 2012-2014. In 2010 she visited a kindergarten in Lviv where she explained to kids with Russian names that if they insist on keeping them instead of changing them into Ukrainian names they should pack their bags and go to Russia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3R3pMtL3eo. Last year she sad that death is the only thing that the animals/creatures in Eastern Ukraine deserve: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNQ2CVz2Cyk. In May 2014 she congratulated the monsters who committed the massacre in Odessa on facebook: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCGBDTdKyoU. And here is another nationalistic speech from October 2014: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2O5ny9OS6v0.
Oleh Lyshko, leader of the Radical Party: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVYMNHIAZMs
Oleh Tyahgnybok, leader of the far-right Svoboda, a person who made his money by selling fake medicine against cancer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHzNoMfqwCs ; http://politica-ua.com/tyagnibok-i-lekarstva-protiv-raka-eksperimenty-na-detyax/
Battalions Azov, Donbas, Dnepr etc. that in the Western media are called volunteers (very positive term, congratulation for skillfully implanting it in our heads) instead of calling them what they are – ultranationalist mercenaries/militia (negative term and thus avoided at all costs). I mean, they do put Wolfsangel and Hackenkreuz on their uniform and they do receive money for their work from Igor Kolomoisky and other oligarchs: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inpictures/2015/03/ukraine-defenders-mariupol-150317055005089.html http://www.aljazeera.com/video/europe/2014/06/neo-fascists-train-fight-ukrainian-rebels-20146916493486659.html Here is a member of the battalion Donbas, Dmitri Roznichenko with his loving family, posing in from of a Nazi flag: https://twitter.com/strangerdog_/status/553288108700340225. By the way, this guy even has his own blog, where he has recently written that hearing about wildfires in Russia makes him want to add come kerosene: http://reznichenko-d.livejournal.com/.
I wish you would at least once take a quick look into the latest Ukrainian history books. I suggest this one: http://www.twirpx.com/file/525982/.
I wish you would take a notice how on March 22, 2015 Ukrainian Patriarch Filaret justified killings of the people who live in the Donbas region, because “the root of evil lies within those people who live in Donbas … in Moscow†(“Корінь зла знаходитьÑÑ Ñƒ тих людÑÑ…, Ñкі живуть в ДонбаÑÑ–, Ñ– тих, Ñкі знаходÑÑ‚ÑŒÑÑ Ñƒ МоÑкві“) and thus killing them “is not killing, it is not a violation of God’s commandments†(“Чи Ñ” це вбивÑтвом? ÐÑ–, Ð±Ñ€Ð°Ñ‚Ñ‚Ñ Ñ– ÑеÑтри, це не Ñ” вбивÑтво. І це не Ñ” порушеннÑм Заповіді Божоїâ€): http://www.cerkva.info/uk/news/patriarkh/6552-patrfilaret-4nedilia.html
I wish you would report on the Ukrainian lustration laws and on how the mob decides how the presumably guilty people are to be punished: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-29239447 ; https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10206637247638303 ; http://ukraine-nachrichten.de/ukraine-wird-korruption-zerst%C3%B6rt-nicht-putin_4164_meinungen-analysen
I wish that Odessa killings and everything that led to it would not have happened: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOndq1oWjM4.
I wish you would be as thorough and courageous as the Ukrainian journalist Anatoly Shariy who is not afraid to uncover the truth about Ukrainian propaganda: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KGCYVobkLE, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmI2KCOt_sA, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SguI6OV0E40,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znO4B-OAn7A,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkjyPZRtnsU
Yet it seems to me that most of the free Western journalists are very comfortable where they are, like the ‘well connected’ as German colleagues from Die Zeit and FAZ: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_c2-Yg5spU.
Thank you for being different.
It’s a sad and tragic mistake for the Western Occident, and the American extension of it, to believe that the Slavic peoples of Europe (in particular the Russians) are anything like Anglo-Saxons. No one was listening to Putin when he said these words and I’m paraphrasing here; The American’s assume that we (Russians) think and feel like them “but we are nothing like them”…The strong inference here is, a racial kinship of sorts exists between the white, power holding, elite Russia and their counterpart, white race One per center’s within NATO countries. Further that Russians, would not bond more closely to the Asian Peoples. I can’t think of a bigger error in both political and moral judgement than that Western Occident belief! The cultural and economic exchanges between Mongolian and very recently, Chinese nation(s) stand out as obvious examples and surely lend support to Putin’s comments. Russia, almost single-handedly, defeated Nazi Germany and did so by shear bravery and vast numbers of boots on the ground. The staggering death toll of Twenty Seven million Russians during WW II must never be forgotten by anyone, add to this, the immediate aftereffect of post-war peacetime population declines, something they never quite recovered from (oddly West Germany did). The boots on the ground in today’s Russian Army are far, far smaller and reflects both ongoing economic and long term population losses during that world war. Again, I’m paraphrasing here; Putin has been quoted as saying, in order to compensate for these great setbacks, nuclear weapons are now, on the front burner of our border defense system. The West, can take it as gospel that Putin’s not afraid to use A-bombs in the Ukraine conflict especially during this vulnerable, economic transition period away from a ninety year long command economy. I hope this sums up Putin’s “Monroe Doctrine” for our CONSORTIUMNEWS readers. The Neo-Cons need to take the rose tinted glasses off and review those events that led up to the Cuban Missile Crisis- again!
Great article, Joe. As I am Russian (and live in Russia) I have read it in original too. Lets say I am almost like those described Russian. So many musicians, cool movies. Ah!!
But I can’t agree with the demonization or any kind of condemnation of USSR! As have been said in one of comments in provided article, USSR gave to its people FREE education (and it was real education and knowledges, which form the base of our capabilities in various spheres of life till now), houses (as I know from my father, people went to factory and surely knew that they will get an reasonable appartment within the reasonable time), medicine (yes, it was healing of dental with the old-school techniques, but funny that these dental stoppings still stand whereas new ones from the new materials and with usage of high technique sometimes drop out).
And what do we have now, in Russia, PAID education (which makes our nation dumb with these American or European testing techniques, which were cultivated here by our ex-nano-president and stupid harmful saboteur prime-minister Medveded), houses (it would be great if You, ordinary plodder, earn on a flat to the old age), medicine (there’s nothing to say, in most cases – give money, take a care, but, as my Russian-American girlfriend says, in America it’s much worse – absolutely PAID).
Well, does it looks like USSR is a demon empire??? Universal evil???
So, for me, almost 30-years old pal, I have a strong vision that USSR for sure is not worse than present Russia. My mother, average citizen, had an continous economical ability to travel in to Russia and countries of Warsaw Pact. And me… Last year I have been abroad for the first time.
Sorry fo any mistakes in English.
“But I can’t agree with the demonization or any kind of condemnation of USSR! As have been said in one of comments in provided article, USSR gave to its people FREE education (…), houses (…), medicine”
This can be included in any government, if it is for the people. I think Russia is an ethnic group, a culture, where as the USSR was a construct. The following video explains the difference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPZPUom3d_M
Have fun:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClG2IIh4I3c
Everyone should read the article attached to this link I am providing.
http://slavyangrad.org/2014/09/24/the-russia-they-lost/
If only our Washington leaders would quit with their provoking of Russia. All that their mean spirited bluster is doing, is chasing the good guys away. I mean, Russia also has a military industrial complex, who I am sure are rolling up their sleeves over the money they will make manufacturing war products. This has to end, or at least be kept to a minimum.
We need another Billy Joel concert to tour Russia, and promote goodwill. Except what we do is Putin bash. Why, even if we were to not like Putin, at least recognize the Russian people. By not honoring this WWII event, it just shows everyone how ignorant we really are.
People are people!
Great article, Joe. As I am Russian (and live in Russia) I have read it in original too. Lets say I am almost like those described Russian. So many musicians, cool movies. Ah!!
But I can’t agree with the demonization or any kind of condemnation of USSR! As have been said in one of comments in provided article, USSR gave to its people FREE education (and it was real education and knowledges, which form the base of our capabilities in various spheres of life till now), houses (as I know from my father, people went to factory and surely knew that they will get an reasonable appartment within the reasonable time), medicine (yes, it was healing of dental with the old-school techniques, but funny that these dental stoppings still stand whereas new ones from the new materials and with usage of high technique sometimes drop out).
And what do we have now, in Russia, PAID education (which makes our nation dumb with these American or European testing techniques, which were cultivated here by our ex-nano-president and stupid harmful saboteur prime-minister Medveded), houses (it would be great if You, ordinary plodder, earn on a flat to the old age), medicine (there’s nothing to say, in most cases – give money, take a care, but, as my Russian-American girlfriend says, in America it’s much worse – absolutely PAID).
Well, does it looks like USSR is a demon empire??? Universal evil???
So, for me, almost 30-years old pal, I have a strong vision that USSR for sure is not worse than present Russia. My mother, average citizen, had an continous economical ability to travel in to Russia and countries of Warsaw Pact. And me… Last year I have been abroad for the first time.
Alexandr, thanks for the reply. I do believe that when Kruschev proclaimed how ‘we will bury you’ that he was referring to how capitalism would drown in it’s own love of money. (I hope my remembrance of that is correct). The point is you are right everything should not become a privilege when it could be a right. Considering how these ‘trade deals’ basically eliminate jobs, and a chance for advancement, how does one survive in this world?
If Billy Joel and Paul McCartney are inspiring then let’s dwell on that. Later, maybe we can change the world. By no means do we average Americans want to fight you average Russians. Besides all that, for the present moment Putin’s speeches and remarks make him sound like the only sane adult in the room. I’m going now to listen to the Beatles sing ‘Back in the USSR’…Hello Goodbye!
Brilliant article! Just took the words out of my mouth.
Glad you liked it!
Thanks to everyone, guys, for such a kind and warm comments regarding Russian/Soviet victory and Russian/Soviet people. I am Russian, I visit this resourse quite often and Thanks To Most High that there is still people with a true point of view on different things. Every family of our nation has their own grandPa and grandMo fought in this terrible war, Great Patriotic War for every Russian, not the WWII for us!
Last year I asked my mother and father about my grands. I mean “what did they narrate about War”? My parents said that almost nothing because noone wants to go through it again in his memories.
As I understand You are going to visit Russia on 9th May, mr McGovern, wish You a great time and a great show. Peace everyone.
Sincere THANKS to all who have taken part in this discussion. As usual, I learned a lot by tuning in. This ad hoc “consortium” of commentators at consortiumnews.com is truly a cut above, and I am grateful.
I fly to Moscow tomorrow. What would you have me say to the Russian-on-the-street? — or to a Russian official, if I get near one?
With appreciation,
ray
Tell them that there are those Americans who have tapped into great sources of historical truth (Webster Tarpley being just one of these, Consortium too). There are those Americans who know that Russia has always been a friend to the USA since Catherine the Great and her League of Armed Neutrality favored a US victory over the British Empire. There are those Americans who know Alexander II was the ONLY European ally to the USA, in its’ Civil War against the CSA, and that HE assured the British and French Empires that there would be immediate war with Russia, if they intervened on the side of the CSA, which likely ASSURED Lincoln’s victory over the Tory traitors of the South (Tarpley goes into this, in great detail), and that they sent their Baltic Fleet to New York, and their Pacific Fleet to San Francisco, to stand ready to fight alongside the U.S. Navy against the CSA and their British and French allies, should they intervene. Some Americans know that Russia sold Alaska to the USA BECAUSE they figured WE stood a better chance of keeping it out of the grasp of the British Empire. Some Americans know that the feasibility of an Alasko-Siberian railway bridge was studied in Lincoln’s day, as an “end-run” around all of the European Empires which were naval empires relying upon the oceans for their existence (the Bering Straits Tunnel is on the drawing board today…Maglev Trains rendering ships and planes nearly obsolete, Russia is waiting for us to see it too). Some Americans know it has ALWAYS been the Money-Power, headquartered in City-of-London, and its’ last “American Colony”, Wall Street; that has been the enemy of the people, and of the Republic, and of Mother Russia too, hence the alliance with Russia all through the centuries, DESPITE their tragic Soviet era (We’ll have our “Imperial/Fascist era” to be forgiven for, too). Some Americans know this Money-Power has taken to calling itself “The New World Order” these days, and has the sickening, strong stench of Fascism about it. Some Americans know that the current impetus for WWIII stems from the BRICS VS. The Western Empire of “The City and The Street”contest, and BRICS are the good guys in this battle (FDR and JFK would recognize the BRICS policies as their own…unfortunately many Americans apparently do not…yet). Some Americans would apologize to Russia for us having “turned coat” upon our own Founding Ideals, and having, unwittingly, embraced the monstrous proponents of the very Empire we sought to throw off and even destroy, by liberating their colonies after WWII and bringing them into the U.N. as Sovereign Nations, with aid for their development ( at least BRICS is tending to this Mission now). Some Americans know FDR’s vision for the U.N. and the former colonies was carried out in form only, ABORTED in substance, and that the Empires “went covert” with Corporate Flags and a “Security State” to see to it that the “Business of Empire” was taken care of. Some Americans were not fooled at all by current events, or a phony Cold War with our Russian allies, all just to deeply entrench The Financier Empire, and its’ “Security State”, within the guts of our Republic, like a cancerous tumor. Some Americans still know these things.
Please ask the Russian-on-the-street &/or an official, how Russia manages to avoid using drones the world over.
All your words which are heard & read are totally digested.
Priscilla
Maybe, should you yourself feel anything like the way I do, then: plead for the Russians’ compassionate understanding that all of US politics & foreign policy is consummately counterfeit & fake — that, in fact, that is the very nature of modern US culture — and to think themselves seriously lucky inasmuch as they, the Russians, have long had true soul (thanks to their having, during the course of a long history, earned just such a virtue for themselves).
Well, from me, you can tell them “thank-you!” and give them a bear hug (bear, get it?) BTW, a literal bear hug of you and Vladimir is what I’m suggesting – if a picture of same goes viral, then at the very least Victoria Nuland’s head will explode. You can blame me and my request for the lack of diplomatic propriety. :-) However, I think historically aware American citizens are blowing their opportunity to compensate significantly for the stupidity and arrogance of our elites. Here is a verbatim copy of a post I made at thesaker.is (http://tinyurl.com/n6qchh9) 6 days ago:
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I have my own request for assistance. I would like to sign a petition that, along with other American citizens signees,
1) thanks the Russian people for their tremendous sacrifices during World War 2 (over 8 million military deaths)
2) acknowledges the fact that, by virtue of 1), hundreds of thousands, if not millions more of Americans did not perish (instead of the 402,000 military deaths)
3) acknowledges, by virtue of 1) and 2), that Americans have an eternal debt of gratitude towards the Russian people
4) regrets the hypocritical, agenda-driven, and downright embarrassing attitude of Washington elites in not paying proper respects to their World War 2 allies
If you are an American citizen, would you be so kind as to draft, put up, and publicize such a petition, ASAP? If you are not an American citizen, I’d be honored to do so, though I’m not sure what the best vehicle for doing so would be. Also, please note that I have no significant capability to publicize such a petition.
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thesaker guy never answered me, so now I’m putting the same request to you + VIPS. I will riff on my suggestion, though, and further suggest that we a) make the petition allow for obvious self-identification of signees as veterans, or not and b) request veterans to post youtube videos of them personally thanking the Russian people, especially their veterans, for their contributions in WW2 (and then having the veterans include links to the youtube in the petition blurb ‘owned’ by the same person).
Of course, every veteran’s group should be requested to tell their membership to visit the petition website and participate.
Taken from your text above:
“one who normally pretends to understand what drives foreign policy, how shall I explain to my hosts what lies behind U.S. actions in central Europe, when – try as I may to come up with cogent explanations that make some sense – the reasons elude me.”
One can come up with “reasons” but as you imply our foreign policy is fundamentally “irrational.” The urge to continually expand “Defense” spending seems the likely culprit. A catastrophic major war may be the eventual outcome.
Ray, thanks for your work. It seems that some are committed to splitting very fine hairs, as it were, to dismantle the notion that ‘Mother Russia’ ever bore children. The truth is tedious, and comment limitations preclude definitive arguments. But I note there is a tendency for pundits to lump things into categories, then attempt to manipulate those categories as though they were the only parameters to consider. One such ‘category’ which probably deserves more analytical scrutiny is the largely imaginary transformation NATO members undergo when they become ‘allies’. Suddenly, it’s a forgone conclusion that the twelve members added since the Soviet disintegration were always deeply committed to Jeffersonian democracy, and that by re-drawing the boundary that separated NATO and Warsaw Pact countries, all those totalitarian, fascistic, racist, autocratic and feudalistic regimes have completely abandoned their previous peccadilloes. Self-interest and self-preservation plays a big part, and whether or not that strategy yields tangible dividends must be considered. Belgium today hosts NATO headquarters. But it also produced Leon Degrelle and his Rexist party, another Nazi inspired collaboration organization on a par with the Ukrainian Banderists. Longing for the ‘good old days’ in East Germany is reflected in nostalgia for products no longer produced by the regime. Few remember the scandal when it was discovered that Willy Brand’s chief of staff was a direct pipeline to Stasi intelligence services. Even England had Oswald Mosley and his ‘British Union of Fascists’ party. The German Bund organizations in USA go without mention. Foolish, naive and delusional Americans, always seduced by a lack of war experience on our own soil and the allure of glory now incorporated into video games which have also been adopted as training media by our military, seem to think all those NATO allies are on ‘our side’, totally committed to our values, and like chess pieces in a game, forever lost as assets to the other side. So far, being NATO allies hasn’t done much for them other than opening them to World Bank and IMF exploitation. As the ‘fast tracking’ of TTP proceeds, the world will too late see it for what it is: the triumph of the ‘Fascist International’ and the removal of civil jurisdiction over workplace safety, labor relations, human rights, environmental protection, finance and commerce. I see it as no small wonder that the ‘powers behind the throne’ are reluctant to celebrate that greatest victory mankind has yet waged against human exploitation and the forces of fascist ideology. Sadly, it was a victory in battle, but the war is yet to be won.
Yes thanks Mister McGovern,
The impressive figure as to determine who crushed the Nazis and you gave it is the 80 % of total Germans military losses occuring on the eastern front.
The Russians or Soviets armies did suffer about 80 % of the total military losses during WWII, amongts them more than 3 millions POW in concentrations camps.
But one must remember that Hungaria, Rumania, Croatia, Bulgaria joined the nazi attack so occupation was in a certain degree justified.
The cases of Poland and the Baltic states much less of course, but it is and is still related to a millenarium old feud.
“THE RUSSIANS NEVER CAME….”
Joyce and Gabriel Kolko redefine the “so-called Cold War” in their landmark work
THE LIMITS OF POWER, p.31). Because of their involvement in WW II as our ALLIES
(the US . called Stalin “Uncle Joe” then and said nothing critical of his regime) .
Both Washington and Moscow noted that Russia did not then have the capacity
for war (Joyce and Gabriel Kolko, op cit).. This according to The US Navy’s
evalutaion “Soviet Capabilities and Intentions’) of 1946 as well the Moscow
Embassy’s Economic Report of 1945.
The need came from Washington which required a threat from someone to validate
its enormous military spending. (See William Greider’s FORTRESS AMERICA, Chapter 6).
These enormous US military expenditures are predicated on “the bear”, on expenditures
to fight and destroy Russia although sometimes China is substituted. Without a WW III
no orders and profits will come to the US’ vast and mostly unused military capacity.
“The unstated political objective, however, is to open new markets for the American
arms industry…” (p.97) (Note Greider refuses to accept Kolkos’ analyses. Greider also
seems to adopt the lethality of the military as “fun” as in a video arcade and fails
to confront the hundreds of thousands who are killed.)
The US would sink economically without its military expenditures which are protects
by the Executive, politicians pretending to create/protect jobs in their districts and
the arms makers.
These are complicated issues and Ray McGovern’s reminder is more than warranted.
Since McGovern is much, much, much older than I (two years) I applaud his superior
wisdom! Thanks.
—-Peter Loeb, Boston, MA, USA
C’mon Ray, get real. Not “history-starved Americans”. More like: elective anorexics — but for, no doubt, and I readily grant, any number of connoisseurs of Consortium News. But in case among the latter there are, all the same, individuals truly hungry to learn more about all the issues pertaining to Ukraine & Russia, they might do well to catch up (@ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9674RBm6g) with the discussion, “Containment”, of John Mearsheimer and Stephen Cohen with host Peter Lavelle on RT’s Crosstalk one year ago (April 28, 2014). Moreover, name searches (of JM and SC) @ Amy Goodman & Juan Gonzalez’s ww.democracynow.org — perhaps the only US organ to feature any informed, intelligent, & incisive discussion amidst the howling wilderness of US media — will yield yet further wisdom from these two homeland savants. —- BTW, I find worth considering the idea that the US, as infantile as its military & political representatives @ Wash. DC tend to be these days, has never been able to surmount a deep narcissistic wound incurred when Putin declined to simply hand over Snowden on a silver platter as demanded (< = arrogantly 'commanded'); and, to add [well-deserved] insult to injury, then even awarded him political refugee status. This I tend to see as integral to a sub-text that currently underwrites the imbecility of the USA's putinoia, which can be characterized (like so much of today's truly moronic US foreign policy) as verily psychiatric.
P.S. Sorry, I’ve checked my link, above, and it does not seem to work. Readers can get there, though, simply by going to YouTube and entering: . As for my second indicator, sorry — it should have read http://www.democracynow.org .
… to YouTube and entering: Cross Talk: Containment 2.0?
I was in Ukraine once during the May 9 Victory Celebrations and it was indeed a celebration where Veterans were honored, hugged by children who brought them flowers and other gifts such as home cooked pastry. Everybody treated Veterans with respect who were happy with all this attention.
In honor of May 9 girls born on that day are frequently named ‘VICTORIA’
I think it’s a disgrace that Western leaders are not present on this 70th celebration of the defeat of Nazism. It shows NO CLASS and NO RESPECT for the Russian veterans and people who defeated the Nazi Army at Stalingrad in 1943 and ARE responsible for the ultimate collapse of the Third Reich and NOT the showdown and Hollywood version of the Normandy landing of June 6, 1944. It shows again that President Putin has more respect for the soldiers killed in Normandy then the American vassals refusing to come to Moscow to celebrate 70 years defeat of the Nazis. This is an insult to the 26 million casualties of WW II. It shows again that Obama and his vassals are following blindfolded the Neocons in Washington and the Nazi government in Kiev.
As a child of WW II growing up under Nazi regime in the Netherlands I am also upset that Angela Merkel was invited at the 70-year Normandy celebration in the presence of thousands of surviving veterans who fought so hard on the beaches of Normandy and who lost so many of their comrades. And then to think that President Putin was treated with contempt!!! This shows again that President Putin has more class than ANY of today’s head of states who are just lapdogs of Washington.
The US policy in Ukraine is a real determined and deliberate threat toward Russia whose reaction is rather weak after all and could be qualified as appeasement policy.
Putin and the Russian government are permanently trying to find compromises with the West. That might be the reason why they are so upset that Obama, Merckel, Hollande and others will not attend the parade on the Red square on May 9th.
All those Western political leaders support in every possible way a Kiev regime who professes hatred of Russia and relies openly on criminal fascist organizations, covering their murders.
It might have been more proper not to invite those Western “friends” (“partners”, as Putin likes to say) to Moscow, and to forbid them to be present or represented by their ambassadors on the Red square. At least it would have shown some determination on the Russian side without endangering anybody.
In any case 9th of May will remain a celebration day not only for Russians, but for all those people who fought against Hitler and nazism, and for those whose efforts are directed toward truth, peace, tolerance and dignity.
I would so much like to be going, so I could thank as many Russians as I could for their heroic valor on the eastern front that tied down the Germans for so long and well at such a great sacrifice. If not for them, I may never have gotten to know my father who was stationed in UK Midlands with an artillery division until D Day + 30 when he went into France. So if you would, please thank them for me.
Thanks I will!
Correction? Did George Friedman really say for himself that the 2014 coup was the “the most blatant coup in history,” or was he saying that was Russia’s opinion? http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2636177“>The interview the quote comes from is in Russian, and the Google robo-translation of it is rough and may be misleading:
“Russia calls the events of the beginning of the year organized by the US coup. And it really was the most blatant coup in history.”
I found a human translation, and the quote holds up as Friedman’s opinion:
“Russia calls the events that took place at the beginning of this year a coup d’etat organized by the United States. And it truly was the most blatant coup in history.”
Good question, but he really did say literally that! ray
Correct translation.
The US dishonors itself by refusing the Russian invitation — by continuing the current propaganda campaign of feigned indignance regarding anything the Russians do or say now or in times past. Shakespeare was right concerning neocons and those under their direction — they are nothing but actors on a stage while in the final analysis their contribution to the human race will have been a negative influence with negative if not horrendous end results.
Born 2days after VE day, and the war to end all wars ( Japan excluded), i have always been a man of peace. Obama is a fool. A fool for not sitting with Putin at the olympics, and a fool for not accepting Putin’s invitation to attend the 4-25, rememberance of WWII’s fallen and the horror of that great war for all. Obama is a puppet for those that pull the strings. I curse the day I was a delegate for him at the Colorado 2008, state convention. The man has no guts and no character. Enough said.
Ray, thank you for this most important and timely article.
The numbers are so horrific, that whether it is 20 million or 27 million, I cannot imagine that any bean counter should care, or be ready to blind his or herself to the sheer magnitude of the loss and suffering endured by the Russians and ignore the rest of the article’s valuable discussion of NATO’s threats to Russia and to global security.
I suspect the number of 27 million comes from the estimates of Vadim Erlikman
of which 13.95 million were attributed to the Russian Republic, 6.85 million
to Ukraine, and 2.29 million to Belarus, both of which latter countries had sizeable ethnich Russian populations. The total of all the others, which would have also included ethnic Russians is estimated at 3.15 million or 13% of the total.
So, let’s not quibble or use semantics to minimize Russia’s contribution in World War II, and instead go to the heart of the article which states truths that the deniers may be unwilling to acknowledge but are important if we are to get the history right and are to honor those who sacrificed their lives so that the war crimes and inhumanity that we have seen perpetrated in Ukraine, the Middle East and elsewhere, should have never again been able to happen)- and let’s stop creating existential threats to a nation and people that did so much to defeat the Nazis, and has done as much in recent years to further world peace as our own leaders have done to destroy it.
“the ugly nature of the Stalin regimeâ€
That surprising admission by Putin tells me he’s cashing in a bit of his sky-high approval rating to educate his countrymen about Stalin. Just as we’ve been seeing a rehabilitation of Hitler in the West, I’ve heard of nostalgia for Stalin in Russia.
Both individuals were monsters, but in the beginning Hitler at least paid attention to military realities. That changed as his ego got inflated beyond all reason. Rather the contrary situation occurred in the USSR. Stalin behaved as if he had been born a military genius, and that cost the Soviet Union dearly. He totally ignored the reports from all quarters about the impending invasion. Indeed, he set himself up for that invasion. By assisting Hitler in clearing out all the opposition in the West, why was he so surprised by the USSR becoming the lone focus of the Nazi hordes? I don’t know the answer to that except to say Stalin was a megalomaniac who’d have been institutionalized in a sane society.
But to give him a bit of credit, he did start paying attention to his commanders later on, though he remained paranoid as hell. Those commanders who were successful were as ruthless as Stalin. I believe Eisenhower reported that Zhukov told him that marching penal battalions through mine fields didn’t cost any more casualties than using engineers to clear the mines, and was lots faster. Make any mistake at all in the Soviet Army, and you ended up in one of those battalions. You MIGHT live if you charged the German machine guns, but you would most certainly die if you didn’t, for there were special units behind the attackers to kill them if they faltered.
The Eastern Front was a non-stop slaughterhouse, and the Soviet soldiers did kill lots more German soldiers than did the Western Allies. That reality ought to be recognized, and IMO not doing so is another example of of the extraordinary pettiness of the neocons.
Speaking of which, earlier today I saw an interesting claim made about Victoria Nuland. Seems that when she was 20-21 years old, she had a job in a youth camp in the Ukraine. That’s apparently a fact, but the story was about another counselor – a Russian girl – who says she beat Nuland to a pulp and was fired as a result. True? I’ve no idea, but it WOULD explain Nuland’s obvious hatred for all things Russian.
http://fortruss.blogspot.com/2015/04/how-victoria-nuland-got-beaten-up-at.html
I’ll confess that I don’t understand BHO’s allowing himself to be treated as a stupid puppet on this issue of the 70th commemoration.
Starting an article with “Allied defeat of Nazi Germany … cost the Russian people nearly 27 million dead” is enough to discourage reading the rest of the article.
It’s about time that journalists and politicians learn to distinguish between Russian and Soviet. There were 27 million SOVIET dead– including, Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Tatars, Jews, Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Armenians, Georgians, and others.
The term “russian” can be used to indicate the people of russian-speaking groups from the former Soviet Union.
Silly that would prevent you from reading a good article from a respected author.
All of whom were Russians, i.e. part of the Russian Empire, and all of whom spoke Russian and considered themselves both of their ethnicity and of Russia, i.e. Russians.
Ray, thanks for this most important and timely article. The numbers are so horrific, that whether it is 20 million or 27 million, I cannot imagine that the bean counters should care, even if one of them may be apoplectic about it and ready to blind his or herself to the sheer magnitude of the loss and suffering endured by the Russians and ignore the rest of the article’s valuable commentary.
I suspect the number of 27 million comes from the estimates of Vadim Erlikman
of which 13.95 million were attributed to the Russian Republic, 6.85 million
to Ukraine, and 2.29 million to Belarus, both of which latter countries had sizeable ethnic Russian populations. The total of all the others, which would have also included ethnic Russians is estimated at 3.15 million or 13% of the total.
So, let’s not quibble over semantics or try to minimize Russia’s contribution in World War II, and instead go to the heart of the article which states truths that the deniers may be unwilling to acknowledge. They are crucially important if we are to get the history right and are to honor those who sacrificed their lives so that the war crimes and inhumanity that we have seen perpetrated in Ukraine, the Middle East and elsewhere, should have never again been permitted to happen).
Ray, all the best on your trip. There are many Americans, even among those of us who were not yet born during the war, who feel the same way.
I had meant to add the article makes a clear case that just as our leaders are failing to acknowledge the horrors of WWII, and the tremendous suffering and loss borne by Russia, they are underestimating the existential threat that NATO expansion and ‘missile shields’ today pose to Russia and to global security, and it is that failure that could end up in provoking another world war.
Ray McGovern can always be counted on to give us the truth with which to confront the mainstream propaganda in most reporting of foreign affairs.
Ray, we are grateful for your explanations of what is really going on, and the role our
government is playing without our knowledge.
Robert Parry you’re going a little overboard with your URL.
I put down were the file is located, namely the Encarta Dictionary and your system does not process .
DrFransBRoosPhD
Wow. THAT is what you got out of the article, Leslie? That’s sad… I am going to assume that you do not know anything about Ray McGovern. The man is a national treasure, and there is much wisdom to be gained from him. Lighten up.
Leslie, your comment is even more inappropriate if (as I suspect) you are American or British. Americans come from every nation under the sun, often bringing their own languages and cultures with them. There is, of course, absolutely no “American race” other than the Native Americans, of whom I believe one or two survive to this day. Much the same applies to Britain.
Was it the “Russians are Coming”,or the “Soviets are Coming” in the 1962? film?You’re just looking for an excuse to disparage the absolute facts of this article,over a word.
Americans? Not USians?