East Germany

The Sad Reality About Ukraine: History Against Military Intervention!

Ronald 2 Comments

The right wing is already busy at work attacking President Obama, regarding the decision of Russian leader Vladamir Putin to intervene militarily in Ukraine, putting Russian forces in Crimea, the portion of Ukraine with a majority of Russians, and the center of the Black Sea seaport crucial to the Russian navy, and an important “warm water” port for Russia during the long winters in that nation.

All of us can condemn and deplore this event, and be sad about it to the extreme. But it is not at all surprising in reality, as to expect that Russia would allow an anti Russian government, at least in that part of Ukraine, is living in a dream world!

Major nations who have the power and numbers, historically, do NOT allow their neighbors to be unfriendly or rivals of their nation. Every nation pursues a policy in foreign affairs based on its national interest, and what is possible.

This has been part of the reality of America, as well as the old Soviet Union, China, and any other nation, when they have power and influence, and bemoaned when they do not!

The United States has been fortunate enough to have “weak” direct neighbors in Canada and Mexico, and we have been willing to intervene in Mexico when we have not appreciated their governments or policies, as in the 1840s and in the 1910s.

Yes, we have had Mexico as a “problem” at times since, with undocumented immigrants and drug dealings, but at least we have had a friendly government in Mexico, willing to work with us, and on the same page generally on most issues.

The closest we have had to a national security matter is, of course, Cuba, and we went to the brink in the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, and while the Castro brothers still control that island, even today, they are no direct menace to us, and if they were seen as such, we could still use our power to intervene.

So, looking at that reality, that nations with power will use it for their benefit, to have an non-antagonistic direct neighbor on their border, and with economic advantages also a consideration, along with defense and naval matters, there is, sadly, little we can do about Ukraine, except hope for a minimal involvement in that nation by the Russians, but the thought of a military or nuclear response is totally insane, and could not be utilized!

Keep in mind that President Dwight D. Eisenhower could do nothing about Soviet involvement in its neighbors, Poland, East Germany, and Hungary, and neither could Lyndon B. Johnson do anything about Soviet involvement in Czechoslovakia!

Commemoration Of Two Events On November 9: One Wonderful, One Tragic!

Ronald Leave a comment

Today, November 9, marks two events, both in Germany, which changed the world–one in a positive way, the other in a very tragic way!

On this day in 1989, the Berlin Wall, which symbolized the horrors of Communism, came down spontaneously in East Germany, leading to the downfall of the Soviet Union two years later, and the end of the Cold War between Russia and the United States led alliance of NATO.

The collapse of the wall gave the world hope for a peaceful future, no one being aware that the Persian Gulf War just over a year later helped to lead to the new age of terrorism, which had already begun, but accelerated after US forces were stationed in Saudi Arabia, the home of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina in the Islamic faith.

Fifty one years earlier, in 1938, in Nazi Germany, we had the tragedy of Kristallnacht, the Night of the Broken Glass, when the Nazis unleashed an attack on Jewish citizens and property, including synagogues ransacked and set on fire, along with businesses, shops, and the destruction of cemeteries, and the arrest of thousands and the death of many Jews in a vicious manner. This is now seen as the beginning of the Holocaust, and sadly, while there was condemnation of the actions on November 9 and 10, the international community did little more than condemn verbally.

So the later date marked the end of Communism in Eastern Europe, while the first marked the growing menace of Nazism and anti Semitism, and the horrors of anti Semitism are still a reality in the world today!

50th Anniversary Of Berlin Wall: The Ultimate Symbol Of Oppression Remembered!

Ronald Leave a comment

Today, a half century ago, the East German government in lockstep with the Soviet Union, its master, started construction of the infamous Berlin Wall, which became the ultimate symbol of oppression, the true image of what Soviet Communism was all about!

For the next 28 years, until the evening of November 9 and day of November 10, 1989, the Berlin Wall became the center of the confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States, evoking the worst images of the Cold War.

Many people died trying to ram through the checkpoints with their cars; or attempting to climb over the wall with its barbed wire top, or jumping over the wall from nearby buildings at the location of the wall, or digging tunnels under the wall in a multitude of locations.

President John F. Kennedy and President Ronald Reagan were remembered for their condemnations of the Berlin Wall and what it represented.

When the wall came down suddenly in November 1989 during the Presidency of George H. W. Bush, it was a sign of the end of the Cold War, and the ultimate collapse of the Soviet system of government in 1991, after all of Eastern Europe was liberated from the yoke of communism in 1989.

It was a great moment of rejoicing, still in many ways hard to conceptualize, that the wall had actually come down, with East German border guards assisting in the destruction themselves.

It made many think that there would be peace in the world, and that the United States would be the only super power, with no realization that we were entering a new era, in many ways more dangerous, the era of Islamic Terrorism with those engaged in that terrorism having absolutely no limits, including suicide, in their fight against the Western world and Christianity and Judaism!

So today is a day to celebrate, but with great sense of the challenge that we still face in the future, and at a time when America has so many domestic complexities and lack of cooperation by the two major political parties, endangering, therefore, America’s future!