Goose Stepping With Our "Pal" Vlad

Did anybody catch the speech the Russian president gave to commemorate the 62nd anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany yesterday?

Well, according to this New York Times story, it included these quotes…

“Moreover, in our time, these threats are not diminishing,” he said. “They are only transforming, changing their appearance. In these new threats, as during the time of the Third Reich, are the same contempt for human life and the same claims of exceptionality and diktat in the world.”

When contacted to find out what the $#!@ Putin was talking about, this is what a spokesperson has to say…

Sergei A. Markov, director of the Institute of Political Studies, who works closely with the Kremlin, said in a telephone interview that Mr. Putin was referring to the United States and NATO.

…

“He intended to talk about the United States, but not only,” Mr. Markov said in reference to the sentence mentioning the Third Reich.

Oh, that’s just great.

Please understand that I am the last person in this world who is going to defend Bushco’s imperial designs in this country and all over the globe, but I have to point out a few things.

This highly detailed Wikipedia article thoroughly examines the Eastern Front conflict of World War II, including signing of the Molotov-Ribbentropp pact of 1939 and how it was completely abrogated by Hitler with the commencement of Operation Barbarossa in 1941. Near the conclusion of this article, a table notes that the former Soviet Union lost 10,600,000 in the war, 6,600,000 were considered killed or missing in action, 5,200,000 were taken prisoner by the Axis powers, and 3,600,000 prisoners of war died in captivity. And the figure of U.S. soldiers lost, standing at about $16,500,000 as noted here, is likewise a staggering number.

If this were a case of Dubya mangling history in a speech, I would chalk it up to rank stupidity and nothing more. However, Vladimir Putin is not an idiot. His invocation of such an association between this country and a common foe from the prior century is to me a chilling message that he intends to bring Russia into superpower dominance once more as sort of an unholy combination of capitalist oil success and Communist aspiration of global dominance, and whether or not we happen to come along for the ride is completely irrelevant as far as he’s concerned.

This of course should have been met by a swift response by the person in charge of the executive branch of our government. However, as I mentioned yesterday, Dick Cheney was in Iraq, so that did not take place.

And in addition to being merely xenophobic, Putin was also being more than a little disingenuous. As noted here, Russia has provided Antonov-26 transport aircraft and six MI-24 attack helicopters to be used by the “janjaweed” in Darfur, while we and Great Britain threaten more sanctions on the government of President Omar al-Bashir if he fails to allow a peacekeeping force into that region.

And for good measure, China, our biggest debtor nation, sold arms and ammunition worth 12 million pounds to Sudan in 2005, along with spare parts worth 30 million pounds which could have been used to keep military aircraft airborne, also noted in the story.

And if you are a subscriber to Times Select, Nicholas Kristof tells us why all of this matters here.