Who Restarted the Cold War?
"Putin's Hostile Course," the lead editorial in the Washington Times of Oct. 18, began thus: "Russian President Vladimir Putin's invitation to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to visit Moscow is just the latest sign that, more than 16 years after the collapse of Soviet communism, Moscow is gravitating toward Cold War behavior. The old Soviet obsession—fighting American imperialism—remains undiluted. . . .
"(A)t virtually every turn, Mr. Putin and the Russian leadership appear to be doing their best in ways large and small to marginalize and embarrass the United States and undercut U.S. foreign policy interests."
The Times pointed to Putin's snub of Robert Gates and Condi Rice by having them cool their heels for 40 minutes before a meeting. Then came a press briefing where Putin implied Russia may renounce the Reagan-Gorbachev INF treaty, which removed all U.S. and Soviet medium-range missiles from Europe, and threatened to pull out of the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, whereby Russia moved its tanks and troops far from the borders of Eastern Europe.
On and on the Times indictment went. Russia was blocking new sanctions on Iran. Russia was selling anti-aircraft missiles to Iran. Russia was selling weapons to Syria that found their way to Hezbollah and Hamas. Russia and Iran were talking up an OPEC-style natural gas cartel. All this, said the Times, calls to mind "Soviet-era behavior."
Missing from the prosecution's case, however, was the motive. Why has Putin's Russia turned hostile? Why is Putin mending fences with China, Iran and Syria? Why is Putin sending Bear bombers to the edge of American airspace? Why has Russia turned against America? For Putin's approval rating is three times that of George Bush. Who restarted the Cold War?
To answer that question, let us go back those 16 years.
What happened in 1991 and 1992?
Well, Russia let the Berlin Wall be torn down and its satellite states be voted or thrown out of power across Eastern Europe. Russia agreed to pull the Red Army all the way back inside its border. Russia agreed to let the Soviet Union dissolve into 15 nations. The Communist Party agreed to share power and let itself be voted out. Russia embraced freedom and American-style capitalism, and invited Americans in to show them how it was done.
Russia did not use its veto in the Security Council to block the U.S. war to drive Saddam Hussein, an ally, out of Kuwait. When 9-11 struck, Putin gave his blessing to U.S. troops using former republics as bases for the U.S. invasion.
What was Moscow's reward for its pro-America policy?
The United States began moving NATO into Eastern Europe and then into former Soviet republics. Six ex-Warsaw Pact nations are now NATO allies, as are three ex-republics of the Soviet Union. NATO expansionists have not given up on bringing Ukraine, united to Russia for centuries, or Georgia, Stalin's birthplace, into NATO.
In 1999, the United States bombed Serbia, which has long looked to Mother Russia for protection, for 78 days, though the Serbs' sole crime was to fight to hold their cradle province of Kosovo, as President Lincoln fought to hold onto the American South. Now America is supporting the severing of Kosovo from Serbia and creation of a new Islamic state in the Balkans, over Moscow's protest.
While Moscow removed its military bases from Cuba and all over the Third World, we have sought permanent military bases in Russia's backyard of Central Asia.
We dissolved the Nixon-Brezhnev ABM treaty and announced we would put a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Under presidents Clinton and Bush, the United States financed a pipeline for Caspian Sea oil to transit Azerbaijan and Georgia to the Black Sea and Turkey, cutting Russia out of the action.
With the end of the Cold War, the KGB was abolished and the Comintern disappeared. But the National Endowment for Democracy, Freedom House and other Cold War agencies, funded with tens of millions in tax-exempt and tax dollars, engineered the ouster of pro-Russian regimes in Serbia, Ukraine and Georgia, and sought the ouster of the regime in Minsk.
At the Cold War's end, the United States was given one of the great opportunities of history: to embrace Russia, largest nation on earth, as partner, friend, ally. Our mutual interests meshed almost perfectly. There was no ideological, territorial, historic or economic quarrel between us, once communist ideology was interred.
We blew it.
We moved NATO onto Russia's front porch, ignored her valid interests and concerns, and, with our "indispensable-nation" arrogance, treated her as a defeated power, as France treated Weimar Germany after Versailles.
Who restarted the Cold War? Bush and the braying hegemonists he brought with him to power. Great empires and tiny minds go ill together.
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"Well, Russia let the Berlin Wall be torn down and its satellite states be voted or thrown out of power across Eastern Europe. Russia agreed to pull the Red Army all the way back inside its border. Russia agreed to let the Soviet Union dissolve into 15 nations. The Communist Party agreed to share power and let itself be voted out. Russia embraced freedom and American-style capitalism, and invited Americans in to show them how it was done.
Russia did not use its veto in the Security Council to block the U.S. war to drive Saddam Hussein, an ally, out of Kuwait. When 9-11 struck, Putin gave his blessing to U.S. troops using former republics as bases for the U.S. invasion.
What was Moscow’s reward for its pro-America policy?" - Buchanan
Exactly. Neocons are using Russia as a strawman, playing Don Quixote trying to rekindle Cold War glories that never burned bright in the first place. If we were smart, we'd ally ourselves with the Russians, fellow Europeans, at least economically, vis-a-vis the growing threats of China and India.
"If we were smart, we’d ally ourselves with the Russians, fellow Europeans, at least economically, vis-a-vis the growing threats of China and India."
I hear that Putin and his wife are not unsympathetic to the Russian Orthodox. That is to say, they may have Christian sympathies. No wonder the secularists and Hitchen's Beezelbub crowd are lieing about "his record." Even Bob Dole hated the Bushies always lieing about "his record". Maybe viagra Bob and Putin can still save the West. They can't be worse than the current crowd. rr
I agree Bede.....................................This entire "Post Cold War" period has been handeled in a pathetic manner! Putin has given GWB every opportunity to reach out and become a friend to the Russian people. He blasted GWB pretty good the other day on the "Joint Anti-Terrorist Agreements" when he pointed out that one of the Chechnen terrorist responsible for the school attack was living in Washington D.C. with a federal insurance plan and a cushy job. He indicated that another was the guest of Londonistan..........I had always hoped that Dubya and Putin could reach some lind of fair and balanced trade agreements, instead of giving the farm away to China! But NO, our leaders just love killing christians while fattening up pagan cultures...............................Bush is such a loser, that I even find myself bonding with liberals on contempt for him!.........And that is out there for me.
I saw this coming in 2004, when the Baltic states were admitted into NATO (remind again why the hell NATO still exists?). IIRC, GHWB had agreed to Soviet premier Gorbachev not to expand NATO, ever, into the former Warsaw pact, or the old Soviet Republics. Well, that was all thrown in the trash. Now the NATO types want Ukraine and the Caucasus states in too!
I disagree with Pat only in that I see Russia as a competitor and less of a friend, because old rivalries die hard. Same thing for China, but this doesnt mean we're enemies. Or does it? It seem the American empire now expects 'defeated' nations to roll over and play nice like Germany and Japan did.
I perfectly understand why Poland and the Baltic countries want to stay as far the hell outside of Mosovy's sphere as possible. I understand why much of the Ukraine would like to look to the west. It may not be in America's interest to tick off Russia, but Russia has no "right" to tell its neighbors who or who not to enter into alliances with. Russia has no rights to exercise over Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, or the former Iron Curtain nations in Eastern Europe. If Russia fears being "encircled" she should make amends for being so oppressive, both under the Tsars (yes, they were savage to the Poles and Ruthenians) and the Communists.
Yes, I am worried about treaties that bind the U.S. to retaliate in the event of Russian intervention in Lithuania, etc. Such things are indeed precarious. But it is not accurate to attribute the eastward push of NATO solely to Russophobia. The nations that entered NATO have a truly rational appreciation of the threat from Muscovy, not a "phobia."
I meant "Muscovy" both times.
Yes I know the history of the eastern europe states, those 4 you named I understand their reasoning, but yet - Why do we have NATO again? Could it be quite possibly Russiaphobia, a tad? You call it just a 'threat' but give no real reason for this. Youre right, they have no right telling another nation what to do, but do you think we dont do the same thing? "influence" over our friends? How about those color coded 'revolutions'?
There seems to be some false dichotomies here. I abhor George Soros, the EU, and their Orwellian ilk. But I will not therefore applaud when old-school Kremlinites of KGB pedigree stand up to them. There is Russophobia. Yet I cannot agree with a misplaced Russophilia either. I do hope that Russia converts, per the message of Our Lady of Fatima. But until that time I can view the Russian resistance to Western misdeeds as a chastisement of the West, not a triumph for Russia, which continues to bleed. A man as intelligent as Otto Hapsburg has said that Putin is a very dangerous man. He is of course potentially good, but a potential good by definition has not yet been realized. Under his regime there has been a rehabilitation of Soviet-era symbols and figures. Religion -- such as my own, Catholicism -- still is not free of government surveillance in Russia. Though the Bolsheviks originally tried to purge Russia of her past, starting with WWII they attempted to co-opt Russian nationalism and Slavophilia. It would not be beyond Russia to wed nostalgia for the Soviet past, renascent totalitarianism, and an aggressive autocracy led by Putin.
The neoconservatives are still smarting from the anti-Jewish and anti-Trotskyite purges of the 1930s-50s and later Soviet anti-Zionism. The trials of oligarchs, kleptocrats, and mafiosi (many of them Jewish) probably rile the neoconservatives as well. Being ideological descendants of Trotsky, they hate what is Christian and traditional and patriotic about Russia. But one of the great follies of their aggressive Russophobia is that it helps the geopolitical standing of a man like Putin. Could he have been a great American friend and ally? Maybe, but his rehabilitation of Soviet-era stances reveals something unsettling as well. In other words, the existence of Russophobia in the sense that a phobia is an irrational fear is not evidence against rational fears.
Also, there is the murder of anti-Putin journalists. Buchanan can deny it all he wants, but it still happened.
To sum up, I made some statements about problems with Russia, then I was asked, "But we make mistakes, too, right?" Of course! But this whole thread was fairly pro-Putin. I wanted to provide a more nuanced and balanced view. As the others said things in favor of Putin, I said some things against.
"Threat from Muscovy": the Baltic countries have ethnic Russian minorities left over from generations of occupation. As these countries try to practice a due patriotism, including a repudiation of the Soviet-era, the Russians planted there by the Soviets inevitably protest. Putin has made motions in defense of these Russians. Is it natural that he would do so? Sure, but that is still a *threat* to the Baltic countries, who naturally want to define themselves as free, independent, and sovereign states. And before anyone says, "Yeah, so why do they join the EU," I agree the EU is evil and is shaping up to be a new Soviet. So what? How does the error of welcoming EU expansion invalidate legitimate Eastern European disgust with Russia?
I believe Pat is trying to reference more of a talking point about what the USA is pushing toward in this world. Not whether Russia is striving for global power against the west.
We are coming to a culmination, these past 16 years, of what direction the world is going. The west can not continue on this road we are on without creating another world war. We need a very strong third party in this country(USA) to bring back our wonderful system of checks and balances. A party led by Buchanan and others that share in the wonderful thoughts and ideas of this website. A true balance of power, of which we do not have in this country or the world. And that is very dangerous especially with the weapons of this modern era and the availability of these weapons to more and more countries.
We need not worry of a resurgent Russian empire. The worry in my simple uneducated mind is seeing a strong opponent forming with whom a fight is destined to happen. That is Russia forming coalitions with countries that are sick and tired of being picked on. Countries which are building up a will to fight and the weapons to boot. Not to mention our leadership showing a bit too much of our weaknesses, especially in occupying other countries.
The point is we need a balance of power that can confront a state such as Iran or N.Korea and really let them know that they will not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons or long range missiles. At least with the Cold War we had this balance in the world. We have not been able to restructure it since. I am afraid it may take a very nasty war to do so.
Lets hope not. But the leadership from both parties in this county are out of control. Sorry I can not be more specific in my writings but I do not do much research. These are my simple observations.
Casper - "Maybe, but his rehabilitation of Soviet-era stances reveals something unsettling as well."
Most were never persecuted in the first place, with of course the big exception of Stalin in the 1950-60s.
In a way I understand this. The Russian, Ukrainian, Georgian, etc people spent around 70 some odd years believing in Marxism. It is quite a lot to ask a peoples to cast aside their history. They simply find the most 'good' thing about it - winning the "Great Patriotic War". Russia is a long troubled nation. It has never really been democratic, even during the Yeltsin years (when a few people were plundering huge amounts of former state property), and virtually all of its historic leaders were despots. (from the Czars right into Soviet times).
Your attitude I think is the same mentality as the current US government - they are 'defeated' and must now cast aside their history like Germany did and 'play nice'.
Of course, Socialism doesnt work, and it is wrong, but it is alot to ask for the Russians to treat their history like the Germans do from 1933-1945.
"Most were never persecuted in the first place, with of course the big exception of Stalin in the 1950-60s. "
I don't understand this. Most of whom? Are yous saying Stalin was the persecutor, or what? And he died in 1953; his persecutions lasted from the 1920s-1953.
"it is alot to ask for the Russians to treat their history like the Germans do from 1933-1945."
Alot to ask, yes, but necessary. Isn't that what anti-Islamists like Dr. Trifkovic want from one billion Mohammedans in the world -- the repudiation of their false religion and 1,400 years of history? He doesn't expect it, but he'd like it. So would I. "Repent and reform" is the message of Christianity. America needs to take a long look in the mirror, too. Paleoconservatives ask that from America.
"Your attitude I think is the same mentality as the current US government - they are ‘defeated’ and must now cast aside their history like Germany did and ‘play nice’. "
There is nothing innately wrong with agreeing with the current US government. They are not wrong on *everything.*
But as a matter of fact I don't think that Russia was "defeated" so much as it collapsed in on itself because of internal problems. So it would be wrong to gloat about America "winning" or "triumphing" -- America didn't fight all that hard, and merely outlived its opponent. (I thank Catholic apologist Vin Lewis for this insight.)
Germany did not have to cast aside its entire "history," only its aberrant ideology, Naziism (and Protestantism, too, but that didn't happen). Postwar West Germany had alot of good right up until 1968, as I understand it. Of course, the Allies also forced Frankfurt School Kulturbolschevismus on that country, as Dr. Gottfried points out. Russia should ditch any pride in Stalinism and yes, the backward and xenophobic elements that help constitute its peculiar nationalism. The Russian National Church is part of that; at a recent "ecumenical" meeting, the Russians stormed out because the Patriarch of Constantinople recognized an independent Orthodox Church of Estonia. Yikes! Estonia is independent, so get over it.
And yes, Russia should play nice. Just as America should. I'm not going to say, "I admire Russian misdeeds because I want to see America embarrassed for its own misdeeds." I don't want misdeeds, periods.
To sum up, "We commit not piety but rather the worst IMpiety when we perpetuate our ancestors' errors and mistakes because they are ancestral."
"Caper"...
"... and Protestantism, too ..."
You are really out of your marbles...
"... Russia should ditch any pride in Stalinism ..."
Nonsense. It should not.
Caper: "I do hope that Russia converts, per the message of Our Lady of Fatima."
News flash: Russia "converted" in AD 988.
Caper: "The Russian National Church is part of that; at a recent “ecumenical” meeting, the Russians stormed out because the Patriarch of Constantinople recognized an independent Orthodox Church of Estonia. Yikes! Estonia is independent, so get over it. "
Friend, you're really ignorant of Orthodox Christian ecclesiology. The issue in that dispute is not that the Estonian church cannot be Estonian, but that Constantinople has no business intervening in matters outside its legitimate canonical jurisdiction. It is becoming more and more necessary of late to remind the Patriarch of Constantinople that there is no universal episcopate in Orthodoxy, i.e., no pope along the lines of the Roman model. Orthodoxy is a conciliar church, as Rome was, too, for the first 800 years. But too many sit-downs with the Roman pontiff appear to be going to + Bartholomew's head ...
"Jay" -- Russia should be proud of a mass murderer (Stalin) who was worse than Hitler? And yes, Luther paved the way for Hitler.
As for the ECHS1967, I am Catholic and you are Orthodox, I am assuming. (Please forgive me if I am mistaken.) There are all sorts of things we don't agree on, just on that score. Yes, Russia converted in 988. That was when Russia and Rome were still in communion, by the way. When I say "conversion," I mean both the return of Russia to communion with the Pope of Rome and the full conversion of Russia to a Christian lifestyle. So I object both to the schism and the miserable despair in which so many Russians live -- surely the Russian Orthodox admit that their country (as does ours) needs to be evangelized better. Read up on the Fatima apparitions, please, to see what God and the Blessed Virgin would like to see Russia become in their plan for world peace. Putin's resistance to American unipolar hegemony may well play a role in the staging of this plan, I don't know.
And yes, Papal supremacy has always existed. The Apostolic and Patristic Church was not run in the "Orthodox manner"; the Pope may not have had as much control over the naming of bishops, etc., but he possessed universal jurisdiction not recognized by today's Orthodox.
But I digress. My point initially was that Putin is rehabilitating Soviet-era policies and outlooks, which I view as dangerous to say the least. Then someone says that I am proposing to destroy Russian culture and history, basically. Then I say, no, although more of Russian culture and history should be changed than a mere repudiation of the Communist past would entail. By that I mean the schism and an unwholesome caesaropapist and nationalist element in religion. Union with Rome would help correct this while maintaining the glorious, patriotic, and traditional Christian past of Russia. And such a union would be a great boon to Rome and the Universal Church, to be sure, given the rich patrimony of the Christian East and its resistance to Protestant and Enlightenment distortions. Solovyov said as much.
Nor is there a "universal episcopate" in Catholicism. That is a misunderstanding of Catholic ecclesiology. The Pope is not a "Universal Bishop" or even "Universal Patriarch." The Popes have condemned the use of such titles as offensive to the legitimate rights of bishops and patriarchs alike. Indeed, it was a patriarch of Constantinople who came up with the title "universal bishop" only for the Popes of Rome to condemn it.
For the difference between papal supremacy and "universal episcopate": http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/num7.htm Harold O.J. Brown is mentioned in the article.
Also, someone's post got deleted at the end.
"Caper"...
"... mass murderer (Stalin) ..."
Right. And so were Roosevelt, Truman, Churchill, their successors and their minions.
On the other hand, the latter built nothing, only laid waste to the Third world. Stalin defeated Hitler, brought his country into the modern age, built its industry and science and made it strong and independent from these vultures.
"... who was worse than Hitler ..." merely confirms that you are completely out of your marbles.
"Right. And so were Roosevelt, Truman, Churchill, their successors and their minions."
I think Caper, as much as anyone, would support repudiation at least in part of their legacies. Certainly Roosevelt and to a lesser extent Truman and Churchill committed a number of atrocities, but NOTHING on the scale of Stalin and Hitler.
"Stalin defeated Hitler, brought his country into the modern age, built its industry and science and made it strong and independent from these vultures."
You have exposed yourself as a worthless and immoral Bolshevist, and while I cannot presume to speak for the webmasters, I shall warn you that you and your ilk are not welcome in these parts.
“22”
“Stalin defeated Hitler, brought his country into the modern age, built its industry and science and made it strong and independent from these vultures.”
These are facts of history.
(Whether on balance one “approves” of Stalin or not is, of course, an entirely different matter. )
“... You have exposed yourself as a worthless and immoral Bolshevist, and while I cannot presume to speak for the webmasters, I shall warn you that you and your ilk are not welcome in these parts. ...”
Your superficial assumptions, labels and verbal violence do not speak well of your education junior.
"When I say “conversion,” I mean both the return of Russia to communion with the Pope of Rome and the full conversion of Russia to a Christian lifestyle." -Caper
It would be nice if the US would set the example - sort of like removing the plank from your own eye first. But maybe in God's providence it will be Russians who convert the US.
(Re. comment #24)
"... It would be nice if the US would set the example - sort of like removing the plank from your own eye first. But maybe in God’s providence it will be Russians who convert the US. ..."
Well said, well said indeed.
@23: The fact that you did not reciprocate my ill-tempered polemic is certainly not evidence in my favor, and so I ask you to allow me to offer a public apology.
Nevertheless, let's not be too hard on Churchill, who was the last wartime (de facto) head of state in the West (that I am aware of) to actually behave like a man and march into battle.
Yesterday I flew back from St. Petersburg after a week of meeting my Russian and West European co-workers in the former Russian capital. It's too bad Bush & Co. are working so hard to renew old animosities.
Wow, never heard anyone defend Stalin lately. Even the Sovjets loathed him at a point. For this Jay-character, Stalin's not too bad.
Tens of millions needless deaths and the slavery of 75% of the European continent for 60 years. Stalin and Hitler were both inhumane thugs. Stalin should have gotten the Mussolini treatment, he was a vile traitor of his own great Russian nation and the menace of countless others.
@26
Right on! At least, Churchill knew what war was like. He didn't have much of a choice though. He behaved like a man, a true European.
Just like Ron Paul does right know.
"Wow, never heard anyone defend Stalin lately. Even the Sovjets loathed him at a point. For this Jay-character, Stalin’s not too bad."
In his defense, it is true that Stalin industrialized Russia and that that feat probably did save them from total defeat at the hands of the Nazis. This fact does not, of course, justify the brutal, cynical methodology with which he acted to this end, and it can further be argued that the lack of a Communist threat on the Eastern front might have lessened Hitler's chances of coming to power. I have been told that the Soviets were planning an invasion of Europe (which, without investigating, I would believe in a heartbeat), and if that is the case, I'd agree with those who argued that, regardless of Hitler's evil, Germany's pre-emptive invasion of Russia was wholly justified.
But I digress. The bottom line is, while Russians may be grateful for the industrialization, this one fact does not override the need to repudiate the Bolshevik legacy.
"Germany’s pre-emptive invasion of Russia was wholly justified."
I of course meant the concept of the invasion, not what they actually ended up doing to their occupied territories.
Question for you experts from glorious Stalin discussion thread: did he really have three Jewish wives
I heard of it on
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIIEmISJzyg
The corporate press in the U.S. is pathetically one-sided beyond measure. It is responsible for first encouraging and second allowing, (never mind without normal questioning but with actual cheap cheerleading), all of the foreign policy mistakes of the past 10 years.
It is always pleasant of course to see sanity ‘reimposing’ itself…
Here is the maxim under one pseudonym or another I have always reminded us of: ‘Absolute or perfect balance in the world is rigged to be not possible (the world is alive and dynamic, not hypothetical); and for this very reason on the other hand approximate balance is Requisite.’
Children or more specifically ‘adolescents’ “think” or more accurately in this regard ‘believe’ in terms of absolutes … they take a non-dynamic [or absolute] wish or fantasy and ‘believe’ in it ‘as if’ they are actually ‘thinking’. There’s is nothing wrong with ‘belief’ indeed it is in human or conceptual creatures a BIOLOGICAL necessity. We do it and will always do it all the time. The mistake is to confuse it with thought. A belief [wish or idea] is open-ended, and good in that regard. Apparently even mother Nature has proven to be paradoxically in some NARROW regards open ended in allowing for creatures (ourselves) who are not only aware and thinking unconsciously…but aware of being aware and also thinking consciously as well. A thought in comparison with beliefs or a wish or an idea is not open ended. Rather it is something complete in itself and something we can Do. Here’s a thought - ‘don’t confuse motion with action.’
‘In 2003 and 2004 came the U.S.-supported and financed “color-coded revolutions” in Georgia and Ukraine, the geopolitical equivalent of Putin engineering anti-American regime changes in Mexico and Canada.’ -Trifkovic
The ‘belief’ in American right to hegemony or the cultural underpinning of a jewish notion in their being ‘chosen’ … is adolescence. Putin argued in the past let’s give them the benefit of the doubt. Now he is acting, based on our adolescent belief that an untenable IMBALANCE toward ourselves in the world is a good thing, by his instead having to become the sane responsible parent…in noticing Approximate Balance is Requisite.
I have also written in the past of noticing his courage and sanity, and am glad to see it continues to be the case. Of course perfect or absolute balance is NOT possible…only the temptation to act in one’s own interests in tipping the balance/s…too much toward oneself. We can Hope once it is Russia’s or china’s turn to make that mistake they do Not choose to. Or if they do then perhaps in the future America may have its own Putin. That would be ‘nice.’
___________________________________
No. 18, by Caper:
Thanks, Caper, for the honesty of this response. It justifies every reservation that today's Orthodox have about continuing the process of "ecumenical dialogue" with the Roman Catholic Church. If this is indeed what Rome has to say to the Orthodox after 40 years of "dialogue," it's clear that the Orthodox have no reason to stay at the table.
And this is all I have to say because the religious issues that ~you~ raised, more or less gratuitously, are not directly relevant to this discussion.
IC XC NIKA
Although it's not particularly a good thing to let this thread transform into a Catholic-Orthodox debate, I feel it in my conscience to let my own feelings out.
Though baptized a Catholic, I was not raised in a particularly religiously orthodox environment, and it was not until around age 19 that I felt a drive toward apostolic Christianity. The Papism and the ease with which the post-conciliar Catholic Church conceded to modernist corruption initially made me rather cold toward Catholicism, and for a while I considered the Orthodox Church. However, being of western European extraction, I simply could not get past the idea that I did not truly belong in any Orthodox congregation. Gradually this made me more open to listening to intellectual arguments in favor of Catholicism, which I eventually rejoined.
Now, ethnocentrism can be a problem among Catholics, particularly in certain North American parishes, and it is quite true that all of the apostolic Churches lack an essential missionary zeal these days. That said, ethnocentrism and lack of missionary enthusiasm seem to be particularly rampant among the Orthodox, and this combined with the open acceptance by most autocephalous Churches of artificial contraception will likely ensure that they continue to bleed in terms of numbers. I have a great amount of respect for Orthodox Christians, but I simply cannot believe that their current path is entirely helpful even to themselves. (And I commend those courageous Russian bishops who spoke out against the demographic menace threatening their country.)
Time moves on. NATO's reason for being ended over a decade ago. A European defense zone should be created with the United States and Canada as members. European civilization has many enemies. As part of European civilization, Russia must be made a friend no matter that it's representative government has not met the high standards of Massachusetts, Vermont and Louisiana.
I second MR Leaberry's motion in #36! Putin is what he is because of the internal situation is what it is in Russia. We may criticise many of his methods, but at least he's taking on the oligarchs in Russia, while Bush remains the willing lackey of the oligarchs who rule America. We need to be less judgemental about Russia's internal affairs and concentrate on our common interests and common European cultural identity with Russia.
#36
"... it’s representative government has not met the high standards of Massachusetts ..."
corrupt,
... , Vermont ..."
corrupt,
"... and Louisiana. ..."
corrupt.
Why are Americans so conceited and stupid? (Apparently that's why)
Re No. 34 by Nicholas G.P. Moses
" ... and for a while I considered the Orthodox Church. However, being of western European extraction, I simply could not get past the idea that I did not truly belong in any Orthodox congregation."
That Orthodoxy is "eastern" and Catholicism "western" is simply an accident of history. Neither church is inherently one or the other -- each understands itself to be, in full, the church of Jesus Christ. Your argument would suggest that neither a Greek nor a Russian should consider converting to Roman Catholicism, if conscience indicated such.
Rome has accepted entire Eastern communities into communion while maintaining the Byzantine rite and the traditional creed (no "filioque"). In the United States, two Orthodox jurisdictions have admitted a few Anglo-Catholic, even a few some Roman Catholic communities, into communion while maintaining the Western rite, with a few tweaks -- no "filioque," the addition of an explicit epiclesis.
Some U.S. Orthodox have agitated for "reverse uniatism," i.e., the promotion of traditional Western rites (Gregorian, Sarum, Tridentine) in order to bring disaffected RCs and Anglicans into Orthodoxy. This approach has been rejected by almost all bishops on the grounds that two wrongs do not make a right, i.e., the RCC's opportunistic uniatism does not render Orthodox uniatism an appropriate canonical practice.
Some of us think that that before Rome proposes to undertake the "conversion" of Russia, it would be a good idea for Rome to undertake the "conversion" of Italy and France.
The short answer to Who Restarted the Cold War is: The US did. Why? Because while Russia moved to freedom, the US, after Reagan, moved to totalitarianism. I remember how Clinton warned Russia not to allow retaliations against communists. The powerful people in US was worried that Russia will embrace "wild capitalism". Soros and others founded the "civil society" scheme. Both US Left and the conservatives with the prefix -neo are still sending NGO's to crush Russia's spirit. I remember Canadian CBC showing a futuristic movie where WWIII was played; the pretext at this time was that in Europe some "fascist state" has appeared.
It's not enough to have a few intellectuals speaking the truth on this and a couple of other web sites while the population is totally confused watching the staged fights between the old communists and the former trotzkiists.