From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng  (Original Message)    Sent: 12/4/2007 7:56 AM
Russian Government Needs A History Lesson In Loyalty
By Daniel P. de Gracia II, 12/3/2007 10:59:41 AM

Every single citizen of the United States of America should be disappointed and outraged over Russian President Vladimir Putin's decision last week to terminate the Russian Federation's participation in the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty. Citing a long history of abuse and noncompliance by the U.S. and the West, Putin feels that he has heroically resisted evil and made an example of those who would oppose his nation's right to self-determination. Good for him, but it's time Uncle Sam gave Mother Russia a history lesson in just how much we've done to help that embryonic democracy succeed in the post Cold War era.

During the Clinton Administration, Russia was in a state of shambles. Not only was she bankrupt from building nearly three times the thermonuclear missiles and conventional weapons of the United States and Western Europe combined, but her national state of defense readiness was so atrocious that even breakaway Chechnya decisively defeated her in 1996. Russia, which had once pointed massive "over the horizon" military radars straight into the hearts of Europe and the Middle East now had gigantic radar blind spots due to the fact that the former Soviet republics that hosted them now turned them off. Their once mighty space program which caused the world to tremble in fear had difficulty paying its light bills. And the former Soviet Navy, once a symbol of world domination, became a symbol of ecological devastation as their nuclear reactors rusted out and leaked radioactive material while in port.

Because America is such an internationally responsible and magnanimous nation, we helped Russia in her time of decline. The first thing that the Clinton Administration did was give massive subsidies to Russia to promote economic growth and self-sustainability. We also subsidized Russia's national defense by providing monies for them to construct a new, state of the art, strategic military command center to track their neighbors (including us) and paid for new radars to be built. We paid for enhanced nuclear security for Russia to prevent their nuclear weapons from being stolen. We paid for Mir, the first Russian Space Station, to stay in orbit for most of the nineties. We paid for most of Russia's space launches. We gave billions of dollars to the Russians to build sections of the International Space Station that they agreed to build for us, and when they fell behind on the production schedule, we picked up the slack. We did this and more, because the United States of America likes the Russian people and wants to have a peaceful, cooperative future with them in centuries to come.

But how exactly did the Russians repay us? Well, we were all shocked as a nation to find out that even as late as February 2001 the Russians were still subverting Americans like FBI agent Robert Hanssen and continuing to pay them to spy on us. We saw that the Russians resumed their nuclear bomber patrols (incidentally, even we don't do that) and challenged Greenland and UK airspaces on several occasions in the last three years, requiring fighters to be emergency scrambled. When a Canadian helicopter flew nearby a Russian vessel, the Russians responded by firing a laser at the aircraft, injuring several crewmen as well as a U.S. Navy onboard observer. Let's not even mention how supportive the Russians have been with us on the war in Iraq, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in Iran, or how they have outright co-enabled China to build a war machine ready to fight a 21st century war with America. Excuse me, Russia, but you've been acting less like "mother" and more like a prostitute.

Russia has no right to complain about how the United States has been aligning its neighbors against her. We haven't. Most of Russia's former republics have been anxious, if not excited about aligning themselves with the United States and the rest of Europe because they prefer freedom and economic independence over stagnation and intellectual suppression. You want to know why so many of Russia's former republics have joined NATO? During the Cold War, Russia abused those nations and their peoples so severely that drunkenness and physical abuse were a regular fact of life in most of their officer and enlisted corps. When they were finally free from Russia, many of them didn't even know how to rebuild a free, community-centered defense organization because they had been subject to Russian abuse and corruption for so long. American advisers had to teach former soviet republic militaries the basics of compassion, honor, and value. That's right: when we exported democracy, we exported moral values along with them. When these countries had to choose between going back to Russia or coming to the West where humanity is valued, not feared, it's clear why they wanted to join NATO and the EU.

But it gets better, my dear Americans. Meanwhile, in the United States of America while the legacy of ex-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield's "transformational military" continues to terminate our advanced military research programs, cancel our cruise missiles, and phase out some of the best weapons we have in our inventory like goods in a pawn shop to get quick cash for the continuing war in Iraq, the Russians are building new nuclear weapons, advanced delivery platforms, and are acting as if the Cold War was still going on when it comes to cranking out weapons. The Topol-M intercontinental ballistic missile that is currently being fielded by Russia's strategic forces is vastly superior to America's LGM-118A Peacekeeper missiles which are not only being chopped up, but are being gimped down to carry less warheads. And remember: Donald Rumsfield told us we don't need these things anymore, and that those who cling to them are dinosaurs. Tell that to the Russians and Chinese who keep building the weapons that will make all of us go the way of the dinosaurs: extinct.

All this having been said, America, you need to remember these outrages when it comes time to elect a presidential candidate at the primaries. Whoever you vote for needs to be fiercely patriotic, well-versed in historical understanding, and morally equipped to deal with states like the Russian Federation. A restored "Mother Russia" along the lines of what President Vladimir Putin and his minions have in mind will be anti-America, anti-Israel, and yes, anti-human race. I for one am tired of their hypocrisy, ungratefulness and outright harlotry. America, it's time for you to wake up and get ready to go to the polls.

Daniel Paul de Gracia, II, is a political scientist specializing in international relations, a pastor at the International Christian Church and Bible School in Honolulu, and a former candidate for state Representative. He lives in Waipahu.

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