America and Russia: Rivals United by a Common Enemy?

By Georgy Gounev

First Published by American Thinker on December 27, 2009

Don’t assume that Russia and America will be adversaries forever.

 

Given the nature and the magnitude of the negativity marking the current stage of the American-Russian relations, the very thought of an alliance between the two countries looks outright absurd to many people. Regardless of the presence of seemingly insurmountable obstacles, American-Russian relations could offer a dramatic U-turn to a stunned world. 

 

Why? The answer to this question is both logical and simple: The spread of radical Islam throughout the Muslim world and the quickly advancing Islamization of Europe could bring to life this unlikely and, according to many experts, even impossible scenario.

 

Let’s first clear a possible misunderstanding: To accept the probability (not the inevitability) of an American-Russian alliance doesn’t mean that the realization would be easy. The main problem from the Russian side is the hysterical anti-Americanism which has become the essence of Russian foreign policy.

 

There are many reasons for the phenomenon. Maybe the most important among them is the negative image of the United States created by totalitarian propaganda during the Soviet era. The image in question has been powerfully reinforced by the chaos and corruption that plagued Russia in place of the long-expected triumph of democracy.

The typical state of mind for Russian policymakers is the formula “what is bad for the United States is good for Russia.” But is that really true?

 

Afghanistan

 

How exactly would Russia benefit from a Vietnam-style American withdrawal from Afghanistan? In fact, an American abandonment of Afghanistan will trigger nothing short of a disaster for Russia.  

 

A renewed Taliban domination of Afghanistan inevitably will start destabilizing Russia’s Muslim neighbors of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. And let’s not ignore a very important fact: Those Muslim neighbors share an almost 1,900-mile-long border with Afghanistan, which is as porous as the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

 

A Taliban victory would represent a huge boost to the activities of the radical Islamists whose influence is growing in Central Asia.  One doesn’t need to possess a prophetic gift in order to predict the danger that will start lurking over the entire length of the Russian southern border.

Given the magnitude of that danger, the changing demography of the country as a result of the reduction of the Russian component of the country’s population provides grounds for a lot of sobering thoughts. Another important factor influencing the Russian policymakers is the proximity of the dramatically underpopulated Russian Far East to the overpopulated border areas of China.  

 

The primary factor, however, that could bring together the United States of America and Russia is the fast-growing danger to the future of both countries emanating from radical Islam.

 

Of course, the old rule stipulating that “it takes two to tango” is fully applicable to the area of foreign policy. Undoubtedly, within the U.S. corridors of power, Russia is regarded not only as a former enemy, but also as a current and future rival. American policymakers committed a huge mistake by not taking advantage of the positive attitude of Mr. Putin’s government to the United States in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Many Americans don’t even know that the marvelous monument erected on New Jersey’s shore to the victims of the mass murder was a gift from the Russian people.

 

World public opinion supported the American action designed to terminate the ethnic cleansing of the Albanian community committed by the Milosevic regime. At the same time, however, the United States did not protect the Serbian residents of Kosovo when they too became victims of ethnic cleansing. The inconsistency brought about a powerful negative reaction in Russia, a traditional Serbian ally and protector. What matters the most today, however, is the fact that America needs Russia to the same degree that Russia needs America.

 

Most experts and observers would reject the main argument of this article by pointing out the huge difference between the traditions and the political systems of both countries. Well, looking back in time, those differences didn’t prevent the emergence of the WWII-era American-Soviet alliance that buried all of Hitler’s dreams and ambitions. Other objections point out the gravity of the problems separating Washington from Moscow. Everyone would agree that Kosovo and Georgia are good examples in this regard. On the other hand, however, it could be argued that once the magnitude of the threat hanging over both Washington and Moscow is realized, every other problem would find a solution.

 

A different group of observers is claiming that the American-Russian rivalry regarding the energy supply routes is supposed to last. The rivalry is rough indeed — no doubt about that. What kind of U.S.-Russian energy-related competition, though, will continue  if both face off against the Islamic oil powers?

 

What about the tension brought by the problems relating to Eastern Europe? Again, there would be no room for American-Russian rivalry, given that one of the main goals of the alliance will be the support rendered to every European country resisting the advance of radical Islam.

 

The new relationship between the United States and Russia would open the door for the creation of a brand new system of international relations by including Europe, China, and India, all targeted and coveted by radical Islam, into the alliance. The emergence of such a structure would increase the chances of finding the correct approach to separating the majority of the world’s Muslim community from the radical minority trying to establish world domination.

 

Let me repeat again: No one is saying that the scenario containing an option for an American-Russian alliance is inevitable. All that can be said is that it is not impossible…

 

G. Gounev earned his Ph.D. at the Moscow Institute of Foreign Relations. He teaches history in California and is currently working on a book on the Islamization of Europe and its impact on American-Russian relations.

Clinton in Kosovo

Georgy Gounev – First Published in American Thinker November 14, 2009   Bill Clinton in Kosovo

Inevitably, some extraordinary security measures were taken in Kosovo’s capital in connection with William Jefferson Clinton’s recent visit. The former president of the United States undertook a long journey to the middle of the Balkans in order to take a look at his own figure standing twelve feet above the rest of humanity.

 

There could be little doubt that those extraordinary measures added additional tension in the life of the current and former residents of the area. Let’s clear up a possible confusion: many of the current Albanian residents of Pristina live in the houses of the former Serbian owners who were forced to leave, very often at gunpoint. My thoughts went back two weeks before the former president’s visit to Kosovo, when I had to spend some rather uncomfortable hours in the company of a small group of former residents of Pristina.

  

On a cold morning that had the Serbian city of Prokuplje in its wet and foggy embrace, a friend of mine and I joined a small group of Serbian teachers, nurses, and doctors, all of them Pristina natives. Every morning, this group traveled to their jobs at a tiny Serbian enclave in the vicinity of the city where they were born and raised. The preparation for their seemingly endless working day starts at four in the morning.

 

We joined them an hour later as we boarded the overcrowded van. The three-hour journey had to be undertaken so early because of the long wait at the border. Those doctors, nurses, and teachers, most of them women, have been taking this killing journey back and forth at the beginning and the end of each working day for several years. If they are lucky, they will be back home somewhere after nine, when their children are already sleeping. The nightmare will repeat itself again the next morning at 4 a.m.

 

Obviously, some of the smiling and applauding Albanian observers of the unveiling of the monument were living in the houses of the Serbian doctors and teachers currently making the demanding journey across the border that separates their city from their country. Did this fact disturb the former president of the United States? No, not a bit. Should it have disturbed him? Yes, and not only him, but the American people as well.

 

In justifying the war the United States waged against Serbia back in 1999, the Clinton administration pointed out the moral obligation of the most powerful democracy on earth to defend the victims of persecution and ethnic cleansing. The actions of this administration, however, defied such a noble obligation. To put it bluntly, in the course of the Serbian-Albanian conflict over Kosovo, the United States was successful in defending the rights of the Albanian residents of Kosovo when those rights were violated by the dictatorial regime of Slobodan Milosevic. 

 

However, the United States failed miserably in the other important goal of its voluntarily accepted responsibility: the protection of the Serbian residents of the area who became the victims of persecution and ethnic cleansing of the same magnitude that had provoked the American involvement in the Kosovo conflict in the first place. Tens of thousands of Serbians were forced to leave the area, and more than one hundred Christian churches and monasteries were desecrated and destroyed.

 

Regardless of the fact that the United States is in possession of “Camp Bondsteel” — a large military base in Southeast Kosovo — its human and technological resources have never been used to protect the Serbian victims of the Albanian ethnic cleansing. As a result, the Serbian presence in Kosovo has been almost eradicated.

 

Bishop Artemije, the spiritual leader of the Serbian community in Kosovo, who moved to a small monastery in Pristina after his residence was set on fire several years ago, told me shortly after the end of my tortuous journey to Grachaniza Monastery, “We are conducting our conversation on a tiny archipelago consisting of Serbian and Christian islands surrounded by an Albanian and Muslim Sea…”

 

This situation outlines not only the moral deficiency of the United States’ Balkan strategy, but a strategic deficiency as well. The American regional strategy gave birth to a growing anti-Americanism in Southeastern Europe.

 

What at least should be done is an American attempt to improve U.S. relations with Serbia. An important component of such an attempt could be the initiation of a dialogue between the mutually hostile communities of Kosovo at a local level. It is possible as well to create some arrangement with regard to the American protection of the Serbian enclaves — particularly those in the South, where the residents are completely isolated from Serbia. A third dimension of such an activity could be the work on an agreement that would address the humanitarian problems involving the plight of the Serbian refugees. What the Albanians could get in return could be financing of joint projects benefiting equally their communities and the Serbian enclaves.

 

With the theoretical opportunity to take part in this kind of activity, President Clinton, undoubtedly a skillful negotiator, will have the opportunity to undo at least part of the mistakes committed during his presidency with regard to the Kosovo conflict. If the situation remains the same, the present shape of the Pristina monument would require two important additions. A group of statues portraying smiling and deeply grateful Albanian residents should be situated on the left side of the monument, while on the right side should be displayed a replica of an overcrowded van  filled with dead-tired Serbian teachers and doctors dozing while waiting their turn to cross the border.

IS THE COMPLEXITY OF ISLAM – THE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL?

Georgy Gounev – According to the hard core American leftists, both the educated and the ignorant ones, there is nothing wrong with the Islamic World. In their view it was the imperialist and oil-hungry administration of former President George W. Bush that brought about all calamities in the world, including 9/11 and hurricane Katrina, upon the United States. Fortunately, there are many people who fully realize the nature and the magnitude of the Islamo-Totalitarian quest for global domination. By the way, the more popular term Islamo-Fascism is incorrect, because Radical Islam combines the worst features of BOTH variations of totalitarianism – the Fascism and the Communism. Hence, Islamo-Totalitarianism is a more appropriate term. There are many experts and authors who believe that the real enemy is Islam itself. Consequently, they argue, there is no reason for any optimism with regard to the opportunity for the emergence of some form of communality of interests between any significant group of Muslims and the enemies of the Jihadist ideology, practice and aggression. Beyond any shadow of a doubt, almost all the arguments of the experts and authors who support this view are absolutely correct. For instance no Muslim organization raised its voice in protest against the tortures and beheadings practiced by the jihadists in Iraq and Afghanistan. It would be worth remembering the tragic ordeal Denmark recently went through. No Danish Muslims marched on the streets of Copenhagen in support of the country that had been so generous to them. Let’s not forget that the Muslim community of Denmark, which constitutes less than 8 percent of the entire population, receives 40 percent of the welfare budget. The world-wide Muslim protest against the publication of the Prophet Mohamed- related cartoons in Denmark wasn’t as spontaneous as it was presented at the time. As a matter of fact, there were the members of the Council of the Danish Imams who traveled abroad in order to instigate the rampage of the mobs that burned Danish flags and ransacked the embassies and businesses of Denmark. Clearly the Imams had committed a treasonous act for which the right punishment would have been a prison sentence, or even better, expulsion from the country they had betrayed. Regrettably however, no group of Danish Muslims took to the streets carrying the flags burned by the unruly mobs. No Muslim voice condemned the crime of the imams either. The list of such deeds is shockingly long in order to be quoted in its entirety. There is another side of the coin however, which also deserves to be investigated. Let’s start with a bit of recent history. Few Western observers have paid attention to the extremely important fact that the first resistance to the process of Islamization, along the lines of Radical Islam, occurred in a Muslim populated region. An entire new country by the name of Bangladesh was born as a result of the massive protest against the forcible Islamization of the educational and judicial systems of the former Eastern province of Pakistan. In other words, the emergence of a new Muslim country on the map of the world occurred as a result of the reinforcement of a Bengal cultural and national identity brought about by an Islamist repression trying to impose the tenets of Radical Islam rejected by the majority of the population. Another situation providing food for thought expresses itself in the circumstance that there is not one single jihadist who belongs to the Muslim minority of India, and we are talking about a population numbering well over one hundred million people. The regions of Southern Asia and the Middle East, the hotbed of Radical Islam and Jihadism, constitute an area which is in seemingly unending turmoil. Undoubtedly, its main component is the anti-Americanism which is particularly strong in Pakistan, parts of Afghanistan, Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. At the same time, however, the interviews conducted with Americans who visited or are working in Bangladesh, Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria are unanimous about the friendly treatment they have received from the majority of the locals. Particularly interesting is the case with Morocco because many Moroccans living in Western Europe are among the most active followers of Radical Islam. Obviously, most of the bad apples have left Morocco for Europe… There are millions of Muslims who want to live in the Twenty First century instead of the Seventh where the Jihadists want to take the entire world. Just a small sample of the incredibly confusing mosaic marking the emotions and attitudes of the Muslim world: A Saudi diplomat belonging to the privileged elite of the Desert Kingdom made an unexpected statement in a private conversation that he would prefer to die rather than to see his daughter covering her body and face in keeping within the requirements of the jihadists. Are we in a position to assume that the before-mentioned diplomat is the only resident of Saudi Arabia who thinks along the same lines? In the Balkan area where the jihadists have already launched the second stage of their campaign targeting the Islamization of the region, many young Muslims don’t want to live according to the Jihadist dictates. There is a growing conflict between the Muslim youth of Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia and the Jihadist “missionaries” swarming the region. A quick snapshot of the current shape of the Muslim world would reveal a very complicated picture indeed. At the same time isn’t it possible to assume that out of this complexity a skillful Western approach should be able to extract the basics of a strategy designed to turn into pipe-dreams the global ambitions of the fanatics and murderers trying to offer the world the PAST instead of the FUTURE?

email Dr. Gounev at “georgygounev@yahoo.com”

Russian/American Alliance with the Islamization of Europe (book soon to be released)

Georgy Gounev  -  The famous Russian writer Feodor Dostoevsky once said “there are bad people who are much more effective in acting together in the pursuit of a common goal.”  The nature of Radical Islam’s assault on Europe seems to confirm the pessimism of the famous master of the written word.

     The first challenge the author of any book devoted to the exploration of any development the future may  hold,  would be to point out the reason for his/her predictions.  The main concept of the book “Is the West Moving North?” is not complicated at all.  Based upon the premise that an alliance between the United States of America and Russia is POSSIBLE, the book explores the option where under certain specific circumstances, such an alliance COULD become inevitable.

     Given the nature of the negativities marking the current stage of the bilateral American-Russian relations, a very logical question is:  Why does the author firmly believe in the possibility of an American-Russian Alliance?  The answer to this question is simple:  It is the spread of Radical Islam throughout the Muslim world and the quickly advancing process of Islamization in Europe that could bring about such a seemingly unlikely development

        One of the most important geopolitical manifestations of the European dimension of the Muslim expansion is the demographic make-over not only of Europe, but of Russia as well.  Not too many people in the West realize the fact that the Muslim minority of Russia is increasing so rapidly that within the foreseeable future half of the recruits of the Russian Army will consist of Muslims.  An Islamized Europe, added to the Muslim populated areas of Central Asia, will encircle Russia from all directions except for those leading to the uneasy and unpredictable neighbor called China.

        In the American case the future stages of the same process will yield a dramatic increase of anti-Americanism throughout Europe, the Middle East and Southern Asia.  Two important developments such as the conflict in Afghanistan, the end of which is not in sight, and the length and intensity of which  has all the potential of a Vietnam War like disaster, plus the growing probability of a break-up of Pakistan present a very serious challenge to American policymakers.  The realization of another chilling scenario where America could face a theocratic Islamo-Totalitarian Government of Pakistan in possession of a huge nuclear arsenal represents a source of danger the magnitude of which dwarfs any other challenge the United States is facing.  Another dimension of the Islamic threat  consists of the strong chance for the emergence of new conflicts requiring certain levels of direct American involvement in different parts of the world such as  Bosnia, Sudan, Pakistan and Nigeria – just to mention a few.  

          Under the same scenario, acts of terrorism could become a daily occurrence in some parts of Europe not unlike the pattern that had been established in Iraq.  The most obvious and probable targets will be the European countries with growing Muslim populations. Disastrous terrorist acts could also take place on American and Russian soil.

          Those are the rough outlines of the background of the international situation and politics that would create the necessary conditions for the emergence of the American-Russian Alliance. The most favorable condition for all those developments is the continuation of the process of democratization of Russia that has been seriously damaged during the years of Vladimir Putin’s presidency. The other option is that some authoritarian ruler of Russia would display the ability to grasp the necessity of the American- Russian alliance.  (This may include Putin if his strategy to become President of Russia once again succeeds).

       The structure of the book fits the concept upon which it is based.  The role of an introduction is played by a chapter entitled “The End of the Cold War and the Dawn of the Radical Islam.”  The manuscript is divided into five parts, each one containing two chapters. The first part represents a review of the Soviet and Russian politics and strategies with regard to the United States from the WWII era all the way to 9/11.  The second part describes the American policies toward Russia during the same period. Part three deals with the Islamization of Europe focusing on the demography and sociology of the problem and the successful offensive of Radical Islam. Part Four follows the specificity of the United States and Russia as targets of Radical Islamist assault. Finally, part five analyses the changes of the entire structure of international relations as a result of the emergence of the American-Russian Alliance.      

                                                                                            ABOUT THE AUTHOR

          Georgy Gounev was accepted as a political refugee by the US Government in 1988. Born and raised in Bulgaria he obtained his MA from the University of Saint Clement, Sofia, Bulgaria, and his PhD from the Institute of International Relations in Moscow, Russia.  He taught history and politics at the Department of History and the Faculty of Journalism in the University of Saint Clement.  He contributed actively to Radio Germany and Radio Free Europe during the period of the Communist dictatorship, and to the first Bulgarian newspapers free of censorship. 

          For two years Gounev was a Visiting Fulbright Scholar at Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio. Gounev has a long record of public speaking and lecturing throughout the United States. He is, also, the author of four books published in his native country (two of them after the fall of Communism).

          For a long time Gounev has lectured on the issues of WWII history, American-Russian relations, and the ideology and strategy of Radical Islam. Since 2007 he has taught classes in Comparative Russian and Soviet history at Saddleback College and International Relations at Irvine Valley College. A movie based on one of his scripts involving the American-Russian cooperation imposed by the war on terror during an attempt to prevent a major terrorist act is attracting the interest of several American and Russian moviemakers.

Email Dr. Gounev at “georgygounev@yahoo.com”

Why Shariah Must Be Opposed

 

 

by Daniel Pipes -  http://www.danielpipes.org/   National Post – August 5, 2009  – Those of us who argue against Shariah are sometimes asked why Islamic law poses a problem when modern Western societies long ago accommodated Halakha, or Jewish law. In fact, this was one of the main talking points of those who argued that Shariah should become an accepted part of dispute resolution in Ontario in 2005.

The answer is easy: a fundamental difference separates the two. Islam is a missionizing religion, Judaism is not. Islamists aspire to apply Islamic law to everyone, while observant Jews seek only to live by Jewish law themselves.

Two very recent examples from the United Kingdom demonstrate the innate imperialism of Islamic law.

Picture of the Queens Care Centre from the outside.

The first concerns Queens Care Centre, an old-age home and day-care provider for the elderly in the coal town of Maltby, 40 miles east of Manchester. At present, according to the Daily Telegraph, not one of its 37 staff or 40 residents is Muslim. Although the home’s management asserts a respect for its residents’ “religious and cultural beliefs,” QCC’s owner since 1994, Zulfikar Ali Khan, on his own decided this year to switch the home’s meat purchases to a halal butcher.

His stealthy decision meant pensioners at QCC could no longer eat their bacon and eggs, bangers and mash, ham sandwiches, bacon sandwiches, pork pies, bacon butties, or sausage rolls. The switch prompted widespread anger. The relative of one resident called it “a disgrace. The old people who are in the home and in their final years deserve better. … [I]t’s shocking that they should be deprived of the food they like on the whim of this man.” A staff member opined that it’s “quite wrong that someone should impose their religious and cultural beliefs on others like this.”

Assistant Chief Constable Jackie Roberts of the Avon and Somerset police force models the hijab for non-Muslims.

Queried about his decision, Khan, lamely replied he ordered halal meat for the sake of (nonexistent) Muslim staff. Then he backtracked: “We will be ordering all types of meat” and went so far as to agree that religious beliefs should not be imposed on others. His retreat did not convince one former QCC staffer, who suspected that Khan “intended to serve only halal meat at the home but has had to think again because of the row.”

A second example of imposing Shariah on non-Muslims comes from southwest England. The Avon and Somerset police force patrols the cities of Bristol and Bath as well as surrounding areas has just issued hijabs to female officers. The hijabs, distributed at the initiative of two Muslim groups and costing £13 apiece, come complete with the constabulary’s emblem.

Now, issuing hijabs as part of uniforms in Great Britain is nothing new – the London police led the way in 2001, followed by other police forces, at least one fire brigade, and even the furniture chain Ikea. What sets the Avon and Somerset hijabs apart from these others is their being intended not just for pious Muslim female staff but also for non-Muslim staff, in particular for their use upon entering mosques.

[Rashad Azami of the Bath Islamic Society finds it "highly pleasing" that the constabulary took this step. One of the seven non-Muslim officers to receive a hijab of her very own, Assistant Chief Constable Jackie Roberts, calls it "a very positive addition to the uniform and one which I'm sure will be a welcome item for many of our officers."

[Dhimmitude is the term Bat Ye'or coined to describe subservience to Shariah by non-Muslims. Assistant Chief Constable Roberts' enthusiasm for the hijab might be called "advanced dhimmitude."]

“Hijab bullies” (as David J. Rusin of Islamist Watch calls them) who coerce non-Muslim females to cover up are just one stripe of Islamist imposing Shar’i ways on the West. Other Islamists focus on impeding the uncensored discussion of such topics as Muhammad and the Koran or Islamist institutions or terrorist financing; still others exert to bring taxpayer-funded schools, hospitals, and jails into conformity with Islamic law, not to speak of taxi cabs and municipal swimming pools. Their efforts don’t always succeed but in the aggregate, they are rapidly shifting the premises of Western, and especially British, life.

Returning to pork: both Islam and Judaism abominate the flesh of pigs, so this prohibition offers a direct and revealing comparison of the two religions. Simply put, Jews accept that non-Jews eat pork but Muslims take offense and try to impede pork consumption. That, in brief, explains why Western accommodations to Halakha have no relevance for dealing with Shariah. And why Shariah as public policy must be opposed.

——————————————————————————–

Aug. 5, 2009 update: Yesterday’s Daily Mail offers a coda to the hijabs for non-Muslim British policewomen; how about niqabs for non-Muslim British policewomen?

Three female police officers were ordered to dress up as Muslim women for the day just to see what it felt like. They wore traditional burkhas [DP: sic] as part of a scheme designed to help police interact better with the Islamic community. … The officers, Sergeant Deb Leonard, Sergeant Deb Pickering and Police Community Support Officer Helen Turner, all from Sheffield, were accompanied by four Muslim women to help them learn more about the Islamic faith on a tour of the city. …

A spokesman for the force said the exercise, called “In Your Shoes Day,” was designed to help officers interact better with the Muslim community across Sheffield. “This exercise is just one of many activities South Yorkshire Police have planned with communities and ethnic minority leaders to secure strong relationships, celebrate diversity and encourage integration, working towards a safer, closer society,” she added. But she said there were no plans to extend the scheme for officers to dress up as members of other minority communities. …

Sergeant Leonard said the experience had given her a greater appreciation of how Muslim women feel when they walk out in public in “clothing appropriate to their beliefs.”

Sergeant Deb Leonard (left), PCSO Helen Turner and Sergeant Deb Pickering in, respectively, niqab, hijab, and niqab.

What Every Woman Should Know about Radical Islam & Sharia Law

Pat English     Have you seen the movie “The Stoning of Soraya?”  If not I recommend you go out and see it.  One must admit that this is an extreme example of the worst of Sharia Law as practiced and advocated by Radical Islam.  In Iran an innocent women is condemned to death by stoning because she was falsely accused of infidelity by a husband who wanted another woman.   The story is a true one and took place in Iran during 1998.  One sees the father, the husband and then the sons of Soraya stoning her to death.  How sad!  How could any religion/culture/cult be so brutal?  However, while this may be an extreme example of Radical Islam, it is not unusual today to hear of honor murders in many non-Islamic countries where a woman is accused of anything from not marrying a selected husband to adultery.

        The murders generally are conducted a little more humanly than with Soraya:  They are conducted with guns or knives or by strangulation.  If you think this cannot happen in the United States you are wrong!   When she was just 19, Sandeela Kanwal traveled from America to Pakistan for an arranged marriage to a cousin twice her age.  Less than six years later, after she refused to marry the cousin, she was dead, strangled by her father, Chaudhry Rashid, who was later arrested by police as the suspect for what some have called an “honor killing.”

        Many European countries have either adopted some form of Sharia Law or are considering it.  Countries ruled by the tenets of Radical Islam are Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Sudan, Pakistan and Egypt.  Even Non-Islamic countries like Canada, England, Holland, and Germany, where the Muslim population is growing at alarming rates, are contemplating incorporating some aspects of Sharia law into their judicial systems. 

          Sharia Law is a brutal method for Radical Islam to control its population by intimidation for supposed offenses against Allah.  It comes into play in relation to how property is divided and inherited for women, sexual rights or prohibitions particularly for the female and what a woman must wear to keep her body covered. In some countries, such as Somalia, female genital mutilation is frequently performed on small female children.  The book “Infidel” by Ayaan Hirsi Ali documents first hand this appalling procedure that was done to her and her sister when they were just small children in Somalia.  In Afghanistan a new law allowing a man to rape his wife if she does not submit was recently instigated. 

          Generally, Sharia Law is not compatible with democracy.  It does not treat women equal to men.  Women are second-class citizens not allowed the same property, inheritance and sexual rights of a male.  A woman is expected to wear at least a hijab, not associate with men other than her husband or father and walk behind her husband.  Moreover, not just women, but all non-Muslims are second-class citizens in the eyes of Islam.

         It is essential that the Obama way of pandering and appeasement, is challenged because the sad reality in many Muslim countries is one of persecution and repression. True democracy needs to challenge Radical Islamic nations like Saudi Arabia and in fact all nations that do not allow equal Human Rights for both males and females.  I say to our current President, that it is time for him to realize the reality of the fact that the United States is a Christian country and yes, we are at war with Radical Islam.

email her at “patsjc@yahoo.com”

A LEADER FOR CHALLENGING TIMES

Georgy Gounev,  June 21, 2009

When I heard the name of Lieutenant Colonel Allen West (West) I never imagined that one day I would know the man well enough in order to write about him.  Several years ago there was a TV report about a military officer whose extremely promising military career that lasted for 22 years and had led him through the battlefields of the First Gulf War and Iraq had been interrupted by a rather dramatic incident…

West was kind enough to share his ideas and concepts about the war against the Islamo-Totalitarianism for the needs of the book I am working on devoted to the Islamization of Europe and its impact on the American-Russian relations. What will follow is, a short interview, West gave me especially for Serbianna.

GG:  Lt Col West, allow me to express my gratitude for your time.  My first question is how do you feel about the current stage of the conflict between the United States and the Islamo-Totalitarian assault on the world?

 AW:  This is a very painful and somewhat confusing question, because the current administration creates the impression that there is no such conflict whatsoever.  In his speech in Cairo, for instance, President Obama didn’t mention such terms as “war” or “terror.”

GG: The fact that those terms are ignored does not mean that they don’t exist, correct?

AW: They not only “exist” but their deliberate neglect aggravates the situation because the demobilization of the public opinion will facilitate the actions of the enemy.

GG:  You have a unique fighting experience that lasted almost four years on the territory of three Muslim countries.  What is your impression of the attitude of the Muslim community toward the Coalition forces?

AW:  There is no simple answer to a complicated question.  The people of Kuwait, for instance, were extremely happy when we liberated them from the short but bloody rule of Saddam Hussein.  As far the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan are concerned, the things are more complicated but what I can tell you is that for me every Iraqi or Afghan soldier was a brother in arms. As far as the reactions of the civil population are concerned, in Iraq I witnessed many examples of positive gestures toward us, and several of them, saved the lives of our soldiers.

GG: What about Afghanistan?

AW:  In Afghanistan we see substantially less contact with the local population. Don’t forget the geographical factor:  Afghanistan is a much larger country than Iraq – it has a very harsh mountainous terrain, with an extremely poor road system. Besides, the country is much more clannish, and much more divided by tribal differences than Iraq.

GG:  Serbianna is a site devoted primarily, if not exclusively to the Balkan issues. Do you have any opinion on the problems plaguing the area?

AW:.  The Balkans are not a focused point of expertise for me but, of course, I have some basic ideas about the most important developments in the area.

GG:  Allow me, Sir, to be absolutely honest with you – the people in the Balkan area think that the American policymakers are ignorant about their region and don’t care at all about its problems. Given the fact that I am Bulgarian, and I am contributing to a site devoted primarily with Serbia related problems, it would be logical to ask you a simple question: do you have any idea about the history and the present problems of both countries? Let me be more specific:  If you are in position of a Washington based decision maker, what kind of policy would you recommend with regard to Serbia?

AW:  The problem involving American – Serbian relations is not as complicated as some of our politicians think. It is true that we were involved in a conflict with Serbia because of the politics of Milosevic, who in my mind was a totalitarian dictator, who had committed a lot of crimes like, for instance, the forceful removal of the Albanian population of Kosovo. Later however, our politicians committed a mistake by not defending the Serbian residents of Kosovo who were forced to abandon their homes.  I think that the best solution to the Kosovo problem would have been the granting of the largest possible autonomy to the province within the borders of Serbia under some kind of temporary international control, making sure that the rights of the Albanian and Serbian residents of the area were fully protected.  Our Department of State however, demonstrated a lot of ignorance and lack of sensitivity with regard to the creation of an independent state on the territory of Kosovo.

GG: What do you mean?

AW:  Kosovo was the battle field where the Serbian Army fought to the last man in 1387, I think, against the Ottoman’s expansion into the Balkans.  It is vital to study and understand how history affects international relations in this present time. We can ill afford the sanctioning of a new radical Islamic terrorism sanctuary in the Balkans, where they remember the Battle of Kosovo. Today, I believe Serbia also will resist the assault of Islamo-Totalitarianism on the European civilization and democracy, and with this fact in mind, if I am in the theoretical position of a decision maker mentioned by you, I wouldn’t have spared my efforts in order to improve the American-Serbian relations.

GG:  Sir, we are both teachers of history, allow me to make a slight correction-the battle at Kosovo Pole took place in 1389…On the other hand, however, with all due respect to the other candidates for the Congress of the United States, I don’t believe that anyone of them would have been able to match your amount of knowledge of the history and the problems of the Balkan area.

AW: Give me, please the opportunity to make it up for my mistake… The first thing that comes to my mind with the mentioning of Bulgaria, is the fact that your people didn’t allow the transportation of the Bulgarian Jews to Hitler’s extermination camps. It was a unique fact in the war-time history of Europe for which the Bulgarian People deserve a lot of credit.

GG: Lieutenant Colonel West, I am becoming emotional at this point, but allow me as an old teacher of history to add for the sake of the historical truth that the Bulgarian authorities in the occupied territories did send about 11,000 Jews to their death.

On the other hand, however, given the fact that 48,000 Jewish residents of Bulgaria survived the war makes me really proud, and I am grateful to you for mentioning this fact. Please, accept as well my deep gratitude for your time. Let me finish with the statement that from the bottom of my heart, I wish you a victory during the elections for the US Congress, in 2010!

AW: You are welcome, Sir, and thank you for your support.

Email Dr. Gounev at “georgygounev@yahoo.com”

An émigré from India running on an Anti-Sharia Platform for US Congress

By Jamie Glazov

FrontPageMagazine.com | Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Vijay Kumar, an émigré from India who is seeking the Republican nomination in a Tennessee primary Congressional race set for August. He is running on an anti-Sharia platform. Visit his website at kumarforcongress.com.

FP: Vijay Kumar,  welcome to Frontpage Interview.

Kumar: Thank you. It is a pleasure to speak with you.

FP: I would like to speak to you today about the anti-Sharia program you are running on. But first let’s begin with your background. Tell us about your life in India, your emigration to the United States, and how you came to your anti-Sharia views.

Kumar: I was born in Hyderabad, India, in 1954. I grew up there in India, in a conservative, middle-class family. I studied classics, political science, and philosophy. During the late 1970s, I was working in human resources for a European construction company, and that work took me to Iran. From 1977 to 1979 I witnessed, firsthand, the radical transformation of Iran from a modern nation to a repressed, fundamentalist state and it left a lasting impression on me. I suppose you could say that my anti-Sharia views began there.

The American way of life and its values resonated strongly with me. I emigrated here in 1979 and have been living in the Bellevue area of Nashville for twenty years. I’ve been raising a family and managing my own insurance business, and during it all I’ve been interested in politics.

Right now, our country is dealing with issues – issues like illegal immigration, healthcare reform, the War on Terror – that will shape our politics for the rest of this century. Like many Americans, I’ve grown to feel that the politicians of this country are simply not accomplishing anything on these fronts. As low as the President’s approval rating has gotten, the approval rating for Congress is even lower. So, as a concerned and informed citizen, I’ve decided to run for Congress and help put things on the right track. That’s what living in a democracy is all about.

FP: What has made you make an anti-Sharia platform the central tenet of your campaign?

Kumar: The main focus of my campaign is the War on Terror. What so many politicians do not seem to realize is that our struggle is against more than just “terror.” Terrorism is simply a method, not an end itself. Terrorism is just one tactic being used by Islamic extremists in their effort to force their way of life on the rest of the world. Ultimately, then, this is a struggle over whether the nations of this world will be ruled under Sharia law or not. As Omar Ahmad, founder of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said: “Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant.”

FP: What are your thoughts about CAIR?

Kumar: CAIR is a direct manifestation of Mohammed’s Sunna and jihad. CAIR is actually just one part of Islam’s strategy to annihilate the Western culture. It is far more dangerous than any Mohammed Atta or any other jihadists.

Lies and deceit are CAIR’s stock-in-trade.  They claim to be akin to a “Muslim NAACP,” but everyone from the Department of Homeland Security, to FBI counterterrorism chiefs, to moderate American Muslims recognizes the extreme rhetoric that CAIR endorses. At least five of CAIR’s board members and employees have been linked to terrorism-related activities. They are fifth columnists, preying upon our values of tolerance and multiculturalism.

But CAIR is just one of an untold number of Islamic organizations in our government and university centres. People forget that Mohammed’s last words were to keep giving the money to kafir ambassadors and that is what Islam is doing in Washington, DC. Capitol Hill is awash in Saudi money and our dhimmi political types cannot get enough of it.

FP: What do you think it says about Islam that non-Muslims cannot enjoy the same freedoms in Muslim nations as Muslims enjoy in America and the West – and many countries around the world?

Kumar: This is proof of the legal inequalities that are built into Sharia law. Sharia is a set of laws designed to apply not just to Mulsims, but to non-Muslims as well. Everyone, believer and kafir alike, is supposed to live a life based upon Mohammed. However, kafirs – those who do not believe – are given distinctly different treatment than believers.

In America, we believe that all human beings are created equal, and that all human beings possess certain natural rights; our entire Constitution is just a logical extension of that one idea. To us, Muslims are humans just like everyone else, and therefore they should have the same legal rights as everyone else. Sharia law, on the other hand, is not based on logic or a belief in natural equality. It is based on religious customs, and part of its design is to elevate believers over non-believers.

Yet, we never bring up this inequality and lack of freedom under Muslim rule. We never point out Islam’s long history of destroying or oppressing other cultures. We never remember the suffering of non-Muslims in Muslim nations. We never teach that Turkey was once Christian, or that Islamic jihad has reduced Hindustani culture to half of what it once was. Muslim groups often like to point to Christians as aggressors, citing the Crusades of the Dark Ages, but the West remains silent about people being oppressed in the Middle East today, right now.

FP: Why do you think there is such a silence in the West about Muslim tyranny? Why do you think the Left refuses to stand up for those who suffer under Islamic despotism?

Kumar: The Left and Islam share many of the same values. Both deny that individuals have a personal ethic. A central authority should control all things. Both insult and denigrate their opponents and see themselves as victors in the movement of history. Both hate the native cultures and individual efforts.

The mindset of the Leftist is one of deliberate ignorance.  I was a Leftist, a bleeding heart liberal until a few years ago.  I came from a Marxist family in India.  The Left, by its silence on the issue of radical Islam, has betrayed its own professed ideals, if it has any.

The fight against Political Islam should have been led by the liberal intellectuals in our universities, but instead they deliberately and systematically support a seventh century totalitarian ideology that negates all forms of rational thinking, intellectual pursuit, and pluralism – the very ideals which are supposed to be central to the philosophy of the Left.

The Liberals have become the lackeys of Islamic imperialism in their words and deeds. They fail to mention the 1,400 years of Jihadists’ terror in this world.  How can we cry for the genocide in Darfur and ignore the cause?

The media only has a concern for white oppression and white evil. If the source of evil is non-white and non-Christian, they don’t care. Our Leftist media is forcing us to fight this ideological struggle with both hands tied behind our backs. To them, saying anything negative about other countries or cultures is not telling the truth, it is racism. To them, portraying America’s values and accomplishments in a positive light is propaganda – and God forbid they indulge in anything so base as pro-American propaganda.

Another aspect of Leftist thought is that there is no absolute morality. Everything is relative, every kind of behaviour and belief should be tolerated, and therefore the American system isn’t better than any other. How can we engage in a battle of ideologies when you see all ways of life – even those that preach an end to tolerance and an end to intellectual freedom – as acceptable? And as we can see in the Obama campaign, you can talk about change as long as you serve the same menu of old ideas with a new smile.

We cannot see what we do not understand. Our education system is bankrupt at all levels. Our universities do not prepare our young minds to see anything bad about Islam. Here in Nashville at Vanderbilt University you can get a degree in Islamic Studies and never read the life of Mohammed—and never read the entire Koran. You study Sufi poetry, Islamic art and Islamic history viewed as a glorious triumph. No kafirs suffer in this program and there is no history of Jew, Christian, Hindu or Buddhist suffering under Islamic rule for the past 1,400 years. A graduate from this program then goes out into the world professionally trained to be an apologist for Islam, a dhimmi. And this program is standard at all schools, not just Vanderbilt.

All of our textbooks teach a CAIR approved history and doctrine of Islam. All of the young minds are trained to never see any wrong in Islam and to blame all the faults of Islam on us.

FP: What should be done about Sharia law in America?

Kumar: First we have to understand that Sharia denies the values of our Constitutional government and that it has been the constant goal of radical Islam to make all peoples submit to Sharia. We must educate ourselves as to the actual nature of Sharia law and its history. Any American who is reasonably informed about Sharia law should recognize that it is incompatible with freedom and our way of life.

Sharia is the legal condensation of the Koran and the Sunna – the words and actions of Mohammed. Because it is based upon the political submission of everyone – Muslim and non-Muslim – to Islamic law, the Koran is a political document. Sharia dictates what literature and art must be. It dictates public behaviour. It asserts that kafirs are legally inferior to Muslims. Sharia can’t be reformed, since it is based on religion and ideology. It is unchangeable and its laws can only be interpreted by select Islamic scholars. The heart of political Islam is that Sharia law must rule over everyone, not just those who choose to be Muslim. Sharia denies the Bill of Rights – it allows slavery; it asserts that women are legally inferior; it dictates cruel and unusual punishment, such as stoning or cutting off the offender’s hands and feet; it denies freedom of religion, freedom of the press, or freedom of expression. The goal of Islamic extremists is to see Sharia annihilate all other forms of law, including our Constitution.

Second, we must demand from any Muslim running for public office where they stand on the application of Sharia law in America. In fact, we should demand that all our politicians make their position on Sharia law clear. We must pass laws that ensure the brutality of Sharia law can never be applied to an American woman. Ultimately, it is vital that all of us understand that we are in a struggle of ideologies, with the ways of freedom, democracy, and human rights on one hand, and the ways of oppression, intolerance, and ignorance on the other.

FP: Are you optimistic that the West can prevail against Islamo-Fascism and that we will be able to defend ourselves against Sharia?

Kumar: No. Too many of our intellectuals do not recognize the threat of Islamo-Fascism. Our public is not being educated about the goals and beliefs of our enemies. Our government is trying to fight organizations, not the beliefs that give rise to them.

Terrorists are products of militant ideologies, not vice-versa. Unless we confront the ideology logically and persistently our efforts are futile. However, in the land of the brave and the home of the free we choke on the truth. Our culture is drowning in the growing cesspool of political correctness. The liberal left in the United States and Europe have become apologists for militant Islamic radicalism. They say that the terrorist attacks are the consequence of America’s foreign policy in the Middle East and its unconditional support for Israel rather than the continuation of 1,400 years of jihad. How does this explain Al-Qaeda’s attacks in Indonesia and Saudi Arabia? The Left fails to understand the fact that there are few Americans or Jews in India, Thailand, The Philippines, Bali, Nigeria, Sudan, Russia and host of other countries where Islamic radicalism has been waging a relentless campaign of terror.

It is a moral imperative to oppose the nations that practice Sharia Law. We must start scrutinizing way more carefully immigration from Sharia practicing nations. Why should we let on our shores those who want to install and live by Sharia? The progenitors of Sharia Law and Universal Jihad are Iran, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia – the true Axis of Evil. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are not our allies; they are our enemies. These outlaw nations must be demilitarized, secularized, and democratized. That should be the goal of our “War on Terror.” Make no mistake: unless these nations forego their fundamentalist and militarist theology and join the secular humanity there will not be a lasting peace in the world.

FP: Well, the idea of demilitarizing, secularizing and democratizing these regions all sounds good – to an extent. For instance, it has to be ascertained who exactly we are demilitarizing and the problems this may cause, as there are forces in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, for instance, that are confronting Islamist terrorists. This doesn’t mean, of course, that those we think are our friends truly are our friends – many are our enemies and we have to become wiser about this. I am just saying there is a certain balancing act we have to shrewdly play. And how one goes about secularizing and democratizing the Muslim world with Muslim populations is a whole other story – and though it would be a providential godsend if this really did occur, it would be an “objective” on our part with huge complications and obstacles, and we’ll have to leave the discussion of this issue for another time and place.

Vijay Kumar, thank you for joining us.

Kumar: You’re welcome; it’s been a pleasure.

Jamie Glazov is Frontpage Magazine’s managing editor. He holds a Ph.D. in History with a specialty in U.S. and Canadian foreign policy. He edited and wrote the introduction to David Horowitz’s Left Illusions. He is also the co-editor (with David Horowitz) of The Hate America Left and the author of Canadian Policy Toward Khrushchev’s Soviet Union (McGill-Queens University Press, 2002) and 15 Tips on How to be a Good Leftist. Email him at jglazov@rogers.com.

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=53EDA97A-4626-4866-80A2-6694936F101B

Power of unspoken words

Jun 28, 2009

By Georgy Gounev | Obama should have told the Islamic world in his speech that it was not the Europeans but the Muslims that unleashed an all out invasion of Europe on two occasions.

On June 4, President Obama delivered in Cairo his speech designed to define the new American approach toward Islam. It could be successfully argued that President Obama is uniquely qualified to address the Muslims since he is the son of a foreign born Muslim man and a representative of a racial group that for a long time had an underprivileged status within the American society.

This factor, powerful enough on its own merits, has been immensely reinforced by the effective way the speech was delivered. It should not be forgotten that Barack Obama undoubtedly is the best campaigner among all residents of the White House. The speech itself was a mixture of passion, somewhat subdued by a touch of humility, and the firm conviction of the President during that hot day in Cairo that he was not just a President of the United States but also a leader of the world busy reconciling the United States with the Muslims. Without blinking, one of his sycophants from the media world, modestly defined Mr. Obama as a God while delivering his Cairo speech…

In the course of the Divine Revelation, (if we accept the definition of the adoring journalist), the Muslim world was assured of American friendship and, was made knowledgeable of the fact that President Obama wants to see the creation of a Palestinian state living peacefully next to Israel. The Jewish State for its part has to freeze the settlements in the occupied territories of the West Bank and the Middle Eastern idyll would be complete. There are small problems like the answers to some interesting questions. For instance, who will rule this peaceful Palestinian state given that the main political forces – Al Fatah and Hamas are at each other throats? How peaceful would the Palestinian state be given that Hamas, the more popular organization, still dreams about the destruction of the Jewish state? Or, how will Israel evacuate the settlers from the West Bank considering the level of religious fanaticism of many who are fully convinced that the land they live on has been given to them by God? Not by Obama but by the Jewish one…

In a more general plan, the President spoke highly about the Muslims, quoting the “Holy” Koran and condemning the European colonialism of the Muslim lands. As a Harvard graduate it could be assumed that the President should have known and should have mentioned that as a matter of fact not the Europeans but the Muslims were the ones that had unleashed an all out invasion of Europe on two occasions.

The European offensive by Islam took place first under the form of an Arab expansion, and secondly, as the incorporation of South Eastern Europe into the Ottoman Empire. This included the attempt to add Central Europe to its Balkan prey which expired at the gates of Vienna during the Seventeenth Century.

The numerous admirers of the Cairo performance missed an important gap in Mr. Obama’s logic, when according to the inspirational speaker, a very convincing demonstration of the freedom the Muslims are entitled to, is the right of the Muslim women to wear hijab on the streets of the American cities. Yes, without any doubt, wearing hijab in America could be considered a form of freedom.

However, the right NOT TO WEAR HIJAB in the Muslim countries would also constitute an act of freedom for the Muslim women, wouldn’t it, Mr. President? If so, why didn’t you mention this form of freedom in your speech?

In the course of the same performance President Obama demonstrated two basic features typical of his approach to public statements. To start with, the President is in the habit of touching only those aspects of his statements that will enhance his positive image and will help him extract some kind of benefit from his presentation.

The President is also accustomed to presenting the same facts in a completely different light depending upon the audience. Back in the States, for instance, when the winning of the important Jewish vote was paramount, Mr. Obama pointed out the Jewish connection to his name – as it turned out, the Muslim name Barack corresponds to the ancient Jewish name of Baruh. The Jewish listeners were also informed, that although formally Muslim, his Kenyan father had been an agnostic. Therefore, according to the tough rules and requirements of Islam, he could not be considered a Muslim.

In Cairo the same Kenyan father had been presented to the world-wide Muslim audience as a person “coming from many generations of Muslims”… Given that too many people would say “So what?” or “Every politician does that,” let’s accept this “flexibility” as something natural if not unavoidable.
The continuation of our effort to take a second glance at the Cairo speech would reveal a shocking reality. The magnitude and importance of this reality has been deliberately or unconsciously ignored by the main line sycophantic American media that has escalated the traditional honeymoon between the new President and the media to the level of an endless love affair.

The entire speech was based on a wrong premise, due to the deliberate omission of the main reason for the tension between the United States and the Muslim world. The main reason for the tension is the open war unleashed by the Jihadist Islamic Totalitarianism against the Christian world, the Democratic world and the State of Israel.

It would have been reasonable to expect the President of the United States to address the issue involving the speedy Islamization of Europe propelled by the fundamentalist imams instigating hatred for the democratic institutions of the very countries that had opened their doors to the Muslim immigrants.

Isn’t this an issue that affects only the Europeans? No, it isn’t because the countries most affected by the jihadist exploitation of the demographic trends are NATO members and consequently, American allies. In addition, countries which are not American Allies are under the same pressures and are facing the same dangers. President Obama and his advisers evidently were under the wrong impression that the Muslim World won’t handle the truth about the delicate issues involving the relationship between the United States of America and the global Muslim community. As a result, the speech was politically correct and, in reality, ineffective. This show of political correctness underestimates the ability of the Muslims to appreciate a crystal clear message informing them that every Muslim man who doesn’t want his life to be determined by ignorant and cruel tyrants, (like the Taliban regime in Afghanistan), and every Muslim woman, who does not want to be made a prisoner in her own home, will be treated as our brothers and sisters in the war between the civilization and the dark forces dreaming to impose a barbarous and tyrannical form of Totalitarianism upon all of us.

Almost seven decades ago another American President by the name of Franklin Delanor Roosevelt made a statement that received much less coverage than the Cairo speech of Mr. Obama. It contained a far more important message. On July 4, 1941 President Roosevelt warned his compatriots who were dreaming of avoiding an American participation in WWII that the United States won’t survive “as an island of Democracy surrounded by a Totalitarian ocean.” Those words are as true today as they were seventy years ago. Unfortunately the world didn’t hear the timeless message circa 1941 from Cairo, which would have been the proper place for its reinforcement.

Email Dr. Gounev at “georgygounev@yahoo.com”

The Yalta Illusions – some thoughts on the wartime presidency of FDR

By Dr. Georgy Gounev,

Below is the epilogue to my first book published in English the title of which is “Fighting Evil with the Help of the Devil.”

Keywords: WW2, Stalin, FDR, Churchill, Georgy Gounev

One of the main reasons why the Yalta Conference of February 1945 qualifies as the most fitting epilogue to this book is its unique ability to demonstrate the mistakes of any extreme interpretation of the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

The sixtieth anniversary of the famous event, (February of 2005), produced an enormous body of articles and broadcasts devoted to its outcome. There is no chance of calming the storm of conflicting opinions, most of which condemned Roosevelt and Churchill for the “ sell-out” that allegedly had taken place at Yalta. Even the President of the United States took part in the discussion adding political weight to those accusations. As a matter of fact, it is time to put an end to the wrong perception which hurts the analysis and the interpretation of Yalta related events. Before anything else we have to start this line of analysis with the critically important time factor.

In February of 1945 Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, parts of Austria and Czechoslovakia, and the eastern part of Germany were already occupied by the Soviet Army. The eastern part of Germany, and Czechoslovakia were about to be occupied by Red Army as well, because the American based crowd of Soviet spies had already reported to Joseph Stalin that Churchill’s idea “to shake the hands of the Russians as far East as possible”, has been rejected by Roosevelt.

Another decision of the Big Three at Yalta was the forcible repatriation of all residents of the Soviet Union who did not want to live again under Stalin’s rule, back to their masters and torturers. With this action of theirs Churchill and Roosevelt had increased the already countless number of Stalin’s victims with two million more human beings.

In all fairness to both Western guests of Joseph Stalin, their signatures sending to suffering and death such a large number of people was preceded by a pretty rough blackmail on the part of Joseph Stalin. The dictator’s message was plain and simple: ”… give me back my people, or I won’t give you yours”. What Stalin meant was that some American and British prisoners of war, who had been sent to POW camps in the eastern areas of Germany, were liberated by the Soviet Army. At Yalta those few hundred individuals were the main chip in Joseph Stalin’s strategy to get back millions of his former slaves.

As far as President Roosevelt’s performance at Yalta was concerned, there could be a little doubt that it has been heavily influenced by his poor health. From the rather mild testimony of FDR’s interpreter, Charles Bohlen according to whom: “The President was ill at Yalta”, through the delicate formula used by Winston Churchill in describing FDR’s condition: “The President had a slender contact with life”, to the devastating professional assessment of Lord Moran, the personal doctor of Winston Churchill, who saw FDR: “looking straight ahead with his mouth open as if he were not taking things in. To a doctor’s eye, the President appears very ill. I give him no more than a few months to live”. (3)

There are people who tend to look at those testimonies as a way to justify their concept that everything would have gone fine in Yalta, had FDR being a bit healthier. The concept, however, does not fit the reality. FDR was in much better health in 1943 when he gave the most important signals to Joseph Stalin involving the future of Eastern Europe. At Yalta he was just following the pattern of the strategy he had outlined much earlier. Regardless of his diminished capacity to grasp the details, FDR achieved one of his main purposes in Yalta involving a formal Soviet agreement to intervene in the war against Japan. As far as the tragedy of the millions of human beings forcibly returned to their torturer and murderer, this issue was of no concern to Roosevelt, or to Churchill.
So much about Yalta…

What was very often missed in the analyses of the wartime strategy of President Roosevelt ,would be the fact that his main challenger was not Adolph Hitler, but Joseph Stalin. With Hitler everything was clear, he was the enemy who had to be defeated- there were no complications whatsoever.

With Joseph Stalin everything was different. As a dictator, Stalin was much more murderous than Adolph Hitler in the pre- Holocaust period of his rule. If we accept the premise that the most essential dimension of the totalitarian system is the complete absorption of the civil society by the state dominated by one single party , then, undoubtedly, the regime created by Joseph Stalin and his cronies, was far more tyrannical than the one established by Adolph Hitler.

The other difference was that, unlike Hitler, during the period 1941-1945, Joseph Stalin was not the enemy but an ally of the Western Democracies. He was, also, in complete possession of the seemingly limitless human, military, and economic potential of his country.

Consequently, in the beginning of the alliance into which Churchill and Roosevelt pushed the dangerously lonely in the late June and early July of 1941, Joseph Stalin, President Roosevelt decided to win the friendship of the seemingly confused dictator. There were three important factors that led FDR to the deeply wrong belief that he was endowed with the incredible gift which would allow him to accomplish this impossible task.

The first one, undoubtedly, was his complete ignorance of the personality of the Soviet dictator and the nature of the political system he had created. The second factor was the Hopkins report from early August 1941 that convinced his boss that no matter what, Joseph Stalin was a leader one could count on, and that he happened to have a great respect for President Roosevelt as well. The third was the sincere conviction of the President that in some way, regardless of all negative features of the system he represented, Joseph Stalin belonged to the modern world of the great social experiments and ideas in a way, say, his sincere and faithful ally ,Winston Churchill, did not. “The pleasant, old Tory”, as Roosevelt used to call Churchill, was in FDR’s eyes a living symbol of such old fashioned relics, as the British Empire and British Colonialism.

With the first serious German defeats, it became abundantly clear to the President that the advancement of the Soviet military forces inevitably would include the entire Eastern part of the European continent within the perimeter of Joseph Stalin’s territorial possessions. Facing this challenge FDR decided that the achievement of the most important goals of the United States in WWII would be far more important than the fate of a region which never belonged to the American sphere of interests.

The ideological or political post-mortem enemies of President Roosevelt who accused him of “selling out” Eastern Europe at Yalta were never able to produce the answer to a simple question: what would have been the alternative to what President Roosevelt had done?

The argumentation of FDR’s sympathizers was seemingly quite strong. According to them the United States was in no position to influence the developments in Eastern Europe simply because America never had a military presence in the area. Aside from that , there was no other viable alternative, rather than to break the anti- Nazi alliance with all catastrophic consequences from such a step, and even then there was no guarantee that the United States would have been in a position to help the Eastern Europeans to avoid the Soviet occupation.

There are however, some almost unused counter- arguments to this thesis. Had Franklin Roosevelt possessed more integrity and more knowledge about totalitarianism, it could be reasonably argued that he could have and would have handled Joseph Stalin in a completely different way.

The brilliant performance of the Soviet dictator in front of Harry Hopkins marked the first step towards his gradual development of a strategy designed to push the American- Soviet relations into the most advantageous direction for him. It could be argued that the first components of the American strategy of Joseph Stalin had emerged in July of 1941 between the comeback from his complete breakdown in the aftermath of the Nazi invasion and the preparation of the spectacle he organized for Hopkins. At this point all the dictator wanted from Great Britain and the United States was the Western recognition of the borders Adolph Hitler and himself had agreed upon, and as much weaponry, machinery, planes and trucks he would be able to extract from the rich Americans.

This period was extremely important, because it was the time when , ideally, President Roosevelt had the perfect opportunity to make Joseph Stalin familiar with his views on the post – war world, and to demonstrate his firm decision to support those views with action. In order to do that, however, FDR had to have a clear cut and well developed Soviet strategy, based on a sound advice on how to execute every step of it, and a lot of integrity while defending the moral components of the American cause in WWII.

The President’s actions did not fit either of those requirements. He did not order or organize the development of any effective strategy designed to deal with the Soviet challenge. Even worse, Franklin Roosevelt formed his wartime views on Joseph Stalin and the country ruled by him under the influence of Harry Hopkins, who was completely ignorant of the Soviet Union in general and its dictator in particular. At the same time, FDR ignored the advice of such outstanding expert on the Soviet Union as the former Ambassador William Bullitt.

The seeds of the Yalta crop that was an ultimate expression of the total diplomatic failure of the United States and Great Britain with regard to the Soviet Union, were planted by FDR and Harry Hopkins as early as 1941. It was this failure that produced the dubious legacy of the outcome of WWII, which, could be regarded as a global conflict in which the right wing totalitarianism was destroyed, primarily by the military muscle of the left wing version of the same system, which was quick in establishing its complete domination over Eastern Europe.

A very viable argument that could be presented by the defenders of FDR’s actions and politics to the effect that President Roosevelt was able to achieve his main goals- the defeat of Germany and Japan. And this is the only result that counts- nothing else does. An essential component of the same argument could be that Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the President of the United States, not a Leader of the entire world. The same people are arguing as well that FDR had accomplished his mission with flying colors by not allowing Hitler to defeat the Soviet Union and by extracting Joseph Stalin’s promise to join the war against Japan in the aftermath of the Adolph Hitler’s defeat.

Without expanding on the meaning of how the Soviet Union quickly and successfully replaced Nazi Germany as the main danger for the democratic West so soon after the victory over Hitler, it would be better to change the direction of our analysis. It would be worthwhile to take a look at what President Roosevelt COULD HAVE DONE in order to help the emergence of world of peace and freedom that lived in his dreams.

In principle, the zone called “what if” is a forbidden area for any historian. No one is able to predict what would have happened if the events from the past had taken a different course. The other side of the coin , however, is that many historians were trying to justify even the most absurd situations that have emerged due to the mistake of some statesman , by presenting them as the only logical, reasonable and even inevitable developments.

One of the best examples in this respect was the division of Germany. Before the destruction of the Berlin Wall the general assumption was that the monstrous and absurd edifice would last for ever. When President Reagan called Gorbachov to “tear this wall down”, the Soviet and Eastern European press, supported by so many totalitarian- friendly Western voices, accused him of being a warmonger.

Every German politician, who in the recent past had dared to say that the division of Germany should not last for ever, had been immediately blamed as an open or secret admirer of Adolph Hitler, and with this assumption in mind, very few of them dared to say such a terrible thing.

So, out of respect for the existing stereotypes, instead of exploring “what if” in the attitude and actions of President Roosevelt with regard to Joseph Stalin, it would be better to commit a smaller crime by pointing out some neglected historical facts and some opportunities open to FDR to shape the events in a direction much more favorable to the United States, Eastern Europe and, as a matter of fact, to the rest of the world, as well.

The logical starting point for such investigation would be the immediate aftermath of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. The summer of 1941 was the only period in the life of Joseph Stalin when he was confused and vulnerable. His attempt to make a new deal with Hitler at the end of June- early July 1941, by giving Nazi Germany the entire western part of his country, did not materialize. The dictator was so shocked by Hitler’s rejection of his more than generous offer, that he did not take any action to break the complete international isolation of his country after his only ally unexpectedly attacked him .It was Harry Hopkins, who had offered Joseph Stalin the limitless American assistance for free.

The fact that FDR never asked the Soviet dictator for anything in return constitutes the first mistake committed by the President of the United States with regard to his future relationship with Joseph Stalin. Are we correct to assume that the fate of Eastern Europe would have been very different if President Roosevelt had sent to Stalin William Bullitt, instead of Harry Hopkins?

The never written presidential letter brought by William Bullitt to Joseph Stalin could have a very different text:“ The United States and Great Britain do not expect any territorial acquisitions from this war. Our only purpose is to defeat Hitler and to help create a free and peaceful post- war world. It is our understanding that the people must have the right to select the country they would like to live, and the political system that would rule them. Consequently, we are not ready to promise you any territorial changes in favor of the Soviet Union unless they are approved by the free will of the people whose life would be affected by those changes. We would like to make a very important point abundantly clear. If you join us in our firm decision to reach the above mentioned goals, we would help any way we could during the war , and we vow to help you restoring your devastated country after its end In addition to that, we would offer you our cooperation in establishing a Swiss style complete and permanent neutralization of Eastern Europe as a guarantee that no one will ever attack you .

In case you choose to reject this offer, unfortunately, we would have separate wars against the common enemy- a fact that obviously would increase our losses and will postpone our victory. Aside from that, a possible refusal on your part to join us, or any attempt of yours to conclude a separate peace with Adolph Hitler would intensify our efforts to support the effort of the German dictator’s internal enemies to achieve the removal of the Nazi regime.”

This letter, of course, was never written, and Stalin started pressing Churchill for a Second Front as early as July of 1941, which was just part of his arrogance and ignorance about the realities. Maybe the launching of a large scale landing operation on the French coastline was impossible in 1942, as well. In the summer of 1943, however, according to an exhaustive British research throughout Sixties and Seventies, it would have been perfectly possible for the American and British military forces to launch the Normandy invasion. (See for instance, the quoted work of the British historian John Grigg).

There would have been very important positive consequences from the speed-up of this operation. It would have shortened the war and would have saved a huge number of human lives, including hundred of thousands of Jewish lives, because a conveniently forgotten fact is that 1944 was the bloodiest year of the Holocaust.

An earlier launching of the cross- channel invasion would have removed the bitterness of the population of the Soviet Union, sharing the opinion of its rulers that the Western Allies were dragging their feet while the country was bleeding white.

Under different circumstances, instead of indiscriminate carpet bombing over civilian population of Germany and its allies, the USAF and RAF could have been deployed over the battle field on the territory of France and over the enemy’s supply routes. A different American strategy with regard to Germany based on support of Hitler’s enemies could have produced an earlier and more successful variation of the events that took place on July 20, 1944.

FDR’s belief that because of its geographical location Eastern Europe inevitably would be occupied by the Soviet Army was also false. Another unused option by Roosevelt administration was its unwillingness to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the governments of Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria.

There was plenty of evidence in the American and particularly in British diplomatic documents, that by 1943 the governments of Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria were desperately trying to establish contacts with Washington and London in order to discuss the best way to break their relations with Nazi Germany, and the options to prevent the Soviet occupation. Particularly important opportunity for an alternative strategy could have been the Romanian offer to renounce immediately its alliance with Germany at the moment when even symbolic American or British military presence was established on Romanian soil.

It would have been perfectly possible for the President to handle in a different way the Katyn Affair, and the drama of the Warsaw Uprising. Stalin would not have dared to break the Soviet diplomatic relations with the Polish Government in Exile had he sensed that President Roosevelt’s attitude was one of a firm support for the London Poles. If this support was a reality, the dictator would not have dared to prevent the Western support for the heroic insurgents.

Those are not ”what if“ judgments – FDR expressed an American support for Finland and as a result, Joseph Stalin crossed out the Fins from the list of his potential slaves.

To be sure, some aspects of the wartime challenges even when confronted with integrity and competence would have been extremely difficult to be handled to the liking of all concerned parties. There would have been no easy solution of the issues, like the status of the formerly independent Baltic countries, the mutually satisfactory shape of the Soviet- Polish border, and the future of some German populated areas, just to name the few.

Speaking of the Soviet dictator, he had the incredible and unique chance to be saved by a strange mixture of factors that included his enemies and the allies he also considered enemies. In June of 1941 Stalin was nothing more than a pathological murderer, intensely hated by a large number of his own people. In addition to that, it was he, who had made himself a fool in front of the entire world by trusting his evidently more skilful former ally, Adolph Hitler.

At the same time, undoubtedly, Stalin had demonstrated an incredible strength of character and willpower by successfully tackling the initial complete hopelessness brought about by his own mistakes. It would be interesting to know, though, did the dictator ever realize how much he owed the Nazi Fuehrer, who provided him with a just cause shared by his people? The second benefactor of Joseph Stalin, undoubtedly, was the President of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It was the unconditional American support that made it possible for the dictator to create an Empire exceeding his wildest dreams.

It was FDR’s clairvoyance, allowing him to see so early and so well the danger exemplified by Adolph Hitler, that added so much strength into the Alliance that buried the ambitions of the Nazi leader. The massive American assistance helped the Soviet military effort on the gigantic Eastern Front which broke the backbone of the Nazi military machine. Most of the credit for this victory, beyond any doubt, goes to the peoples of the former Soviet Union who paid a terrifying price for its achievement – the lives of at least 25 million of theirs sons and daughters.

At the same time, the staggering blindness of President Roosevelt for the nature, the strategy and the goals of Stalin and Stalinism created the necessary conditions for the emergence of some of the deadliest mistakes of the hot war , which enabled the outbreak of the Cold War that tormented the world for decades.

Email Dr. Gounev at “georgygounev@yahoo.com”

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Fighting Evil with the Help of Satan: President Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin, 1939-1945
By Georgy Gounev