by Kakaouskia

Greetings to the Saker community and readers.

This year marked the 70th anniversary since the end of World War Two. And it has proved that the world has changed dramatically. The parades in Moscow and Beijing and the subsequent snubbing by the “West” prove that in today’s politics everything is fair; even the dishonour of the memory of the millions of people that died so that Europe can be free of Nazism and fascism.

The disturbing thing though is that this is not a new trend. The demonization of not only the political opposition but mostly of ideas is a characteristic long present in European politics. And it got really ugly when the former Soviet / Warsaw pact states joined the EU. Since then there has been an endless stream of attempts to equate 1940s Russia with Nazi Germany, the Red Army with Wehrmacht. And to top it off, it was proposed in a legislation draft supposedly designed to promote tolerance that communism be branded illegal and whoever promotes or ever promoted communism to face heavy legal consequences. Whether one agrees with communism or not is irrelevant; the fact that a supposedly democratic collection of Nations will ban an ideology “just because” is deplorable.

At the same time, while Western leaders are busy rewriting history, China and especially Russia are busy making it. The recent move in Syria by Russia, good or bad as it may be seen depending on one’s point of view, it is judged almost universally as necessary. Putin has made it clear in his UN speech that terrorism is a threat to Russia’s security – and indeed global security – in the same order as Hitler once was. He also let the door open to everybody to repeat what humanity has accomplished in WWII: Set whatever ideological / political / historical differences aside long enough to prevail over genuine evil. Iran already signed up for this endeavour. For how long the door will remain open, and if the EU people will force their leaders to wake up in time remains to be seen. As far as the USA is concerned, I do not have any illusions of them waking up. As the saying goes – the monkey cannot let go. However, I sincerely hope to be proved wrong.

Still, the fact that we might have Mujahedeen Part 2 (aka stinger missiles finding their way to extremists to fight Russian aviation) is worthy of THE stupidity prize as Saker put it. Has anyone with the slight modicum of logic ever wondered what will happen if a Russian pilot in a SU-30 patrolling the Middle East skies spots a transport plane and knowing with an almost absolute certainty that it carries anti-aircraft missiles that will be used against him? (Rhetorical question as the US has deployed two squadrons of F-22s in the Middle East ).

It will do well to Western leaders to read a few Greek tragedies and emphasise on the notion of Hubris. In the meantime, I will conclude with a poster I saw a few years back in Europe, when the anti-Russia hysteria first started under the guise of anti-communism – unfortunately can’t find it online. It looked like this though:

C:\Users\Administrator\Desktop\russian-flag-on-the-reichstag-berlin-t7011.jpg

“Remember, the banner in Berlin was red”

The people in Russia and China remember. It will be nice if the people of the “West” remember too. And they have to choose whether they will spend their time rewriting history or actually join those who make history.