Steve Gilliard on Bush's anti-Yalta stance

It's always enjoyable to see when a writer I respect on a subject agrees with me. :) :)

In this case, it's Steve Gilliard, who had a similar reaction to mine on Bush's ridiculous rhetorical repudiation of the Yalta agreement.  He writes (Digging Up Yalta 05/07/05):

This is wrong. ... [T]he Red Army could have stopped at the English Channel and there is nothing the US could have done about it. This was a [expletive deleted] argument in 1950 and it is today. ...

Roosevelt agreed to Stalin's terms for a very simple reason: Japan. The expectation was that in the fall of 1945, the British would have to reconquer Malaya and the Americans would land on Kyushu. While Stalin knew all about the bomb, funished by American spies, the Allies had very little idea what the Japanese would do. The battle for Manila was especially bloody and would be folowed by Iwo Jima in February and Okinawa in April, while the Australians reconquered Borneo and the British pushed the Japanese to the Thai border.

Roosevelt and Truman were in no position to argue about Poland and Hungary when they needed Stalin's help to attack the Japanese in Manchuria. Remember, Stalin kept his word. His troops stopped in Eastern Germany and divided up Berlin after 100,000 Russians died in the battle. The right forgets that Stalin could have easily claimed that since Russian blood was shed for the city, that they should be the sole administrators. ...

Americans like to forget that the Russians won World [War] II with our help, not the other way around.

Bush's argument shows a stunning lack of historical knowledge, which is hardly surprising[.]

It's not clear to me who Bush is signalling with this nonsense.  The official press version (which probably reflects the preferred White House spin) is that it's meant to pressure Russia to make a statement of regret about occupying the Balkans.

But the United States doesn't have to repudiate anything to do that.  The United States never recognized the Soviet annexation as legitimate in 1940  when it occurred.  And the official American position was what was incorporated into the Yalta agreement: that the occupied countries should be able to choose their own government through democratic elections.  That goal wasn't realized until after 1989.  But it was always the American position.  Why should our pesident be repudiating the agreement that made that official US policy?  It's ridiculous.

Back when we had a president that was genuinely a symbol of democracy to the whole world, Franklin Roosevelt addressed Congress on his return from the Yalta conference (Report to Congress by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on the Crimean Conference;  March 1, 1945):

There were two main purposes in this Crimean Conference. The first was to bring defeat to Germany with the greatest possible speed and with the smallest possible loss of Allied men. That purpose is now being carried out in great force. The German army, and the German people, are feeling the ever increasing might of our fighting men and of the Allied armies and every hour gives us added pride in the heroic advance of our troops in Germany, on German soil, toward a meeting with the gallant Red Army.

The second purpose was to continue to build the foundation for an international accord which would bring order and security after the chaos of the war and would give some assurance of lasting peace among the nations of the world. In that goal, toward that goal, a tremendous stride was made.

To the neoconservative ideologues and the Bircherized Republican Party, the latter was an evil goal.  It makes sense that they would be happy to see a Republican president repudiate that goal.  After all, that's why he nominated John Bolton, an obnoxious opponent of the United Nation's existence to be the US ambassodor to the UN.

When we met at Yalta, in addition to laying our strategic and tactical plans for the complete, final military victory over Germany, there were other problems of vital political consequence.

For instance, there were the problems of occupational control of Germany after victory, the complete destruction of her military power, and the assurance that neither the Nazis nor Prussian militarism  could again be revived to threaten the peace and civilization of the world.

Secondly, again for example, there was the settlement of the few differences which remained among us with respect to the international security organization after the Dumbarton Oaks Conference. As you remember at that time, I said afterward we had agreed 90 per cent. A pretty good percentage. I think the other 10 per cent was ironed out at Yalta.

Thirdly, there were the general political and economic problems common to all of the areas that would be in the future, or which had been, liberated from the Nazi yoke. There are special problems-we over here find it difficult to understand the ramifications of many of these problems in foreign lands. But we are trying to.

Fourth, there were the special problems created by a few instances, such as Poland and Yugoslavia.

Days were spent in discussing these momentous matters. We argued freely and frankly across the table. But at the end, on every point, unanimous agreement was reached. And more important even than the agreement of words, I may say we achieved a unity of thought and a way of getting along together.

Of course we know that it was Hitler's hope-and German war lords'-that we would not agree, that some slight crack might appear in the solid wall of Allied unity, a crack that would give him and his fellow-gangsters one last hope of escaping their just doom. That is the objective for which his propaganda machine has been working for many months.

But Hitler has failed. Never before have the major Allies been more closely united-not only in- their war aims but also in their peace aims. And they are determined to continue to be united-to be united with each other-and with all peace-loving nations-so that the ideal of lasting peace will become a reality. (my emphasis)

As Gilliard notes in his comments, the Nazis' strategy at this point was to find a way to divide the Western allies (the US and Britain) from the Soviet Union.  Yalta was a dramatic demonstration that that strategy had failed, as it was to continue to fail.  The political purpose of the German winter offensive in the Ardennes that we remember as the Battle of the Bulge was to induce the West to consider a separate peace that would allow the Wehrmacht to concentrate its forces against the USSR.  Roosevelt and Chruchill never considered such a thing.

FDR didn't include the Soviets' agreement to enter the war against Japan in his speech, because that part of the agreement was still secret at the time.

But know Bush is publicly declaring that the Yalta agreement was sinful and wrong.  Good grief!