Out of the Ashes of Flight 17 the Cold War Will Emerge
As an occasional air traveler I was unsettled and disturbed when I saw reports of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17's crash in the Ukraine. From the moment I saw it I suspected the plane was shot down by the Russians or their collaborators. It appears my suspicions have been confirmed. The Russians were involved. Although many people are angry at Russia, I am convinced anger at Russia is misdirected. Before we call Russia a pariah let's ask ourselves how the US would have behaved under similar circumstance. Both Russia and the US have accidentally shot down civilian aircraft in the past that someone has interpreted as being a threat.
Had any unaligned civilian jet flown over Baghdad in 2005 do you think we would have waited to confirm whether it was civilian before taking a shot, or before authorizing one or our coalition forces to shoot? Remember when Tariq Aziz, former Iraqi foreign minister, left Baghdad to try to negotiate a peace, we declared his aircraft a target. We enforced a no fly zone in Iraq from March 1991 when the First Gulf war ended until the Operation Iraqi Freedom ended in 2011. Fort 20 years very limited air traffic entered that country. Any nation that had flown a plane, civilian or military, into that territory, intentionally or accidentally, without our knowledge or consent would have been shot down. We would have considered any aircraft civilian or otherwise flying through Iraqi airspace an enemy aircraft. We would have shot first and asked questions later! We would have issued a statement regretting the loss of civilian life, but defended our action and warned nations about encroachment into the no fly zone. We accidentally shot down an Iranian civilian plane few years before suspecting it of hostile intent over the Persian Gulf. The Russians shot down a Korean airliner that entered their airspace in peacetime. As tragic as the crash of flight 17 was when the plane flew over a hostile region it placed itself in danger of being shot down. It really should have surprised no one, leastwise the Malaysians who violated the airspace. The immediate culprit here is the Malaysians and other nations who put their passenger at risk after our FAA restricted our carriers from the area and warned other nations to do the same. Their failure to heed warnings of conflict in that area constituted a dereliction of the airliner's duty to protect their passengers. The Russians, though, are far from exoneration.
Far from complete innocence the Russians do have some fault. They handled this badly, denying it happened or that they were involved belies their innocence. If the Russians were at all concerned for public relations or what the world thinks (which they are not, a dictatorship does not have to be), they would have simply acknowledged that their surrogates had shot down the plane, and that while regretting the loss of life declared they had every right to do so in a war zone. How is it any different when Israel in defense of its territories sometimes takes military action that has extensive collateral damage and declares their right of self defense? Many Americans on both sides of the aisle recognize Israel's right. As much as I oppose Russia's action in the Ukraine angst at them over shooting down this plane is misdirected.
We have plenty to be upset with Russia about-- invading Georgia, the Crimea and the fomenting of revolt in Eastern Ukraine, holding most of Europe hostage to an oil pipeline, and supplying weapons to rogue states like Syria. The crash shows Russia to be a force for evil in the world. They are not interested in peace or prosperity for anyone other than the despots who run their country. I do not defend Russia or condone their obstruction of freedom. Although I grieve the loss of life with the passengers and their family's, and am angry this happened, I am not angry at what Russia or its surrogates did. It was within their right. It was a legitimate act of defense in time of war. I am angry over how we have come to this point.
I grew up during the 1960's and 70's: the height of the Cold War. My childhood was greatly impacted by fear. In my elementary school we had weekly air raid drills. Our neighbors built bomb shelters and stored food in preparation for nuclear holocaust. In school I watched Civil Defense films teaching us to protect ourselves when the invasion started. 50 years later it all seems foolish or even paranoid. What those who did not live through it do not realize was that most people believed that war between the U.S. and Soviet Union was inevitable. It was not a matter of if, but when. It just needed the right event to spark it. Each international incident from the invasion of Hungry and later Czechoslovakia, the Cuban Revolution, the Assassinations of Kennedy and other political figures, revolution in the Congo, to the War in Vietnam seemed to take us to the brink of apocalypse. Every President after World War 2 carefully defended US interests and assets without provoking a holocaust. Then came Richard Nixon.
Far from ending the Soviet threat President Nixon created a framework for coexistence among mutually powerful enemies, calling it detente. It was a fragile peace that seemed to crack when the Russians invaded Afghanistan under the weakened foreign policy of President Carter. He was followed by Reagan who cast the notion of detente aside and argued for asserted strength. Nixon's diplomacy had made the Soviet threat seem benign. Reagan's policy denuded it. Two great statesmen helped to create a world where my children did not have to have air raid drills in their schools and study survival in a nuclear zone. I stood in awe when I watched the Berlin Wall fall. (My children were too young to appreciate the reasons it brought tears to my eyes.) I thought the cold war was over. Liberty had prevailed over tyranny. Thanks to America our world would be different for them, but the hope of peace is not to be. As of last Thursday the cease fire ended.The Cold War is back, and many Americans are disillusioned and angry.
This is the source of my anger: two World Wars to fight imperialism and oppression; fifty years of strained peace defeated first European Imperialism then Russian Communism and Chinese Genocide. After a century there was hope for peace in the world. Nuclear annihilation seemed like an unlikely scenario. 911 raised our awareness to the world's dangers. The peace we had achieved was imperfect, but we needed cautious determination not austerity. We were threatened by ideological and religious fanatics and rogue lunatics, but not on a grand scale. The shooting down of flight 17 makes me angry because it means the Bear is once again marching across Europe. 100 years of bloodshed. 100 years of tears and we are back to where we were in the 1960's. To me a more important question than who fired the missile is: how did we get into a position for it to be fired? I am less concerned for what happened last Thursday, as I am for how it happened and, of course, why?
I am angry at a President who ignores the lessons of history and thinks he knows better than a legion of statesmen and soldiers. A man who traverses the Middle East decrying American exceptionalism, promising that the US will no longer export its liberty and opportunity, because we were wrong to do so in the first place. I am angry because when liberty is pacifistic despots have a license for tyranny. A President who ignores the obvious reality of history: you do not fight evil with encomiums, platitudes and appeasement. Both Rossevelts, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, and even Clinton understood that leadership combined with character secures freedom. It is the Russian collaborators who shot down flight 17; they are culpable for the death and carnage. Barak Obama's failed leadership created the milieu in which it occurred. Look on any continent and you will find a world in economic decline, moral collapse and in turmoil; because the President went around the world apologizing for contrived failures and offenses. The Berlin Wall is being rebuilt with disenfranchised children at our border being turned away from the opportunity our secure sovereignty affords them. The next President will have to apologize for real failures. Our country has never been here before!
When I saw the Berlin Wall fall I cried. I cried because it represented hope. Hope for a world where there might be the occasional skirmish that needed to be settled; where we would be free from the fear of apocalypse. The fall of the wall opened a door for nations like India and China and Indonesia to rise from the despair of despotism and communism to prosperity and to liberty. Their people could take responsibility for their own destiny and prosper with out fear of being conquered from within or without. This is what my father, father-in-law and brother and now my son served in the military to secure -- liberty. While this liberty does not bring utopia to everyone, the shooting down of flight 17 proves again that it is better than its alternative. It is liberty Obama has endangered, which means he has endangered you and me. Yes I am angry at the shooting down of flight 17, not because the Russians did it. I am angry because this President enabled them to do it.
The Arab Spring has evolved into a blazing summer. Much of Africa is in the hands of tyrants. South America is governed by socialists, communists and thugs. Asia cowers under the threat of China's economic and military expansion. The government to our south, run by criminal enterprise, can export the disenfranchised people encroaching on its southern border to our country with impunity. A despot like Vladamir Putin can bully other nations into submission. It is a world where our embassy's are not safe and our soldiers can just walk off their post and return to business as usual. Israel must now go it alone against those who seek to destroy it. Our allies don't trust us, our enemies don't fear us. This makes the world a very scary place again. The fears of a 7 year old boy hiding under his school desk wondering whether his government will prevail after the bombs have fallen has re-emerged. Unfortunately, this little boy has grown up. I know now how foolish those token precautions were.I only wish our President would grow up and move beyond tokenism.
The world can be safe again. There can be a new birth of hope and liberty. Our President needs maturity and assertive leadership. Until the young overly protected, petulant child, raised by indulgent grandparents, living on an island paradise, believing he can have whatever he wants grows up to realize the gravity of our situation our security is fragile. All he thinks he has to do is point out to the world it's inherit unfairness and at the sounding of his hymn everyone will walk down the aisle to embrace his message like a convert at an evangelistic crusade. I am angry not that Russia is acting like Russia, should we expect any different? I am angry that our President is acting like a codependent child. This is not a condition the President inherited from George Bush. It is certainly not representative of the history of the American Presidents, of our traditions and values. The world can be safe again when we have a President in the White House who acts like an adult and keep his vow to preserve protect and defend the Constitution of the United States!
Had any unaligned civilian jet flown over Baghdad in 2005 do you think we would have waited to confirm whether it was civilian before taking a shot, or before authorizing one or our coalition forces to shoot? Remember when Tariq Aziz, former Iraqi foreign minister, left Baghdad to try to negotiate a peace, we declared his aircraft a target. We enforced a no fly zone in Iraq from March 1991 when the First Gulf war ended until the Operation Iraqi Freedom ended in 2011. Fort 20 years very limited air traffic entered that country. Any nation that had flown a plane, civilian or military, into that territory, intentionally or accidentally, without our knowledge or consent would have been shot down. We would have considered any aircraft civilian or otherwise flying through Iraqi airspace an enemy aircraft. We would have shot first and asked questions later! We would have issued a statement regretting the loss of civilian life, but defended our action and warned nations about encroachment into the no fly zone. We accidentally shot down an Iranian civilian plane few years before suspecting it of hostile intent over the Persian Gulf. The Russians shot down a Korean airliner that entered their airspace in peacetime. As tragic as the crash of flight 17 was when the plane flew over a hostile region it placed itself in danger of being shot down. It really should have surprised no one, leastwise the Malaysians who violated the airspace. The immediate culprit here is the Malaysians and other nations who put their passenger at risk after our FAA restricted our carriers from the area and warned other nations to do the same. Their failure to heed warnings of conflict in that area constituted a dereliction of the airliner's duty to protect their passengers. The Russians, though, are far from exoneration.
Far from complete innocence the Russians do have some fault. They handled this badly, denying it happened or that they were involved belies their innocence. If the Russians were at all concerned for public relations or what the world thinks (which they are not, a dictatorship does not have to be), they would have simply acknowledged that their surrogates had shot down the plane, and that while regretting the loss of life declared they had every right to do so in a war zone. How is it any different when Israel in defense of its territories sometimes takes military action that has extensive collateral damage and declares their right of self defense? Many Americans on both sides of the aisle recognize Israel's right. As much as I oppose Russia's action in the Ukraine angst at them over shooting down this plane is misdirected.
We have plenty to be upset with Russia about-- invading Georgia, the Crimea and the fomenting of revolt in Eastern Ukraine, holding most of Europe hostage to an oil pipeline, and supplying weapons to rogue states like Syria. The crash shows Russia to be a force for evil in the world. They are not interested in peace or prosperity for anyone other than the despots who run their country. I do not defend Russia or condone their obstruction of freedom. Although I grieve the loss of life with the passengers and their family's, and am angry this happened, I am not angry at what Russia or its surrogates did. It was within their right. It was a legitimate act of defense in time of war. I am angry over how we have come to this point.
I grew up during the 1960's and 70's: the height of the Cold War. My childhood was greatly impacted by fear. In my elementary school we had weekly air raid drills. Our neighbors built bomb shelters and stored food in preparation for nuclear holocaust. In school I watched Civil Defense films teaching us to protect ourselves when the invasion started. 50 years later it all seems foolish or even paranoid. What those who did not live through it do not realize was that most people believed that war between the U.S. and Soviet Union was inevitable. It was not a matter of if, but when. It just needed the right event to spark it. Each international incident from the invasion of Hungry and later Czechoslovakia, the Cuban Revolution, the Assassinations of Kennedy and other political figures, revolution in the Congo, to the War in Vietnam seemed to take us to the brink of apocalypse. Every President after World War 2 carefully defended US interests and assets without provoking a holocaust. Then came Richard Nixon.
Far from ending the Soviet threat President Nixon created a framework for coexistence among mutually powerful enemies, calling it detente. It was a fragile peace that seemed to crack when the Russians invaded Afghanistan under the weakened foreign policy of President Carter. He was followed by Reagan who cast the notion of detente aside and argued for asserted strength. Nixon's diplomacy had made the Soviet threat seem benign. Reagan's policy denuded it. Two great statesmen helped to create a world where my children did not have to have air raid drills in their schools and study survival in a nuclear zone. I stood in awe when I watched the Berlin Wall fall. (My children were too young to appreciate the reasons it brought tears to my eyes.) I thought the cold war was over. Liberty had prevailed over tyranny. Thanks to America our world would be different for them, but the hope of peace is not to be. As of last Thursday the cease fire ended.The Cold War is back, and many Americans are disillusioned and angry.
This is the source of my anger: two World Wars to fight imperialism and oppression; fifty years of strained peace defeated first European Imperialism then Russian Communism and Chinese Genocide. After a century there was hope for peace in the world. Nuclear annihilation seemed like an unlikely scenario. 911 raised our awareness to the world's dangers. The peace we had achieved was imperfect, but we needed cautious determination not austerity. We were threatened by ideological and religious fanatics and rogue lunatics, but not on a grand scale. The shooting down of flight 17 makes me angry because it means the Bear is once again marching across Europe. 100 years of bloodshed. 100 years of tears and we are back to where we were in the 1960's. To me a more important question than who fired the missile is: how did we get into a position for it to be fired? I am less concerned for what happened last Thursday, as I am for how it happened and, of course, why?
I am angry at a President who ignores the lessons of history and thinks he knows better than a legion of statesmen and soldiers. A man who traverses the Middle East decrying American exceptionalism, promising that the US will no longer export its liberty and opportunity, because we were wrong to do so in the first place. I am angry because when liberty is pacifistic despots have a license for tyranny. A President who ignores the obvious reality of history: you do not fight evil with encomiums, platitudes and appeasement. Both Rossevelts, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, and even Clinton understood that leadership combined with character secures freedom. It is the Russian collaborators who shot down flight 17; they are culpable for the death and carnage. Barak Obama's failed leadership created the milieu in which it occurred. Look on any continent and you will find a world in economic decline, moral collapse and in turmoil; because the President went around the world apologizing for contrived failures and offenses. The Berlin Wall is being rebuilt with disenfranchised children at our border being turned away from the opportunity our secure sovereignty affords them. The next President will have to apologize for real failures. Our country has never been here before!
When I saw the Berlin Wall fall I cried. I cried because it represented hope. Hope for a world where there might be the occasional skirmish that needed to be settled; where we would be free from the fear of apocalypse. The fall of the wall opened a door for nations like India and China and Indonesia to rise from the despair of despotism and communism to prosperity and to liberty. Their people could take responsibility for their own destiny and prosper with out fear of being conquered from within or without. This is what my father, father-in-law and brother and now my son served in the military to secure -- liberty. While this liberty does not bring utopia to everyone, the shooting down of flight 17 proves again that it is better than its alternative. It is liberty Obama has endangered, which means he has endangered you and me. Yes I am angry at the shooting down of flight 17, not because the Russians did it. I am angry because this President enabled them to do it.
The Arab Spring has evolved into a blazing summer. Much of Africa is in the hands of tyrants. South America is governed by socialists, communists and thugs. Asia cowers under the threat of China's economic and military expansion. The government to our south, run by criminal enterprise, can export the disenfranchised people encroaching on its southern border to our country with impunity. A despot like Vladamir Putin can bully other nations into submission. It is a world where our embassy's are not safe and our soldiers can just walk off their post and return to business as usual. Israel must now go it alone against those who seek to destroy it. Our allies don't trust us, our enemies don't fear us. This makes the world a very scary place again. The fears of a 7 year old boy hiding under his school desk wondering whether his government will prevail after the bombs have fallen has re-emerged. Unfortunately, this little boy has grown up. I know now how foolish those token precautions were.I only wish our President would grow up and move beyond tokenism.
The world can be safe again. There can be a new birth of hope and liberty. Our President needs maturity and assertive leadership. Until the young overly protected, petulant child, raised by indulgent grandparents, living on an island paradise, believing he can have whatever he wants grows up to realize the gravity of our situation our security is fragile. All he thinks he has to do is point out to the world it's inherit unfairness and at the sounding of his hymn everyone will walk down the aisle to embrace his message like a convert at an evangelistic crusade. I am angry not that Russia is acting like Russia, should we expect any different? I am angry that our President is acting like a codependent child. This is not a condition the President inherited from George Bush. It is certainly not representative of the history of the American Presidents, of our traditions and values. The world can be safe again when we have a President in the White House who acts like an adult and keep his vow to preserve protect and defend the Constitution of the United States!
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