Joan Hickson as Miss Marple

I’ve been watching Miss Marple TV sequences the past few nights – the ones with Joan Hickson as Miss Marple. Hickson lived from August 1906 to October 1998. The International Movie Data Base (IMDB) lists her last credit as being 1993; so perhaps she didn’t keep working past the age of 87.

In one of the sequences she walked down a paved park-like walkway. She walked a long way and did it well enough, but I wondered about her strength and her frailness as she did so. Hickson reminds me quite a bit of two aunts that I saw quite a lot of as a boy. I was fond of both of them and have been partial to little old ladies ever since. I can’t recall how long these aunts of mine lived, but not as long as Hickson I’m quite sure.

There is something calming about Hickson’s portrayal. She doesn’t agonize over the past or feel sorry for herself. She is not self-centered but instead interested in those around her. And she can be content to sit and knit while she thinks or watches. Yet, some of the policemen who admire her call her the greatest “natural” forensic psychologist they have ever known.

She isn’t presented as someone who reads a lot. Perhaps she was supposed to have done so when she was younger. I did read the Agatha Christie novels, but I can’t recall how Christie presents her history. Miss Marple knows the poem, “The Lady of Shallot,” for example, and one suspects she has at one time or another read all the great English literature. But all she does at this stage of her life is knit and watch, until it is time to draw conclusions from what she has seen and thought about.

Perhaps reading is somewhat like what Miss Marple does. We keep on doing it, some of us, when the end of that great long walkway is in sight – probably not literal sight, but we know that if we make it to 100, we probably won’t like it there. So we’ll want to stop shy of that, thinking we’ve walked quite far enough, find a quiet place – a place with grass and shade if we can – and lie down.

War Crimes, Japanese and Apache

Max Hastings has sought to be “objective” in his book Retribution, The Battle for Japan, 1944-45. There is ample evidence of this seeking in his book, and yet at the end, when he is assessing Japanese “War Crimes” he fails. He judges the Japanese by Western Standards and cannot accept their own understanding of these matters.

It is characteristically Western to treat our own war crimes as we did in regard to Mai Lai and Abu Ghraib. We have investigations and then trials and end up holding those responsible to account. Enemies of the US will say that isn’t good enough, but it is – at least comparatively so. We in the West are among other things asserting that we don’t condone this sort of behavior. Our principles regarding war crimes are otherwise, and those who violate them are held to account.

In order for the Germans to set the war-crimes bar so high, they had to first of all reject the applicable standards of Western Civilization. They substituted a racial hierarchy and placed themselves at the top, and for purposes of this note, beyond good and evil. But while those at the top could function in this way, the majority of Germans were “Western” in orientation and would have been appalled if they knew all the activities the Nazis engaged in. And when they learned about them later on, they were appalled. Thus, we find that subsequent generations have repudiated the Nazi experiment, have returned to their Western roots, and have even paid reparations to the descendants of those that were killed during the Nazi era.

In Russia also, there has been a repudiation of the war crimes perpetrated during the Stalinist era. Glasnost began with a repudiation of Stalinist excesses. Not every Russian is comfortable with that repudiation. There are rationalizations for all that happened. We can certainly understand if not appreciate or agree with the idea that in order for “Communism” to succeed in Russia, if it was going to, those who opposed it were going to have to be prevented from doing it effectively. Thus some were killed and others sent off to Gulags. What occurred as a result of this Stalinism doesn’t comprise “War Crimes” in a literal sense of the term. What occurred during the Stalinist period in pursuit of the Communist ideal should be repudiated and deplored as a great error in judgment – a sort of idealistic-madness the various actions of which should be punished certainly, but not precisely as a series of “War Crimes.” Stalinists were not engaged in “War” when they tried to develop Communism in Russia.

There were Red Army war crimes. Hastings mentioned some of these in his book but implies that they were not engaged in institutionally. It was not part of the Soviet system to engage in war crimes. When they did occur it was the result of misbehavior on the part of individuals, individual units or commanders. Rapes and casual killing of civilians seems to have occurred more often in the Red Army than in the Allied Armies, but surely that has more to do with the education and moral upbringing of the individual soldier than any policy emanating from Russia.

Communists, like Nazis, could argue that they have an alternate reality which cannot hold them accountable in the same way that western armies could be held accountable. And yet Communism, as formulated by Marx, is in a real sense an outgrowth of Western Christianity. As such, it attempts to do a better job of fulfilling Christianity’s social objectives. Therefore, it can be held accountable to standards similar to traditional Western standards – with more logical validity than can the Nazi system.

When we look at the Japanese system, we find beliefs alien to Western ideals. They did brutalize captives, for example. They had a belief that it was shameful for a soldier to surrender. They could thus treat surrendered soldiers as though they had not surrendered at all, saving them shame, and giving them an acceptable death by cutting off their heads. Or they could treat them as shameful and brutalize them. As to the emaciated condition of allied prisoners that survived Japanese prison camps, it could be argued that they ate as well as the Japanese. And indeed the Japanese were used to getting by on far less food than Allied soldiers.

Hastings assumes the rightness of Western standards and isn’t willing to attempt to immerse himself very far in the Japanese tradition, and perhaps most of us would have no better success in such an endeavor; so instead, let’s create a “counter-factual.” Let’s suppose the Apache Indian civilization adapted as the Japanese did. They saw that their technology could not compete with that of the Americans; so they gave up their outward social structure, educated themselves by sending their children to American schools, and carved out for themselves a nation consisting of present day Arizona, New Mexico, Southern California, West Texas and Northern Mexico. By the 1930s, Apacheria had a population of 60 million as opposed to the American population of 180 million. The Apaches formed a pact with the Germans and Japanese and it is they, rather than the Japanese who attacked the Americans in 1941 -- not by sea but by land.

A very bloody war ensued and by 1946 the Nazis, Japanese and Apaches are defeated. A War Crimes tribunal is set up. Apache leaders are brought to trial and accused of staking out prisoners on desert to be killed slowly by red ants. Other prisoners were allowed to be killed by women and children who poked them repeatedly with sharp sticks. Torture was systematically advocated and engaged in by Apache soldiers and civilians, and in the war-crimes trials the Apache leaders would have to explain themselves.

Instead of confessing these crimes, they haughtily deny that they have committed crimes. Instead they accuse the Americans of being disgracefully like women rather than warriors. A few Apache generals and commanders are hanged, but Western sensibilities balk at punishing more than these few. By 2009 the Apache descendants had still not acknowledged their “war crimes.”

FURTHER COMMENT:

To be truly objective, one needs to move one’s perspective beyond the Western. We like and approve of our Western Standards. Indeed, we think they would be suitable standards for the entire world, but that is just our opinion. Those of other civilizations hold, if not absolutely contrary views then at least divergent ones. The Apaches, in my “counter-factual” would not agree that their standards were “war crimes.” For them such treatment of prisoners would be normal.

If we accept the idea that “bad treatment” of prisoners would not be considered bad by traditional Apaches or Japanese; then the question becomes, what shall be done about it. We need not ask that question in earnest, because history tells us the answer. We have militarily defeated both nations, or more properly, “civilizations,” and have imposed Western standards upon them. I quite approve of our victories. I would not like the look of our world if we had lost to either civilization, but when it comes time to view “war crimes,” perhaps our historians could strive for a more philosophical objectivity.

Alpha dogs and who shall rule the world

As we know from experience with our symbiotic other, the dog, in any sort of “pack” a tough dog will try himself against the other tough dogs. The toughest dog will end up the leader. After everyone has had his chance to challenge, the pack will settle down – at least until the current leader gets old or weak.

The same sort of thing was true of the other species, homo sapiens, in the twentieth century. Consider the Japanese. In 1931 they began to carve an empire for themselves. They wanted as their “big-dog right,” if I may coin an expression, China, Korea, and a few other nations. Their ambitions didn’t extend to the entire world. They were close to the Germans in that regard; although had they and the Germans succeeded, it is easy to imagine a future time when they would have had a final clash to see who was going to rule the entire world.

As it is, the Japanese had their chance, and it seemed a good chance to their militaristic leaders at the time. The Japanese had the fighting ability, their Bushido code which only death could stop, and the will. In 1941 it seemed that there was no one around, no one in the vicinity of their “pack” that could challenge them. Like the Germans, the Japanese fought very hard. They weren’t interested in politics. They didn’t make many allies of people in their vicinity. They weren’t interested in making friends. They were only interested in conquering.

The first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, but the militarists did not think of quitting. The Second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki and still the Militarists thought only in terms of fighting on. Surely the Americans wouldn’t keep on dropping atomic bombs. Eventually, they would have to invade one of the main Japanese islands and then the Japanese, on their own soil, would make the invaders pay such a high price that they would agree to a negotiated peace.

But the “peace party” had its say, and the peace party reflected the views of the common man, and more significantly of the Emperor. He called a meeting, listened to the war party and then listened to the peace party. According to Hastings on page 505 of Retribution, the Battle for Japan, 1944-45, “The imperial conference began ten minutes before midnight on 9 August. The text of the Potsdam Declaration [which called for unconditional surrender] was read aloud. Foreign Minister Togo tabled a one-condition draft, proposing Potsdam’s acceptance provided that no change was demanded ‘in the status of the emperor under national laws.’ War Minister Anami continued to preach defiance, supported by his military colleagues. Soon after 2 a.m. on 10 August, however, Prime Minister Suzuki rose, bowed to the emperor, ignored a protest from Anami and invited the emperor’s decision. Hirohito, still seated at the table, leaned forward and said: ‘I will express my opinion. It is the same as that of the foreign minister.’ It was necessary to ‘bear the unbearable.’ Hirohito spoke harshly of the chasm between the military’s past promises and performance. Suzuki said: ‘We have heard your august Thought.’ Hirohito then left the room. Everyone present, including the military proponents of continued belligerence, signed a document approving the imperial decision.”

In 1941, for all the Japanese knew, they might turn out to be the “big-dog” in the Pacific Rim. Hirohito was willing to let his military leaders have their chance. It seemed a chance worth taking, but on August 9-10, 1945, he and the others at the table knew that they were not to be the “big-dog.” They were not to be the leader of the pack.

FURTHER COMMENT:

The Germans had an equivalent chance, but they also failed. Just as the U.S. turned out to be the “big-dog” on the pacific rim and in Western Europe, the USSR was the “big-dog” in Eastern Europe. But there were other challenges at work in the world – not the aggressive fighting it out, but the stare-down, the shoulder shoving, the baring of teeth and growling. The Communist assertion had its chance in Russia and Eastern Europe, but the Russian-Communist big-dog gave it up in 1989. They were still the toughest “dog” in their region in military terms, but other constraints made those terms less valuable then they were 50 years earlier.

If we move back in order to gain perspective and consider what the “aggressors” in the 20^th century had in mind, the common denominator was ultimately global dominance. Even though the leaders of all three “aggressors,” the German, Japanese and Soviet, spoke of being content to varying degrees with portions of the world pie, their ideologies were not. Their ideologies each demanded the whole pie.

There are some who want to say that the American ideology defeated the other ideologies. I disagree with that position. It amounts, in my view, to saying that no-ideology has defeated the Japanese, German and Soviet ideologies.

Consider the “conservative” position in American politics. It favors small government. It favors putting as much “power” as possible in the hands of individuals. Yes, a central government is a necessary evil, but it is not something that ought to “rule over us.” It ought to do nothing more than what we the voters tell it to do. Now move that concept out into the world and you will see that it is very close to being the antithesis of the assertive ideologies of the Japanese (in 1931), the Germans in 1937, and the Communist Russians in 1917. The Japanese, Germans and Russians each had an assertive system they were going to force upon the rest of the world. The U.S. system was an anti-assertive system.

But is there no ideology behind the U.S. “system”? Well, maybe, depending upon who is describing it, but not in the sense of the Japanese, German, and Russians had ideologies in the middle of the 20^th century. Yes, the U.S. has been in a number of large and small wars, but with a few exceptions, these wars have been for the purpose of opposing an aggressive or assertive nation.

Think of the trouble spots in the world. Iran is willing to fight to assert its right as regional big-dog. Pakistan and India have still not resolved who is to be the big-dog after the British left them in 1949. Russia is big-dog in its region, but willing to fight to keep its “near abroad” nations from abandoning their pack. China is willing to fight to keep Taiwan from completely leaving its pack. North Korea is willing to fight for reasons which seem paranoid. And, of course, the list could go on. Yes, the U.S. is willing to fight also, but always against what it perceives to be an aggressor or assertive nation.

Of course the argument has oft been presented that by fighting and being willing to fight, the US is by definition assertive and aggressive, but this is a specious argument. Is the person who defends himself as guilty of aggression as the mugger who tries to beat and rob him? Only if you abandon reason and common sense, or (which amounts to the same thing) you are a pacifist.

Consider the proverbial school-yard bully. We know he is assertive and aggressive. But if one day someone stands up to him and defeats him, does that make the victor the new-school-yard bully? Not in the typical story we hear. Defeating a bully is a good thing; so becoming the new bully would be a bad thing. The U.S. defeated the school-yard-type bully, the Japanese, but did the US become the new bully in the region? I don’t think so. A better argument could be made for Russia, having defeated the Japanese in Manchuria, and the Chinese (embracing a form of Communism equivalent to that embraced in Soviet Russia) and North Korea (similarly embracing Communism) becoming bullies.

I know that many in the world, and indeed in America, hate America. But I don’t believe the arguments for that hatred bear scrutiny. Let us pass by the emotional position which says “I don’t need logical arguments for my feelings.” And then pick a war. The Korean war was fought by America to resist the aggression of the North Koreans. The Vietnamese War was fought by America to resist the aggression of the North Vietnamese. The Iraq war was fought (in two parts) to resist Iraqi desire to become big-dog in the region. .

Looking about in the world at the present time, there may still be formidable dogs that while constrained in their own regions, fancy that they deserve to rule the world. The Islamist dog has been the most assertive in the last decade. Was he thoroughly subdued during the Bush administration, or has he decided to prove himself “alpha” in regions other than the U.S.? If he does so aggressively, the US may be inspired to engage in another war.

Some people won’t buy what I have written. The US is an assertive entity in their opinion, but if it is “asserting” small government and assertively opposing the “school-yard bully” is that the sort of assertion we want to object to? I don’t think so.

Atrocities. How much guilt should Japan feel?

Max Hastings has a chapter on these atrocities in his book, Retribution, the Battle for Japan, 1944-45. Those who think Americans guilty of atrocities at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo should read this chapter. He provides so many awful incidents that I found myself involuntarily skipping ahead.

I’ve said fairly often that I admire the Japanese; so what do I do with a chapter like this? I need to be able to put these events into a balanced perspective of some sort. Why? We know in advance that the Japanese weren’t only and always engaged in atrocities. So what shall we think of them?

On page 346 Hastings writes, “When the war ended, it became possible to compare the fates of Allied servicemen under the Nazis and the Japanese. Just 4 percent of British and American POWs had died in German hands. Yet 27 percent – 35,756 out of 132,134 – of Western Allied Prisoners lost their lives in Japanese captivity.”

Hastings chapter is entitled “Captivity and Slavery” because many captives were used as slaves to heavy, “killing” work. I’m reminded of what I’ve read about the Soviet Gulags; except those sent to the Gulags were considered enemies of the state. We can perhaps be pardoned for imagining that the Soviet State didn’t really want them to survive. But in the case of the Japanese, I have the impression that they just didn’t care. In the infamous “Bataan Death March,” if you could keep up, fine. If you couldn’t well you were shot or beheaded. The Japanese wouldn’t leave the dropouts alive else everyone would be dropping out as a means of escape.

There was always a rationalization. The Japanese, as we know, considered it dishonorable to surrender. Many of them did, of course, especially toward the end of the war, but many took the honorable way out and engaged in a Banzai charge against a machine gun or something equally suicidal. Officers might choose ritual suicide. Japanese were taught to look down upon anyone who surrendered? They would look down upon their own people if they surrendered; so of course the relationship between surrendered allies and their Japanese captors began on bad terms.

Another important factor was the state-controlled press. Like the Nazi press, the Japanese were fed a steady diet of stories designed to make the Japanese support a war against the allies, and for the Japanese soldier to build up a reliable hatred against them.

Did the Japanese retain this hatred against the allies? Does it persist and become hatred against the West? In 1991, George Friedman wrote a book entitled The Coming War with Japan. The publishers note on the reprint that it became “The #1 Bestseller in Japan.” Friedman later became head of a civilian intelligence organization called Stratfor. Critics say it is a foolish thing to accept intelligence information from someone who predicted that we would have another war with Japan. Perhaps, but Friedman must have know his prediction was risky. It is always a chancy thing to make predictions that assume present trends are going to continue indefinitely. At that time Japan was an economic giant with GDP increases greater than ours or anyone else’s. But the Japanese trends didn’t continue. They had an economic crash and Friedman’s book now strikes most of us as silly.

As head of Stratfor, Friedman has a number of former CIA operatives and analysts working for him, but that isn’t the same as studying the history of the nations he reports on. Friedman was a professor Political Science at Dickinson college for 20 years before he started Stratfor, but has he had time to read John Dower’s Embracing Defeat, Japan in the Wake of World War II ? Dower published his book in 1999, too late to be of use to Friedman when in 1991 he was publishing The Coming War with Japan. Dower points out that Japan had been under military rule from 1931 to 1952. We know about the 1931 to 1945 period, but Dower reminds us that America’s military rule ran from 1945 to 1952.

If we look at the results of the American occupation, we are tempted to believe that MacArthur and his stiff were prescient geniuses, but when we read of what actually went on our opinions change. Yes, the Americans wanted to create a new form of government patterned after the American, but we must also realize that the Japanese were as a nation sick of military rule. They wanted to change into something else. They wanted a form of government that would never again subject them to someone like Tojo. My impression is that the Americans were a long way from being geniuses, and it took Japanese enthusiasm about a need for change to fill in the gaps.

In Courtney Browne’s book Tojo: The Last Banzai, we learn that General Hideki Tojo’s father Hidenori was involved in the great civil war of 1877 when the old-school Samurais were defeated by transmuted Samurais who had become part of the army. The movie, The Last Samurai (starring Tom Cruise) takes a nostalgic look at the old-school Samurais. Hidenori Tojo was involved in their defeat. His son Hideki grew up revering this transmuted Samurai code as did many of those who began the Japanese campaign in 1931 to established Japan as a great nation, a nation equivalent to France, Britain and Germany. As it turned out, that goal was achieved, but not as Hideki Tojo imagined it. Japan came into its own as a military power too late to be a great empire like Britain or France. America throughout World War II and after the end exerted its influence toward doing away with empires; so it was all for naught as far as Japan was concerned.

Or was it? Had they not tried to become a great military power, they would not have been so thoroughly defeated that they accepted the efforts of MacArthur and his staff to turn them into a Liberal Democracy. And then, as we know, they transmuted their Samurai code (Bushido) and applied it to economic goals. And so they become a great economic power. Why would Japan want to give up what they have become in order to revert to what they had been when they endured one of the worst military debacles in modern times. Only Germany was as thoroughly defeated as Japan was.

The short answer is that Japan wouldn’t want to go through that again. They rank 150 in the world in terms of military expenditure as a percentage of GDP. But they rank 3^rd, behind only the US and China, as a world economy. Consider the following economic information from 2007: http://www.economywatch.com/economies-in-top If they wanted to be considered a great nation like Britain, France and Germany, this report indicates that they have surpassed their expectations.

But back to the atrocities. What do modern-day Japanese think of them? It would be human nature to try to avoid thinking about them. Also, these modern Japanese didn’t actually do any of those thing. Japan could change its laws and have a formidable military force if it wanted to, but it doesn’t want to; which is an indication of what the modern Japanese thinks of the war their ancestors started in 1931. I’m reminded of what some in America are trying to do in regard to the American Indian and the Blacks that were brought to the US as slaves. These people (think of Ward Churchill and Noam Chomsky here) want us to join them in hating America. Weren’t there people in the early days of our nation who bought and owned slaves? Weren’t there others who mistreated the Indians? Well yes, but how does that relate to me now? How am I tied to those who mistreated the Indians or owned slaves. Perhaps one of my ancestors mistreated an Indian or owned a slave, but if so, I have no knowledge of it; so how much guilt should I feel? And is “guilt” the right thing to be feeling after all these years? Hasn’t “guilt’ become a political game to permit politicians to heap scorn upon their political enemies. They will ask how an American can consider America great when it has mistreated Indians and held slaves? The implication is that for one to be honest, one must hate America as much as Ward Churchill and Noam Chomsky do.

Do we feel guilt for the things we did as a child? Probably. We can think back to mistakes we made, and not just mistakes, but little crimes and lies and be ashamed. But what about the things our fathers did? How much guilt or shame can we feel about those things? I submit: not much. When our parents do things they should feel ashamed of, that shame is not past down to us. Instead we judge them. We condemn them and resolve not to make those same mistakes. And if that is what we feel about our parents’ sins, what shall we feel of ancestors even older?

But what of the “deniers”. What of those who say there was no holocaust? What of those who say Stalin and the Soviets sent no one off to the Gulags to be killed – or killed any Polish officers at Katyn? This is of course one of the ways we deal with something that would normally engender guilt. We say we didn’t do it even if there is evidence to the contrary. Our Psychiatrist will tell us that we can’t begin “healing” until we admit what we did. We should also seek to understand our parents for who they really were and not as people we create mental hagiographies about. I have heard that some Japanese officials have become “deniers” in regard to some of the atrocities committed in China. If so, then they are having trouble getting past their atrocities, but how many are taking that position? Hopefully not many.

On The Freedom of Speech, was "Russian Ambassador Stigniy . . . ."

Michael Kuznetsov commented further on an element from my post, "Russian Ambassador Stigniy on some of our subjects...":

Lawrence:

Now a few words about the freedom of speech.
Ambassador Stegniy said: "Still, you have to remember that freedom of the press is not only a right, it is a profession that also imposes a type of obligation."
And you, Lawrence, exclaim: "What on earth does he mean by that? It is either free or it isn't."
The Ambassador means a simple and evident (for us Russians) thing:
The freedom of speech must not harm the people's security, it must not jeopardize their lives.
For example, when, during the anti-terrorist operation in the Moscow Nord-Ost Theater in October 2002, the TV showed live (!) all the manoeuvres of the anti-terror forces outside the premises of the Theater, which TV reportages were watched by the terrorists having got 800 hostages inside, it was not freedom of speech, it was sheer high treason.

As far as I can understand, your American free TV does not show particulars of, say, the Iraq war, which may jeopardize the lives of your Marines. Am I right?

This is what the Ambassador calls "obligation" in this context.

As to the tiny marginal group of "dissidents" in the present-day Russia, I can assure you that they enjoy the right of free speech in full measure.
Even excessively.

For instance, one notorious "writer", whose odious name I do not want even to mention here out of aversion, does host an hour's weekly TV show on one of the main-stream all-Russia's TV channels (Kultura) in the prime time.

What dirty lies and insinuations he pours on Putin and Medvedev every Thursday I cannot repeat. It is most scornful!

Every Thursday. Regularly.
In the prime time!

And what is most remarkable is that the said Kultura all-Russia's TV channel is being state-sponsored!
Imagine only!


COMMENT (by Lawrence):

This is a difficult subject. While believing in the Freedom of Speech and the Freedom of the Press, I regret some of the purposes to which such freedom is put. Perhaps those journalists who were embedded with the Marines in Iraq reported responsibly to their editors, that is, in such a way that they did not give away Marine Corps plans or tactics. However, I would be very much surprised if some in the American media, had they the information of the embedded Media, wouldn't have published that information. The safest means of keeping the American media from telling military secrets is to keep the secrets from them.

One of the books I'm reading is Retribution, the Battle for Japan, 1944-45 by Max Hastings. In it Hastings tells of a governmental official briefing the press and divulging that American submariners weren't afraid of Japanese destroyers because they set their depth charges to explode before they reached the depth that the American submarines dove to. The press published the information. Word got back to the Japanese and the Japanese corrected their error. Hastings doesn't give us the name of the American official, of the various elements of the press who published this information, or the number of American subs that were sunk as a consequence, but I would wager that the punishment for this mistake was very light. Probably nothing happened to the people of the press who published it. As to the American official, whoever he was, he may have received a reprimand, and at worst a loss of his job, but I doubt that anything more serious happened to him.

We can't do much about official stupidity, but the elements of the Media should have known that they were going to kill Americans by printing the information about Japanese depth charges. And while I hate it that we have such unprincipled people, I don't know what we can do about it without sacrificing some of our freedoms. The Chinese and perhaps the Russians feel that such freedoms come at too high a price. Perhaps if we were in more desperate straits I might want to apply that opinion to the US as well, but in a real sense we can afford it. In fact we think the alternative, to allow government to arrest and penalize such people as the official who spoke about the depth chargers and the press who published the information too high.

Who is wise enough to establish the line in the sand and say on this side penalties will be applied, but in the other no penalties? Who do we trust to be that wise? Here in the US we don't trust our government to be that wise. If someone behaves reprehensibly then we may cause him to be fired, bring a law suit against him or write a series of article or a book about him such that popular opinion becomes his penalty. I think here of Ward Churchill, an outspoken Anti-American professor from the University of Colorado. After the bombing of the Twin Towers on 9-11 he described those who died as "Little Eichmans" who deserved to be killed. There was a great hue and cry against him in some parts of the press. After this Churchill lost his job. He brought a law suit against the University trying to get his job back, but his lawsuit failed: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-churchill8-2009jul08,0,6565327.story

I abhor Ward Churchill and agree with the decision to fire him from the University of Colorado, but notice Churchill's comment at the end of the article: "Some people have told him there are consequences to free speech. They don't understand the concept, he said: 'If there are consequences, it's not free.' Ironically it contains Stigniy's and Michael's belief that there should be "consequences to free speech," and Ward Churchill's comment, and mine I must admit, that if there are consequences it is not free. But I hasten to distance myself from Churchill. I don't believe there should be governmental consequences in the sense I imagined Stigniy to be using the term – that of being arrested and punished by the government. But I have read about what Churchill said. I have listened to him speak and I believe the University was well within its rights to fire him. Surely freedom of speech doesn't extend to being able to violate the rules of the place that you work.

No doubt Churchill will attempt to send his complaint all the way to the Supreme Court. Let us hope that the addition of Sotomeyer doesn't bend that court in Churchill's direction. Exonerating Churchill would embody consequences far worse than his imagined loss of free speech. The consequences of exonerating Churchill would mean that we would be legalizing calumny and slander. Who can defend himself against a false accusation in court if all false accusations have been declared by the Supreme Court to be legal?

FURTHER COMMENT:

I have glossed over some details in the above. As the article explains, "University officials concluded that free-speech protections precluded firing him for the essay. But complaints about his academic work also surfaced. After three committees concluded that he had committed plagiarism, fabrication and research misconduct in writings on American Indian history, he was fired."

To be more precise, the actual "consequences" of Churchill's actions were that University officials, as a result of the furor over his article, took a hard look at his background, record, qualifications and actions and found the failures that were listed as justification for his firing. A jury found that Churchill was wronged to the extent that the University's real reason for the firing was as Churchill maintained, his article, but awarded him only $1 and didn't insist that he be given his job back.

In short, we here in the US don't do "consequences" very well.

RE: Russian Ambassador Stigniy on some of our subjects

Michael Kuznetsov has left the following response to my post "Russian Ambassador Stigniy on some of our subjects" (http://www.lawrencehelm.com/2009/07/russian-ambassador-stigniy-on-some-of.html )

Lawrence:

The Russia's Ambassador to Israel, Mr Piotr Stegniy, is a very good diplomat, and a patriot of Russia, disregarding what exactly name our country may bear: either the Russian Empire, or the Soviet Union, or the Russian Federation.
One should remember that our Holy Russia has been and is always one and the same country for the last 1021 years.
No particular difference: Russia is our beloved Motherland.

As a diplomat, our Ambassador cannot afford to articulate loudly everything which might come in his mind. He has been bounded to constrain within prescribed diplomatic limits and conventional manners. And he is right in acting this way.

I am not a diplomat, but a free person. So, I can easily explain to you what a diplomat cannot say openly.

There is no doubt that the comparison of the Nazis with the Soviet Union is a strategic error committed by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, which error will lead to unexpected consequences in the future.

This means that it is a very stupid policy of the OSCE in particular, and of the West in general, to struggle so persistently to transform the already angry Russian Bear into an utterly infuriated Bear.

A very stupid and dangerous policy, indeed!

As you may have known from my website, 8 out of 12 members of my own family were killed by the German invaders during the Great Patriotic War, while only 4 of them saw the Great Victory Day in May 1945, and returned home heroes from the Front.
To equate my heroic forebears with the murderous Nazi pigs is highly insulting.

It is sheer blasphemy! It can hardly ever be forgotten or forgiven by us Russians!

A few words about Stalin. His role in the creation of the State of Israel was absolutely pivotal and really indispensable. Especially taking into account the fierce resistance of the British who did not want to permit the Jewish people to create a state of their own in the Promised Land.

If it weren't for Stalin's strong support, I do believe, the very nascence of Israel at that time could hardly occur.
It's a pity that the present Israel's leadership seem to forget this. Let it be left on their conscience.

You, Lawrence, say, I quote: "Stalin wished to export Communism."
You are wrong.
It was not Stalin, but Trotsky who struggled for the "Permanent Revolution all over the World."
The great Russia's leader Joseph Stalin wanted only one thing: that Russia be strong, free, and independent.
And he succeded in that. Which is why the Russian people remember and esteem him.
No great secret.


COMMENT (by Lawrence)

There is an old joke about a drunk on his hands and knees by a street lamp. A friend stops by and asks "what he is looking for." "My car keys," the drink answers.

"I'll help you look," the friend says, getting down on his hands and knees as well. "Can you remember where you dropped them."

"Yes, back there at the other end of the street."

The friend is surprised. "But why are you looking for them here?"

"Because the light is better," replies the explains.

It seems that you and Stigniy think the light is better if you talk about the Russian people rather than Stalin. But the actual issue was the comparison of Stalin to Hitler and not the Russian people to the German Nazis. Let me quote what was written,

Galili comments about Stigniy, ". . . he also completed a Ph.D in history and is the proud author of 11 books. Some of them are about the empress Catherine the Great, whom he venerates; the latest, recently published, deals with the three partitions of Poland. This connection between his personal biography and the historian within him leads the conversation to the resolution passed about three weeks ago by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, which likens Stalin to Hitler and imputes to both of them responsibility for the outbreak of World War II. For Stigniy this is not only a resolution which offends him as a Russian diplomat, but also a personal affront to the son of a Soviet pilot.

"'That comparison is not even worthy of comment,' Stigniy said. 'Any attempt to rewrite history is dangerous. After all, if we do not learn the lessons of history, we will repeat the same mistakes. The attempt to compare Stalin and Hitler is particularly dangerous, because we thereby blur the line between good and bad." When I point out that many people will find it difficult to think of Stalin as 'good,' he replies, 'we Russians have our own story with Stalinism, and I will not justify it. But at the same time, the comparison of the Nazis with the Soviet Union is a strategic error that will lead to unexpected consequences in the future."

Let me say up front that I don't agree with the OSCE resolution which states that Stalin approved the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact in order to ensure that Hitler would launch his war in Europe. That is a twisting of the evidence as I understand it. Certainly Stalin hoped that Hitler would attack Western Europe rather than Russia, but that hope is entirely reasonable. That doesn't mean that Stalin "goaded" Hitler into war with Europe. Hitler needed no goading to do anything. So the OSCE resolution seems silly. Had Stigniy become specific as I just have, I probably wouldn't disagree with him, but he kept it general and on top of that transformed it into something else.

In general, I don't agree that history is fixed by earlier writings. Historians, at least here in the West, are making a good living scouring original sources, looking for materials for new books. This seems especially true of Russia. We have had historians from the West go to Russia and review archives pertaining to Russian history during the Cold War. Three books I read that are in this category are Venona, Decoding Soviet Espionage in America, by Haynes and Klehr; In Denial, Historians, Communism & Espionage by Haynes and Klehr; and Joseph McCarthy, Reexamining the Life and Legacy of America's Most Hated Senator by Arthur Herman. These three books are of interest because they make use of new information gleaned from the KGB archives about Soviet espionage in America.

The period referred to in the books is known in America as the McCarthy era. He made accusations about Russian spies working in our State Department, Army and elsewhere. He was ridiculed and hounded out of the Senate and probably into death because he had no hard evidence for his accusations. We learned later that the head of our FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, was supplying him information gleaned from the "Venona project." The secret code used by the Russians for transmitting diplomatic information had been broken by the Venona project and many of these messages referred to spies at work in Washington and elsewhere. Hoover fed some of this information to McCarthy but wouldn't tell him where it came from and forbade him from telling anyone Hoover had provided this information to him. The FBI didn't want the Soviets to change their code. It was fascinating to read the books I mentioned. It puts the McCarthy era in a whole new light. McCarthy's accusations were legitimate, but only now is the evidence backing them coming to light.

It is an interesting phenomenon, and it reminds me of the positions that you and Stigniy are taking, that most of those who opposed McCarthy in the 50's aren't willing to change their minds because of this new evidence. They hated him then and hate him now. It makes no difference that new historical evidence has been produced to show that he was right in what he said.

It seems to me that what has occurred in regard to McCarthy includes the sort of rewriting of history that Stigniy objects to. I might be wrong in assessing Stigniy's words, but sense he made a few general statements and then cut off further debate, it is difficult to be sure. But my belief is that we want the truth wherever it leads, and I don't know whether Stigniy would accept my belief or not. I have no wish to read partisan rants or to read the "party line" of anyone's party.

There is a sense in which the criticism of Stalin can be expanded. It can't be expanded to the whole Russian people as you suggest. That's absurd, but it can be expanded to the Cheka. Well, sure, you might say, but the Cheka of 1917 derived from the Tsarist Okhrana and is a Russian tradition. Well, maybe, but the Cheka which became the NKGB during World War II, and which was roundly condemned or ridiculed by those who actually fought the war, has similarities to the German SD. Consider the following quote from Wikipedia:

"The SD was tasked with the detection of actual or potential enemies of the Nazi leadership and the neutralization of this opposition. To fulfill this task, the SD created an organization of agents and informants throughout the Reich and later throughout the occupied territories."

I don't feel critical of the Russian people or the Russian Army, but of Stalin himself and the political agencies such as the NKGB established for the "detection of actual or potential enemies" of the Soviet State. In Germany as well as Soviet Russia these "enemies" were killed or sent off to prison.

But to back up and gain some perspective, I see both the German Nazis and the Russian Soviets as engaged in experiments. They believed strongly that their ideologies embodied the truth. Each of these ideologies captured the imagination of a people; which gave the practitioners, that is the leaders and their political arms such as the SD and the NKVD ample scope to do their best. Both experiments failed. The first to fail was the Nazi. It was based upon the idea that the German people were ethnically superior to all other ethnicities. They, believing they hadn't been defeated in World War I, set about conquering the European and Asiatic land mass. They failed.

The second experiment, that of the Communists, had an ideology that was more sophisticated than the Nazi. They utilized the teachings of Karl Marx, Engels and Lenin – all three of these men were first-class thinkers. I read the Nazi thinkers and could throughout find failures in their evidence and arguments, but the task was not so easy when it came to the Communists. It almost took the playing of the experiment for most of us to see that what Marx and Lenin argued didn't work.

And even today, at least in the US, there are people who argue that Marx, Engels and Lenin were right but Stalin didn't perform according to their teachings and that therefore Marxism-Leninism hasn't had a fair test. I hope that idea doesn't catch on. I hope most people have had quite enough of the Communist experiment.

Comparisons of Stalin and Hitler are apt to the extent that they apply to anyone who has assumed dictatorial control of a nation. But Hitler was no Wilhelm and Stalin was no Catherine the Great. They resorted to what seem to critics objectionable means for eliminating opposition. Throughout history kings and queens have put out "hits" (to use a modern expression) on enemies. Usually they attempted to disguise their involvement because they knew it was wrong and wanted to distance themselves from what they had ordered. Not so Stalin and Hitler. They made the elimination of enemies a state policy. They didn't hide from something they knew was wrong, they declared themselves to be beyond old definitions of good and evil. They gave good and evil new definitions. Whatever favors what I believe is good. Whatever opposes it is evil.

Also, we have the huge numbers of their victims to concern ourselves with. Hitler sent enormous numbers to concentration camps and Stalin sent even larger numbers to Gulags. They both justified their actions as being necessary for the survival of their states. In retrospect we should be able to condemn both of these experiments as reprehensible. Hanging on to parts of them as "good" should be done with great care. Shutting of discussion seems especially dangerous.

Germany was defeated militarily, and perhaps in consequence there are few in Germany willing to defend Hitler. Russia was not defeated militarily, and many, even among those who no longer hold to the Communist ideal, are unwilling to repudiate Stalin. Stigniy says this is a Russian thing and he doesn't want to talk about it with Galili, but that doesn't mean it is incomprehensible to those of us who aren't Russian. If we insist on discouraging new research, on the finding of new information, on maintain a "Party Line" of history which to a very large extent was created by Communists during the Cold War, then we may very well repeat some of the evils of history, because we won't have learned that the "truth will out."

Consider two examples. We all know that the Germans believed they were cheated in 1919. They were not defeated militarily. Instead, evil politicians and political enemies forced a political defeat upon Germany. Wilhelm and the cowardly German leaders kept the true nature of their defeat and their calculations secret from the people in order to avoid blame. As a consequence, Hitler was able to claim that Germany's enemies tricked Germany into defeat and into the egregious Treaty of Versailles. We can read modern histories of World War I and see that Germany was truly defeated. Perhaps Germany resigned before they lost their last chess piece, but they were defeated. We learned the history of keeping this matter secret: The German people could flatter themselves that they were unconquerable because there was no evidence to the contrary. Modern histories provide that evidence, but they didn't have it back in the 20's when Hitler came to power or in the 30s when they were preparing for war.

Something similar was true of Japan. In their war with Russia they won battle after battle. In truth, their army wasn't very large and while the Russian casualties were much larger than the Japanese, the Japanese could afford them less; so when Teddy Roosevelt offered to broker a peace, the Japanese agreed. Strangely, popular opinion in Japan blamed the United States for this. They could have thoroughly defeated the Russians, they could have kept all the land they conquered if only America hadn't interfered. So, years later, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt decided to impose sanctions on Japan, and Acheson imposed stronger sanctions than Roosevelt intended, the Japanese were able to tell each other, look, the Americans are doing it to us again. We are winning in China, but the Americans are now interfering. They thought about that interference which was real, but also about the earlier American interference during their war with Russia; which was not real.

The German and Japanese people would have been better served if they had been made privy to what actually happened at those pivotal times. The Germans really were defeated in World War I and the Japanese had run out of troops in their war with Russia. They lost 200,000 men and they didn't have enough left to continue. They didn't know it then, but at least we can know it now.

But are the Russians willing to seek truth about their own history? They weren't defeated; so why should they? I say they should seek the truth, wherever it leads. Basing future actions upon faulty premises from the past is almost always dangerous.

As to the exporting of Communism, yes I know Trotsky had his own views on that. Trotsky's approach was like Christian evangelism. He wanted to go out preaching the Communist gospel to all nations and making disciples of all those who would come to believe. Stalin didn't believe in Trotsky's approach but he hadn't given up a desire to spread Communism. He couldn't give that up without abandoning Marxism-Leninism which taught that the spread of Communism was inevitable. Stalin sought to make Russia an example to the nations. In the Protestant Christian world we call this "witnessing by example," and usually it doesn't work very well. But that wasn't all Stalin did. His approach was sort of like Mohammad's who sought to spread Islam militarily. Stalin spread Communism into eastern Europe through force of arms.

RE: Will Russia fall apart if North Caucasus' problems aren't solved?

In reply to my post, "Will Russia Fall apart if North Caucasus' problems aren't solved?" ( http://www.lawrencehelm.com/2009/07/will-russia-fall-apart-if-north.html ) Michael Kuznetsov has left the following comment:

Lawrence:

I have just found and read through all the interviews with, and public declarations made by Valery Gizoyev.

He is a good and loyal citizen of the Russian Federation. He warns against the Western Destructivists who want to tear the Caucasus off Russia.

Thus, the Paul Goble's interpretation of the situation is wrong. In fact, North Ossetia is not willing to break away from Russia.

It is simply because they are not madmen, and they can clearly understand that the next day after their would-be independence all the Ossetians will be brutally slain by their immediate neighbours.

So, neither Putin, nor Medvedev has to pull a gun, point it at North Ossetia and say, "Get back in the kitchen and shut up."

Relax everybody!

COMMENT (by Lawrence):

Michael,

I'm not sure Goble is doing much interpreting in his article. He begins his article with, "Unless Moscow comes up with and implements a carefully thought out set of policies for the North Caucasus, something it has signally failed to do up to now, a member of the North Ossetian parliament says, then there is a very real risk that Russia itself will "fall apart into 'separate principalities.'" Surely Gizoyev actually said that. And Gizoyev's litany of things wrong with the way the Caucasus is being treated by Moscow surely is quoted or paraphrased accurately. What caught my eye, of course was the implication that the Russian Federation might fall apart if the problems Gizoyev described weren't solved by Moscow. So I went looking for Gizoyev's argument and, as I said, didn't find it.

Here in the West there is a story about "Chicken Little." Something falls on Chicken Little's head and he rushes around telling everyone "the sky is falling." Indeed something did fall on his head, so that should have been his concern, and if it had been, his argument would have been justified. His conclusion that the sky was falling was not justified by the evidence. The only evidence he had, if he stopped to look at it, was whatever it was that fell on his head. I ended up thinking Gizoyev was something like Chicken Little. Things are wrong in North Ossetia, but his conclusion that the sky will fall (that is, that the Russian Federation will fall apart if they aren't fixed) doesn't seem justified by the evidence he presents.

But I don't see quite the emphasis you place on these matters. Gizoyev doesn't say that the Western Destructivists (as you call them) are causing the North Ossetian problems, but merely that these efforts are going on in parallel with the problems he describes. I'm sure Gizoyev is loyal to the Russian Federation. He comes across that way in Goble's article, but he is very worried about several problems, problems that Moscow doesn't seem willing to address.

Unless . . . you (and Moscow) are saying what I said would be the response if Governor Scharzenegger submitted such a list of complaints to Washington. Washington would tell him that his list contains problems California is fully capable of solving by itself. A difference, however, is that California is forbidden by law from seceding from the Union, and that doesn't seem to be true of North Ossetia. And surely there are those in North Ossetia who do want independence. How numerous and influential they are doesn't seem to worry you, but perhaps they worry Gizoyev.

By the way, who are these "Western Destructivists"? I hope you won't tell me the US is one of them.