{"id":16382,"date":"2014-03-10T12:14:55","date_gmt":"2014-03-10T16:14:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/?p=16382"},"modified":"2014-03-10T12:14:55","modified_gmt":"2014-03-10T16:14:55","slug":"vladimir-putins-enemies-arent-all-good-guys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/2014\/03\/10\/vladimir-putins-enemies-arent-all-good-guys\/","title":{"rendered":"Vladimir Putin\u2019s enemies aren\u2019t all good guys"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Boston Globe<\/em> has an excellent OpEd article Vladimir Putin\u2019s enemies aren\u2019t all good guys<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

One of the biggest mistakes of US Cold War policy from Latin America to Central Asia was the use of broad labels that allowed little room for complexity. Everyone who opposed the Soviet Union \u2014 be they freedom fighters, dictators, or, as in Afghanistan, future members of Al Qaeda or the Taliban \u2014 was America\u2019s friend, and anyone who disagreed with those friends was a Communist.<\/p>\n

This paradigm, while convenient, ignored the fact that most nations do not split cleanly into teams of good guys and bad guys. It also sowed the seeds of future conflicts. If we want to avoid repeating the mistakes of history, a good place to start would be dispensing with sweeping Cold War assumptions \u2014 and being careful in Ukraine.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Excellent article that presents some nuance about the situation that is rarely seen in any of the US media.<\/p>\n

Ironically there is a small piece of the article that falls prey to this very nasty media habit of suppressing some information in order to make a point.<\/p>\n

“Yet when Hillary Clinton likens Vladimir Putin to Hitler, as she did in a March 4 speech, she makes all those eastern Ukrainians appear to be Nazi sympathizers.”<\/p>\n

I am not a fan of Hillary Clinton, but that does not mean that I want to accept lies about her.\u00a0 If you hear more of her remarks than the conveniently edited audio that the Globe published in its article about her remarks, then you find what she said was not as odious as they represent it.<\/p>\n

The more complete audio can be found at http:\/\/bcove.me\/ugo8sgvm<\/strong><\/a> and in my previous post
\nHillary Clinton Compares \u2013 Examining the Similarities and the Differences<\/strong><\/a>. In fact, I will insert that audio below because it is so important to the issue.<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/div>\n
<\/pre>\n
She did not liken Vladimir Putin to Hitler.\u00a0 What she did was compare some of his actions to some of Hitler’s actions.\u00a0 In this context “compare” means she didn’t only talk about the similarities, but she also highlighted the differences.\u00a0 From the tone of her voice, you also understand that she was explaining the part of the comparison that has other people all upset, but not what is upsetting to her.<\/p>\n
I know that once this Clinton meme is firmly implanted in peoples’ minds, no amount of correcting the record will erase the idea.\u00a0 That is what is so dangerous about the propaganda machine that our main stream press has become.<\/p>\n
I had no intention of voting for Hillary Clinton as the candidate of my party for President in 2016 before this incident, but I do not want her rejected for spurious reasons.\u00a0 There are enough valid reasons not to want her, that we don’t have to make stuff up.\u00a0 And we don’t want to prevent people from speaking sensibly for fear that their remarks will be distorted.<\/p>\n
By the way, I agree with one of the comments on The Boston Globe web site.<\/p>\n
Mila Kunis is the Ukraine’s greatest export ever.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Boston Globe has an excellent OpEd article Vladimir Putin\u2019s enemies aren\u2019t all good guys. One of the biggest mistakes of US Cold War policy from Latin America to Central Asia was the use of broad labels that allowed little room for complexity. Everyone who opposed the Soviet Union \u2014 be they freedom fighters, dictators, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[166],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-16382","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-stevegsposts","7":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16382"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16382\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16383,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16382\/revisions\/16383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}