Buchanan and Stockman Under Putin's Spell

My long-time friend Pat Buchanan said in the 1992 presidential race that Ukraine was the first country he would visit if elected president. Back then, he had many Ukrainian American supporters  in his Cold War support of freedom for Ukraine and its people, a support seen  in many of his columns, some exposing for example the KGB’s disinformation campaigns against ethnics home and abroad.  

Peter B. Hrycenko

I am still a fan of Pat, but not for his Putin worship. See his July 25 column (and others) Is Putin Worse Than Stalin? It seems odd when he shows up on Moscow TV being interviewed by Shevardnadze’s daughter, in the heart of an oppressed criminal state, telling the world that the US should turn its back on Ukraine, the Baltic States, Poland, Georgia – while saying little derogatory about the latest evil empire.

How has his thinking changed on that struggling nation? He praises Russia’s mobster-in-chief Putin regularly in columns, saying we need to better understand this messianic dictator because he is historically entitled to his murderous takeover of neighbors.

For starters, our Western intelligence services have been heavily in Ukraine since before the Soviet breakup. (Don’t anybody mention that.) Of course the EU has a financial interest in Ukraine and its resources. A Ukraine that doesn’t look backward like Russia is a bonus to all the world.

Let us not forget that the US and bankers were heavily involved inside Russia itself in the 1990’s. We weren’t just there for the greatest plundering of an empire in history. Our FBI was battling with the Red Mafiya which had gained a foothold in the US. Ask Louie Freeh about that.

Without Western help, Ukraine would have been Russia twenty years ago.

Yet even with all the on-the-ground humanitarian and para-military aid, we saw Moscow this past winter ready to topple Ukraine. Putin’s mobsters both in and out of Ukraine had drained away enough wealth and bought out enough politicians, assassinated enough journalists and activists.

One would think the Ukrainian and Ukrainian-Russian citizens would give up in the face of unimaginable poverty and persecution. They did not, have not, and today we see the re-organized military of Ukraine pounding away at Putin’s terrorists. Our CIA, God bless them, is providing us daily images of the truth.

Now David Stockman (July 25: My Thoughts On Pat Buchanan’s Brilliant And Incisive Take on Washington’s Ukrainian Fiasco) fell into the Pat Buchanan scheme nicely. He writes that Putin “is no totalitarian menace even remotely in the same league as his Soviet predecessors. In that regard, Hillary Clinton’s sophomoric comparison of him to Hitler is downright preposterous.” Just wait a little longer, David, there is more to come in mobsterland. See if you change your tune.

Last Christmas, Putin barred our Russian expert journalist David Satter from re-entering Russia. See, Mr Satter has a different take on Putin. Watch his film “Age of Delirium” to see what the Soviet Man did to the oppressed nations and most importantly how the Putin mindset of lying, cheating, grubbing at all costs is expected over there today.

One more thing. I can’t imagine if Pat is able to sit still in his McLean chair, while reading David’s column in praise of him. David praises whatever non-intervention in Eastern Europe since the times of FDR. FDR however was not only unfortunately enfeebled by polio, he gave away the store to Stalin. In FDR’s last years of life, the White House foreign policy was run by the likes of Soviet agents of influence Harry Hopkins (the Lend-Lease give-away), Alger Hiss, Lauchlin Currie and Harry Dexter White. China and Eastern Europe fell. Tens of millions were murdered then, now 150 million and counting. East European American commandos were betrayed to Stalin and tortured on television. Pat Buchanan knows this.

 Next order of business: send Jesse Jackson, Colin Powell and Jimmy Carter to Moscow to suggest it is time for a change.