House Resolution 758

Some years ago, while browsing through some older American magazines, I stumbled, I believe, onto the American Heritage magazine (it could have been something else) dedicated to the 50th Anniversary of the V-E Day. It was a very rich collection of the first-rate American historians giving their impressions and interpretations to the most important event in the 20th Century. One of those historians (again, from the top of my head), either Arthur Schlesinger or Stephen Ambrose, wrote a passage to the effect that one of the major reasons the United States and the Soviet Union never went to war with each-other was the fact that they were Allies in WW II. I happen to agree with this assessment. Throughout the Cold War, especially on the Soviet side, there were many people who remembered that and who, actually, fought in that War--Khrushchev and JFK, certainly, did, and so did Brezhnev. Deep respect among Russians toward George H. Bush in large degree was based on deep appreciation of his service in WW II as an aviator. Immediate rapport between very many Russians and John Beyrle was founded on Russians' true admiration for US Ambassador's legendary heroic father, Joseph Beyrle--one of very few people who fought both for US and Soviet Army in WW II.

Now, those people who had or understood those military experiences and their significance are gone on the American side. The comparisons between then and now are not only warranted, they are inevitable. The same as the scale of people "then" and in current US foreign policy establishment. If Victoria Nuland or Samantha Power are the best this establishment has to offer--we better start worrying. These are people who have no clue what real war is and as such have very few, if any, inhibitions. James Schlesinger, who hardly could be termed as "dove", stated once his desire to take some overly hawkish politicians to the proving grounds and then detonate a low yield nuclear device for those warmongers to feel a heat on their cheeks and hear the sound to reconsider their views. I think he had a point.

Well, the US Congress now subscribed to the list of geopolitical and history ignoramuses (with minor, however significant, exceptions of likes of Rep.Dana Rohrabacher) when authorized the provision of the lethal assistance to the Kiev junta. Dana, who should be viewed as a true American, explained his position in The National Interest quite eloquently:

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/why-i-voted-against-condemning-russia-11828 

But that is not it. The West in general, and US in particular, have committed a cultural suicide in Russia (seppuku, anyone) when they supported an openly ultra-nationalist and openly Nazi regime, while accusing Russia of being the one. Evidently, US Congress, and its many neocon enablers have no clue about a decisive role Russian (and Soviet) people played in defeating Nazism, while losing 27 million people doing this. Leningrad Siege alone, in 900 days, saw more people die than US lost throughout her history combined.  So, US Congress authorized weapons to a Ukraine. The question is, how well is it going to play out. As one of my favorite foreign affairs bloggers on The American Conservative, Daniel Larison writes: 

"As it is, the passage of this legislation was the wrong thing for Congress to do. If Obama doesn’t want to contribute to making things worse in Ukraine, he should veto it. Signing such a bill into law will just goad Russia into more aggressive behavior and will set up the Ukrainian government for another fall. There is no American interest that justifies this contribution to the conflict in Ukraine. It is an unfortunate marriage of the desire to be seen as “doing something” and the knee-jerk impulse to throw weapons at every problem." (c) 

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/congress-votes-to-arm-ukraine/

It is all correct, except for one thing--it is not going to be "another fall" (c) of the Ukrainian Government. It is going to be the end of Ukraine, which, so far, exists mostly because the forces of Novorossya are being held back by Kremlin. But then again, how many US Congressmen (with the exception of few combat veterans) have a clue about Combined Arms Warfare Operations? In the nation which thinks that it defeated Wehrmacht in WW II--a clue, is a very hard thing to come by........I would love to see the reaction of the teary John Boehner, or from this idiot Hannity, about my grandfathers killed by Meinstein and Guderian Armies....ahh, well.