Liberty Maven

With the recent Russian-Georgian conflict and the U.S. pissing off Russia by reaching an agreement with Poland to put some missiles there many pundits started mentioning the advent of a new “Cold War”. Those two words do not conjure nice images or thoughts in my head.

I recall as a child in the 70’s and 80’s being incredibly fearful of nuclear war. Laying in bed at night hearing an airplane fly overhead found me squinting my eyes tight hoping the sound was indeed coming from an airplane and not a nuclear bomb. My parents should have never let me watch “The Day After” when it came on TV in 1983. The images in that movie are still with me today, however sensationalized some thought they were. The movie has a very interesting history, including being credited by the Reagan Administration for helping getting the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) signed with the Soviet Union in 1987.

In those simpler times I thought the world was black and white, made up of good and evil. The Soviet Union was evil and the United States was good and I was on the good side. Nowadays it is quite easy to see the lunacy on both sides. It is starting to look like my children may have to endure some of the same fears I had back then.

Philip Giraldi in the American Conservative’s blog writes:

The Israeli media is reporting the Russia has negotiated the use of port facilities in the Syrian city of Tarsus, intending to establish a base for Mediterranean operations for its Black Sea fleet.  It also sent two Tupelov long range bombers to Caracas last Wednesday on a friendly visit and will carry out both naval and air defense maneuvers with the Venezuelan armed forces in November.  It is the first foray by Russian bombers into the Western hemisphere since the collapse of the Soviet Union more than fifteen years ago.

One might reasonably assume that Moscow is plenty pissed off about willy-nilly NATO expansion, the basing of US missiles in Poland, and the American condemnation of the fighting in Georgia, which the Russians seem to know was started by the Georgians even if the White House and US media have not yet grasped that salient point.  Provoking the bear did not have to happen and would seem to be against the US national interest.  A new Cold War will benefit no one but defense contractors, but it appears that there are many in Washington who are welcoming the prospect.  They call themselves neocons and they are deeply entrenched in the McCain foreign policy team.  And by the way, most of the money that supports their think tanks and academic chairs comes from defense contractors.  It all sounds familiar.

Yes it does. Old fears I thought dead and buried seem to be crawling out of their graves. Is it inevitable that my children will be haunted by the same fears I had when I wasn’t playing little league baseball or learning that girls were no longer “yucky”?

I sure hope not.