Bush says No to Russian view of ww2

The West is celebrating the 60th Anniversary of the end of the second world war. As the years pass by the East - Russia - is twisting historical facts for its own political ambitions. Now they're saying that the Baltic region was never occupied, their school textbooks lack significant information about Stalinist ages and about the Holocaust and statues of Stalin are being placed in public display. As other western leaders celebrate the achievements of Soviet veterans in Moscow the US President Bush travels to Latvia to make a political statement - that the West sees the East not as liberators but as occupiers and that Stalin never was any better than Hitler. At times like this - the importance of the US role in global politics should only become more obvious.

I don't want to sound as if I'm trying to degrade the veterans who fought for Mother Russia. They defended their motherland against vile invaders. But the fact remains that they never were liberators. And another thing is that the Soviets could have done better against the nazis if Stalin hadn't killed some of his top officers. Stalin also played an important role in initiating the second world war. Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact served Stalinist ideas. According to Zbigniew Brzezinski (interviewed in a Finnish newspaper) - official documents from Soviet times prove that Stalin considered Hitler's war beneficial to Communism.

Putin's Russia is doing its best to turn the Russian public into mindless drones. Press freedom is being limited and school textbooks twist history. Who's going to expose the corruption that dwells within the Russian government when there's no free press to do that (luckily Russians are still able to access the internet)? How are the Russians going to learn from their past mistakes by denying them? Stalin and Communism made Russia the corrupt place it is today. Yet a great number of Russians yearn these times and want the old "glory" (which was built on blood and fear) to return.

While this day marks something special to other Europeans (or at least it should) to Finns it marks something else. Because Finland was never occupied (although we fought two wars against the Soviets) we were never liberated by anyone. The Soviet "Victory" (they never managed to occupy us) over Finland saved us from ourselves but the fact that we managed to maintain our independence and freedom made it possible for us to adapt to new European standards which the Americans helped to form - democracy and free enterprise. That helped us to stay independent and grow while the East choosed another direction.

Today Germany - once again - apologized. And what Putin's Russia did? It asked why it has to apologize since they have already done so (back in -89). Germany learned from its mistakes and remains humble - Russia never did and maintains its arrogant attitude. With this attitude there's no bright future for Russians.

So on this remarkable day - I'd like to thank the US and other Allied nations and the veterans who fought for freedom against both the nazis and the Soviets.

"The world's tyrants learned a lesson: There is no power like the power of freedom and no soldier as strong as a soldier who fights for that freedom" -George W. Bush -8th of May 2005

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,155681,00.html
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,155835,00.html
http://www.helsinginsanomat.fi
http://www.whitehouse.gov
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II
http://www.euronews.com