Opaque Lucidity

Those Joyous Decades

Vladimir Putin believes that Soviet history has fewer "black pages" than the United States. Of course, you'll notice that he does mention the Stalinist purges of the 1930's because, golly, it's awfully hard to hide the deaths of more than 30 million people.

Putin mentions Vietnam. Yes, we did bomb most of the country over the course of the decade our military was active there. But in Afghanistan, toys with bombs inside them were left outside of villages with the knowledge that children wouild pick them up. Can you say that one is worse than the other because more civilians died in Vietnam? Is it just about numbers, or does intent count for something?

Then there's the nuclear argument. Thank God we will never know what would've happened had the Allies invaded the Japanese home islands. As horrible as they were, those bombs saved lives. And I believe that our arsenal of missiles, submarines and bombers during the Cold War helped prevent another World War. Look at it this way: if nuclear weapons did not exist, do you think that the Soviets would've tried to take all of Europe after the end of the Second World War? Once again, thank God we'll never know.

Putin should stick to his day job and leave history alone.