By Edwin Cooney
It took almost a lifetime for me to think the above let
alone write it! Still, after last
Thursday’s debacle over Eastern Ukraine – apparently the work of Russian separatists
– I find myself missing Uncle Nikita.
I know Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev was a brute, that he
served Stalin, that he had blood on his hands, that he was short, bald, pig-eyed,
a braggart, a shoe-banger, that he drank too much vodka and that he was an
atheist, but he at least governed according to a set of principles that were
somewhat predictable.
From what we know so far on the other hand, Vladimir Putin and
a number of other 2014 world leaders are responsible for unleashing profitmaking
world arms and munitions manufacturers and giving them full rein to sell their
wares to separatist rebels in the Ukraine and elsewhere. In Nikita Khrushchev’s day and even later,
the Soviet Government insisted on having complete control of armaments when
they were lent out to a Soviet client such as Cuba, Egypt or even Syria. Russian pilots, answerable only to their Red
Army superiors who were in turn answerable to Soviet authority rather than
Cuban, Egyptian or Syrian clients manned Soviet-made armaments. Today armament makers are free to peddle
their wares to those who have goals in common with the Russian government, but
the Russian government apparently has no control over what separatist groups in
places like the Ukraine choose to do with these deadly weapons.
Hence, 295 passengers and crew members who were on Malaysia
Airlines Flight 17 are dead today and it may well be that “Vlad the bad” is
literally innocent of authorizing what happened last Thursday afternoon Kiev
time, but who can be sure of that? At
least when things got nasty in the fifties and sixties and even beyond until
1991, we could actually tell who was doing the lying. With “Vlad the bad,” one
just never knows who the mischief-makers are.
We, the children of the fifties and sixties, trembled with
foreboding, as did our leaders in Congress and of course all potential American
presidential candidates when Uncle Nikita went into action. We suffered many a nightmare when Uncle Niki
invaded defenseless Hungary in October 1956, announced the launching of Sputnik
in October 1957, threatened to sign a separate peace treaty with East Germany and
ordered us out of Berlin by a certain date as he did in November 1958, constructed
the Berlin Wall in August 1961, installed offensive missiles in Cuba in October
1962, or banged his shoe on the table while Britain’s Prime Minister Harold
MacMillan was addressing the United Nations General Assembly in October 1960. (Note: October apparently was one of Nikita’s
favorite months!)
With “Godless Communism” now fully discredited if not
entirely vanquished, the key to much of this post “cold war” international
hostility is in the struggle for worldwide religious supremacy! Being the atheist and materialist he was,
Khrushchev believed that as a citizen of Planet Earth he was enjoying all of
the good things he would ever know. For
Uncle Nikita, no post earthly life existence in Heaven awaited him so, within
reason, he was perfectly willing to limit himself to what he could get away
with during his time on earth. Although I’m not sure what “bad Vlad’s”
religious principles are, twenty-first century world leaders seem to be sure
that this earth is inferior to where they are going, so they pollute the planet
while making a profit at the same time. Think
of it: both financial and spiritual salvation is just ahead for the world movers
and shakers of 2014! First they get both righteously and filthy rich and then
they abandon “God’s green earth” which they have just trashed and go straight
to Heaven. Can you beat that?
When I was growing up, as scary and sometimes brutish as
things were, it was basically a struggle between materialism (or if you prefer
materialistic Communist atheism) and God-fearing money-grubbing Wall Street
capitalists. Khrushchev was an enemy you
could personally dislike because you got to know him. After all, we witnessed his temper and his braggadocio
when Ike invited him to visit us. He
complained at one point that all we were really trying to do by inviting him
here was to rub him in our capitalist cultural sauce. When Khrushchev left us
after his ten day visit in 1959, Americans were sure they knew him. We could personally hate him and it was as
wonderful as it was scary.
The question, therefore, is how well do we know today’s potential
enemies? We probably need to bring
Assad, Maliki, Netanyahu, Hamas President Mahmoud Abbas, Iranian President
Hassan Rouhani and, of course, Vladimir Putin here to do as we once did with
Khrushchev – rub each of them in our sauce.
We should expose them to all of our talk show hosts and invite Playboy
to interview their wives and mistresses.
Then not only would we be in a better position to predict their moves,
there would be more about them for us to hate just as we once hated Khrushchev. Ooh! I can hardly wait! How about you?!
Meanwhile, I’ll think of Uncle Niki. I’ll recall how he morally incensed Secretary
of State John Foster Dulles and how frustrated he often made Richard Nixon. Nikita Khrushchev was a man of bad manners
and crude barnyard humor. He was loud
and short-tempered, but there was a lot of little boy in him.
How we loved hating him! However, what was especially maddening
about it all was that he never even really seemed to notice or care!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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