It thrilled the hearts of all longtime anti-Communists to see the noose around the neck of the mammoth statue of the founder of the Soviet secret police, and then see that evil man symbolically hanging from the gallows in front of the jeering Moscow crowd before he bit the dust. It’s impossible to count the numbers of deaths and the human misery and terror caused by the KGB and its predecessors over the past 70 years.
It’s too bad that Americans can’t just as easily topple the monster called “foreign aid,” which has been extorting money out of our pockets through taxes in order to enrich foreigners over the last 40 years. This monster has amazing resiliency, and he is rising from the Moscow Street drama to demand that we pour our hard-earned money into the bottomless pit of trying to “reform” the failed Communist system.
Newspaper headlines reveal how those who have indulged in the delusion of Gorbomania are now salivating at the way they can use last week’s coup and its collapse as a new argument to pry open our wallets. Typical headlines proclaim: “Upheaval in Soviet Union gives U.S. second chance to help” and “Coup lets U.S. re-evaluate stance on helping Soviets make changes.”
Isn’t that big of the Russians to “give” us another chance to donate billions to them? It’s almost as though some people are trying to make us feel guilty because President Bush resisted Gorbachev’s panhandling impertinence at the G-7 summit this summer!
The demand for U.S. aid to the Gorbachev regime has been carefully orchestrated for many months. Sums such as $15, $20 and even $50 billion a year over a five-year period have been bandied about, layered with arguments that oscillate between saying we are “obligated” to send aid (how ridiculous can you get!) and that giving them billions of dollars would be a big “bargain” (even though all we would get in return would be promises of “reform”).
The Gorby lovers were dismayed last month when U.S. banks, having learned a bitter lesson of Communist country defaults, refused to lend their depositors’ money to the Soviet Union even though President Bush had fixed it so that the loans would be guaranteed by the U.S. taxpayers. European banks eagerly accepted the U.S. loan guarantee.
Why should the American working man and woman be forced to donate to building the economy of the Soviet Union? Does the Soviet style of government and economy really matter enough to John Q. Truckdriver or Suzie Stenographer that they want to pay for it?
There is only one way that aid to the Soviet Union would be a good investment for the United States. Here’s my suggestion. President Bush could call Boris Yeltsin and say:
“You have an historic opportunity to be the greatest force for peace in the history of the world. Let me explain the plan, and how we will help you.
“You are spending 25 percent of your Gross National Product on military forces. A large share of that spending goes for further production and modernization of nuclear weapons, which are already the most numerous and powerful in the world.
“You must redirect your priorities and use that manpower and brainpower to build a functioning economy instead of weapons. Since you disbanded the Communist Party by a simple ukase, we can assume that the Communist Party’s longtime dreams of world conquest have been liquidated, too.
“We know from the 25,000 secret documents that made their way to the West, after East Germany was liberated, that the Kremlin had massive and detailed plans to storm Western Europe with troops, weapons, and even nukes. But all that is history, now.
“Your intercontinental ballistic missiles have only one utility: to destroy the United States. ICBMs are useless against real or imagined challenges such as maintaining law and order in the U.S.S.R. as the various republics seek freedom and even independence, or in defending Russian borders if the new Germany or a revived NATO should suddenly march their troops east.
“So, the solution to your problems is simple, Boris. Just destroy all your nuclear missiles in front of international observers, and then we will give you the aid you need to start building your country. It will be a good deal for both of us because then we can both cut drastically back on our military budget.
“How about it, Boris? Events have tossed into the dustbin of history all those who dreamed of using nuclear weapons to conquer the wor1d. You, Boris, have the historic, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to put your weapons of mass destruction in history’s dustbin, too.”
Dramatic? Yes, but no more so than the world-shaking events of this last week. This proposal is the only plan that can justify calling on the American taxpayer to donate to the Russians. To give U.S. tax dollars for cheap promises of “reform” or “democracy” or “a free market” would be a colossal cheat on American taxpayers.
