"Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi"

Submitted by Ianus (Poland), Nov 30, 2011 at 14:13

BB King wrote :

> Hi Ianus,How are you? Long time no see.<

Thanks for asking.On the whole I am fine but I wish I had more time to answer adequately opinions I see here.

> Still bashing my country I see.<

Let me clarify one little point. Some of the finest people I have ever met are Americans. Some of the best books I have read were written by Americans. One thing I have learned from them is to distinguish between the US government and Americans.

Hence I will never buy the suggestion that it is fair to can identify America's government with American patriotism or with working for the interests of the nation. I maybe wrong but you seem to do precisely that. Now I prefer to think that your country deserves a much better form of government that today's greedy and egoistic oligarchy that amasses the country's wealth in fewer and fewer hands, ruins the middle class and shamelessly sells American interests and prestige abroad in dubious dealings with every possible despot and gangster, be he a Saudi or a Turk.

> I have just two things to say. First Serbs committed genocide against the Bosnians and the Kosovians. That is why Clinton intervened, because he wanted to save innocent civilians. Are you saying that what the Serbs did was right?<

What I have to say is that first the government of a country that has repeatedly refused to recognize the Armenian genocide mustn't utter the word "genocide" at all as in its mouth it's an insult for the rest of mankind. Second, if still this government were so eager to prevent genocides from happening, why didn't it intervene in Rwanda or South Sudan ? Why is it so selective about which genocides to recognize and which to deny and which to avert ? As to Kosovo why didn't it intervene when the real genocide started with the NATO occupation and mass killings and expulsion of Serbs and destruction of churches and monasteries under the NATO eyes ?

> Second don't forget who liberated your country by helping defeat the Nazis. It was not solely the USSR but the U.S. <

The total German casualties on the Eastern front, up to Dec 31, 1944 were 2,742,909. During the same period of time Germany suffered 339,957 casualties on the western front, i.e. c. 15 %. ( R. Overmans , The German military losses in WWII) . Now how much of these losses can you logically ascribe exclusively to the US army , subtracting those inflicted by the British Empire , De Gaul's French etc ? 10% ? 5% ? Are you really serious about making me believe that 15-10% comes close to 85%?

I wouldn't like to be rude towards you but what you say is very arrogant and unfair, not to call it stealing someone else's victory and distorting clear historical record. As someone on YouTube put it correctly : " The fact is that combined Commonwealth & US forces only ever faced 20% of the Wehrmachts forces, and that was a tough fight they nearly lost. Over 80% of German forces were committed to the Eastern Front at any one time, tied up fighting the Red Army. Think yourselves lucky that you did not have to face the remaining 80% as you would have been wiped out period. These are the facts. The USA was not even in the equation when compared to the Red Army."

> So, why are you being an apologist for the USSR when Stalin invaded Poland along with Hitler and killed innocent Poles?,

The Polish-Russian ( including the Polish-Soviet) relations have a long, twisted c. 1000 year-old history. We happened to invade Russian territories very often, loot Kiev and even captured Moscow imposing a puppet tsarist government there. The Russians did exactly the same later. And yet we Poles have remained Poles, our frontiers are Stalin's frontiers. If we were to follow your logic, we should change the frontiers as well as long as we are sincere in the will to de-Stalinize everything in our country, shouldn't we? The land reform that Stalin carried out has been successfully reversed by the regime imposed here in 1989 and the results -believe me- are disastrous. But we should continue to please our American "liberators" , shouldn't we ?

> Have you forgotten the Katyn Massacre? <

The Russians have recognized the crime and did their best to disclose it. Isn't it enough for you? Those who did it are no longer alive, so whom will you blame and for how long still ? A century? A millenium? And frankly, compared to the deadly ordeals the tsarist officer corps had been through with its almost total extermination after 1917 , the Polish military losses in Katyn look like a minor tragedy.

What is so painful and embarrassing about it is, though, that it all was publicized by the Nazis with a very specific objective in mind and looking at how it is being used now it appears to me that the objective is the same as in April 1943, even though the forces behind it are no longer operating from Berlin.

> If I am not mistaken Lech Wałęsa organized his movement "Solidarity" against the Soviets not the U.S.<

It is hard to say for whom Walesa organized his movement and who gave money for it. One prime minister and his cabinet fell here when they tried to publish the secret documents of the Security Office on him. Walesa's codename was "Bolek" and he was registered as a Security Office's agent recruited years before in connection with a minor theft he had committed. The whole scandal was duly hushed up as it would have revealed also the identities of some 1000 or more Polish priests and bishops who were regulars informers of the Security Office. Then that the CIA were active around him is obvious as well and I think that being a corrupt man through and through chose the side that paid more. Isn't it how his today's vast fortune originated ?

Now I would rather discourage you from mentioning Walesa in positive terms in discussions with Poles. Here he is generally despised and ridiculed as a corrupt and lying pig. His career started as a trade unions activist. The regime he headed disbanded and annihilated the trade unions in Poland. Now you get fired for even mentioning trade unions in a company. I myself had to sign a declaration that I wouldn't join any trade unions before I was employed. My brother wasn't so lucky. He was fired a few years ago because as a veteran of Walesa's "Solidarity" movement he believed he could do what he had done in the 80-ies. Poor and stupid guy !

Walesa started his career in the Gdansk shipyeard. Under his presidency the shipyard was ruined and closed down ! The cleptocratic system (the rule of thieves) initiated under him continues and not a single week passes by without some embezzlement scandals involving millions of zlotys while in the news you hear about more and more evicted families, more unemployed and more poverty and social and cultural degradation and injustice. This is our new brave world 22 years after the big lie called "Solidarity" came to power !

> If Muslims should be grateful to the U.S., for saving them, so should the Poles.<

Do with your Moslems whatever you like , but leave to us Poles the opportunity to choose whom we should be grateful to and whom we should consider liberators and oppressors. Our long historical experience teaches us that all our "liberators" turn out to the wrong ones and the latest candidate - America - alas only confirms this sad experience.

Let me give you one example to illustrate why I and most people here feel so.

On October 24th 2008 in Sopot the following incident took place. On that night some drunken US soldiers from the USS "Hawes" that was stayed in the nearby port of Gdynia, were loitering about the town, accosting passers-by, swearing and acting aggressively. Near the Grand Hotel they approached the taxi area and demanded to be driven to their ship. But nobody wanted to drive them, so they grew angry and started beating a Polish taxi driver they somehow disliked most. Seeing what was happening his colleagues called the police. But on their arrival the police panicked. Arresting American soldiers could bring about an international scandal and throw a false light on the "friendly" Polish-American relations. So they called back for instructions to the Ministry of the Interior and they came quickly. They say after consulting first the US ambassador in Warsaw. The police kindly drove the bandits to their ship for free and they disappeared soon together with their fregate. The taxi driver was taken to the hospital with brain concussion and other injuries while the Polish justice system together with our media hushed up the whole affair carefully not to to anger our 'liberator".The tax driver was officially informed that the investigation had ended for good because his "injuries were not serious enough and the incident was socially negligible".(!!!)

Now imagine what would have happened if the soldiers involved in the unprovoked drunken brawl had not been black US marines but some Russians ? Hell would have been out and it would have provoked a national and international hysteria and crisis. Do you know the Latin saying "Quod licet Iovi non licet bovi" ? I interpret it that being anybody's vassal is always humiliating and no safeguard in the least against getting raped, beaten and abused with impunity by your master or his servants. Or as one Polish commentator put it "We have swapped one occupier for another. So what do you expect ?"

---

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".