| Title | Yalta Agreement |
| Category | History |
| Article | From the article: "Bush: U.S. Had Hand in European Divisions" by TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent (7 May 2005)
Second-guessing Franklin D. Roosevelt, President Bush said Saturday the United States played a role in Europe's painful division after World War II — a decision that helped cause "one of the greatest wrongs of history" when the Soviet Union imposed its harsh rule across Central and Eastern Europe.
"We will not repeat the mistakes of other generations, appeasing or excusing tyranny, and sacrificing freedom in the vain pursuit of stability," the president said.
"We have learned our lesson; no one's liberty is expendable. In the long run, our security and true stability depend on the freedom of others."
While history does not hide the U.S. role in Europe's division, American presidents have found little reason to discuss it before Bush's speech.
"Certainly it goes further than any president has gone," historian Alan Brinkley said from the U.S. "This has been a very common view of the far right for many years — that Yalta was a betrayal of freedom, that Roosevelt betrayed the hopes of generations."
Bush said the Yalta agreement, also signed by Britain's Winston Churchill and the Soviet Union's Joseph Stalin, followed in the "unjust tradition" of other infamous war pacts that carved up the continent and left millions in oppression. The Yalta accord gave Stalin control of the whole of Eastern Europe, leading to criticism that Roosevelt had delivered millions of people to communist domination.
"Once again, when powerful governments negotiated, the freedom of small nations was somehow expendable," the president said. "Yet this attempt to sacrifice freedom for the sake of stability left a continent divided and unstable."
Bush said the United States and its allies eventually recognized they could not be satisfied with the liberation of half of Europe and decided "we would not forget our friends behind an Iron Curtain."
"Secret deals to determine somebody else's fate — I think that's what we're lamenting here today, one of those secret deals among large powers that consigns people to a way of government," Bush said.
Read the full article at: http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050508/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush |
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| Title | What have the Americans ever done for us?
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| Category | History |
| Article | From the article: "Monty Python and the spirit of inquiry", by Stephen Evans - BBC correspondent.
""
About this time of year, I always think of the Monty Python film, "The Life of Brian".
You may remember that in it, a rabble-rousing, anti-imperialist agitator (by the name of Reg) asks a crowd, "What ha |
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| Title | Religious Restrictions or Religious Censorship? |
| Category | Society & Culture |
| Article | From the article: "Religious Restrictions or Religious Censorship?"
"Burning the flag is considered free speech; erecting crosses as roadside memorials is not."
"The FCC allows the "F-word" on television, but thanking God at a high school graduation is a no-no."
"And some schools freely dispense |
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| Title | Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda. |
| Category | Government & Politics |
| Article |
From the article:
From the article: Genocide book reveals West's failure (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/h |
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| Title | It Is The Soldier |
| Category | Arts & Entertainment |
| Article | "It is the Soldier, not the reporter,
Who has given us Freedom of the Press.
It is the Soldier, not the poet,
Who has given us Freedom of Speech.
It is the Soldier, not the campus organizer,
Who has given us the Freedom to demonstrate.
It is the Soldier, not the lawyer,
Who h |
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| Title | Ode to America - the Power of Freedom |
| Category | Government & Politics |
| Article |
- An ode to America
- by Cornel Nistorescu
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