Spotlight on Russia

Is the Cold War really over, or are we just in a decades-long lull? The war on terrorism, the Presidential election and Brangelina's twins are in the limelight, while Vladimir Putin sneaks under the media radar.

Yesterday Reuters reported that Vladimir Putin expressed his wish to go back to Cuba. This should give Americans pause.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Monday said it was time for Russia to rebuild links with former Cold War ally Cuba, news agencies reported.

The Kremlin is angry at U.S. plans for a missile defence system in Eastern Europe, and last month a news report suggested Russia might use Cuba, a thorn in America's side for half a century, as a refueling stop for nuclear-capable bombers.

If that isn't enough to give you pause, Daniel Silva's op-ed Comrade Lenin: Alive and Well should. Mr. Silva travelled to Moscow last year researching his novel Moscow Rules. He observed the statues, memorabilia, street names and other monuments to the murderous thug Vladimir Lenin. It's downright creepy.

Silva imagines the outrage that would be expressed if there were such monuments to Adolf Hitler remaining in Germany. It would be ridiculous. So why aren't we in the West indignant over the Lenin love-fest going on in Russia?

During the Cold War, many of the opinion leaders in Western Europe—the academics, the essayists and novelists, the campaigners for peace and human rights—were too often willing to overlook the Soviet Union’s inexhaustible list of crimes against humanity because they were adherents of Marxist-Leninist bilge themselves. Lenin was to be forgiven his sins because, in their eyes, his cause was just. As for Stalin, yes, he was a monster, but he was also a hero, the man who single-handedly fought Nazi Germany to a stalemate until the American and British could join the fight. Many conveniently overlook the fact that, by agreeing to the infamous Non-Aggression Pact with Hitler in 1939, Stalin was the one who made the Second World War possible in the first place.

He goes on to spell out how Vladimir Putin is a product of the KGB and the Party, reminding of a 2005 speech in which Putin described the collapse of the Soviet Union as "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century."

Russia is amassing an oil fortune while talking about rekindling their relationship with Cuba. The American people are funding them because we aren't extracting our own resources. In the meantime Congress is on vacation.