Yesterday was a momentous occasion in the tiny Baltic nation of Latvia – as well as in her sister states of Lithuania and Estonia. American President George W. Bush brought to the attention of the world the suffering of these three Eastern European nations under Soviet/Russian domination. Speaking in Riga, Latvia’s main port and capital, Bush recognized what few have known, and what many leftists have tried to erase from history: that hundreds of thousands of Balts were murdered by Soviet/Russian troops at the end of World War II; that the three countries were brutally occupied by the Soviet regime for 50 years; and, that the Baltic peoples’ aspiration for independence was actively and violently silenced by the Soviet occupiers from 1944 to 1990.

While meeting yesterday with the presidents of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, Mr. Bush recognized "a long vigil of suffering and hope" and the "occupation and communist oppression" the Baltic peoples experienced from 1944 to 1990 under Soviet rule – a time he described as "one of the greatest wrongs of history." For the first time, “mainstream” news organizations like CNN used the term “occupation” to describe Soviet domination of the Baltic nations. The Washington Post allowed Latvia’s president to publish an editorial piece highlighting Russia’s illegal occupation of the Baltic.

While history was being set right in Riga, it was again being rewritten in Moscow. Russian President Vladimir Putin protested against Mr. Bush’s visit to Latvia, claiming that, “Our people not only defended their homeland, they liberated 11 European countries,” referring to the Soviet army’s help in defeating the Nazis in World War II. While Putin is correct in stating that Russian troops helped the Allies to defeat Hitler, he failed to mention that those same Soviet forces remained as an occupying force in Eastern Europe for 50 years.

While the evil of Hitler was defeated, the evil of the Soviet Union under the rule of Joseph Stalin was allowed to continue. After the end of the war, Stalin and subsequent Soviet rulers murdered and subjugated millions of peoples, from Eastern Europe to Russia, to Siberia, and throughout Central Asia. As millions suffered under Soviet rule for decades, many “liberals” and “leftists” tried to rationalize this imperialism with euphemisms like, “The ends justify the means.”

Note that many observers felt that the Russian presidential elections held last year, which Putin won, “failed to meet democratic standards.” We must not forget that Russian President Putin was once a cog in the Soviet machine of repression, the fearsome KGB. Putin spent 17 years working for the KGB, one of the largest and most brutal “security services” in world history – the organization responsible for holding down the millions of people who suffered under Soviet communism. Putin has surrounded himself with other former KGB goons, so in the Kremlin nowadays, “influence stems from the former Soviet organs of repression.”

President Putin and his KGB friends yearn for the days when the Soviet/Russian empire sprawled from the borders of Western Europe to the Pacific Ocean. These neo-imperialists dream of a “greater Russia” just as Hitler dreamed of a world dominated by Nazism. Their dream will never come to pass.

The former Soviet “republics,” like Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and former Soviet “satellite states,” like Romania and the Ukraine, are now free. People in these countries are finally enjoying democracy and free, capitalist economies. These new democracies are now or soon-to-be NATO and EU members. They will not give up their new-found freedoms. The U.S. and Western Europe are now bound to defend these nations from Russian aggression. President Bush’s visit to Riga sent a clear message to Russia: Eastern Europe is now free and officially recognized by America, the leader of the free world.