"From the video:
Major Garrett: In your speech this morning you said the Cold War reached its conclusion because of the actions of many nations that were made by many nations over many years. Mr. President are the Russian sensitivities so fragile that you can't say that the Cold War was won, the West won it and it was led by a combination of democratic and Republican presidents?
Barack Obama: There were a whole bunch of people around Eastern Europe who showed enormous courage (like the Iranians today?) and... uh, I think that it is very important in this part of the world to acknowledge the degree to which people struggled for their own freedom. We don't have to diminish other people in order to recognize our role in that history."
Update: Ace has more:
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/289449.php
"This was from his speech yesterday in Moscow that was kind of overlooked* but some of it is stunning.
And then, within a few short years, the world as it was ceased to be. Now, make no mistake: This change did not come from any one nation. The Cold War reached a conclusion because of the actions of many nations over many years, and because the people of Russia and Eastern Europe stood up and decided that its end would be peaceful.
That's who ended the Cold War peacefully? Really? Not the generations of Americans who stood watch for decades deterring Soviet expansionism? Not dissidents who rotted in gulags for years keeping the flame of liberty alive during the long winter of communist rule?
It certainly wasn't Ronald Reagan who broke the paradigm which said the Soviet rule was cast in stone, contained perhaps but never to be rolled back.
America...just one of many nations, nothing special.
"
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