The partying associated with the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall is overshadowing an emergence of “evil” sponsored by Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and other anti-democracy groups, according to a leading champion of Russian freedom, Garry Kasparov.
The Russian chess champ turned anti-Putin advocate plans to warn in a highly anticipated speech Thursday that anti-democracy efforts are taking root “like a weed” throughout the world and right under the complacent noses of those like Washington who thought the fall of the wall ended the Cold War.
“Victory in the Cold War was a glorious event in the history of mankind. But evil did not die with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Like a weed, evil grows in the cracks and waits for a new opportunity to flourish,” Kasparov plans to say Thursday at Atlas Network’s Liberty Forum and Freedom Dinner in New York. He is the 2014 Templeton Leadership Fellow.
“We must remember the lessons of the Cold War in order to prevent another one. The Cold War was won not just due to superior Western technology and the stagnant Soviet economy. It was won because the people of the free world and their leaders fought and sacrificed for the freedom of others,” he said in excerpts provided exclusively to Washington Secrets.
His speech comes as tense U.S.-Russian relations are on stage at an international leadership conference in China and as President Obama is trying to use economic sanctions to push Putin to pull troops back from Ukraine, which the Kremlin leader has shrugged off.
Kasparov provided some themes to his Thursday speech. For example, he said that he will speak on “why the free world has forgotten how to stand up to enemies of democracy like Vladimir Putin and [the Islamic State].”
Also, he believes that the U.S. and Europe has “sapped our will to fight” and that “the Obama administration and most of Europe spent years pretending Putin was an ally, if not a friend. Like all dictators, he exploited this opportunity and now shows his true colors.”
Kasparov formed the United Civil Front to challenge Putin and said that the world must keep fighting anti-democracy efforts. “We are all safer and more prosperous when evil is defeated,” he said in the quotes sent to Secrets.
“The Berlin Wall was a powerful symbol as well as a real division. It separated free from the unfree. Today we don’t have such clear symbols. We have stateless terror networks and regimes in Russia, Iran and Venezuela, for example, where they enjoy all the benefits of globalization and access to rich free world markets. We must find a way to form a strong global coalition once more, to stand up for our values and defend them against our enemies,” he added.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
