Kremlin Crackdown in Lithuania

As the Soviet Army again invades the sovereign republic of Lithuania on what amounts to a slave-raiding expedition to fill its brutalized ranks, it becomes clear that the still-powerful forces of reaction in the Soviet Union are attempting to stage a comeback. There is an eerie historical echo in all this: The similar impressment of American citizens into the British navy was a major cause of our own War of 1812. Yet in regard to the Baltics, the American media unconscionably use the derogatory and slanderous terms “draft dodgers” and “deserters” to describe innocent victims of a savagely repressive military system, and the Bush Administration has responded to this unprovoked aggression with nothing more than a whimper.

The Persian Gulf hysteria has provided a golden opportunity for the Soviet military-industrial-security complex to make its ominous power grab while the West is fixated on what is ultimately a far less crucial issue for the United States and the world. How ironic that old-line cold warrior George Bush is playing into the hands of his former adversaries and actually helping the neo-Stalinists to launch a counteroffensive against democracy.

GILBERT DEWART, Pasadena