GP Taylor: The Russian bear must be brought in from the cold

Russia was top of the medal board at the Sochi Winter Games in 2014, winning 33 medals, including 13 gold. Two years earlier at the London Games, Russian athletes won 79 medals, including 22 gold.

I do not sympathise with doping and believe that all sports should be clean and drug-free. Enhancing a person’s performance with a drug is clearly cheating. But the sanctions against Russia were totally inappropriate. The International Olympics Committee handled it badly.

Instead of demanding independent drugs tests taken by the IOC, Russian track and field athletes were kicked out of a world competition. Sportsmen and women who have never been associated with doping are being victimised.

Athletes who have never been associated with the issue of doping and who are absolutely clean cannot take part, but many sportsmen like the American runner Justin Gatlin who have served doping bans, have been competing. Surely that is not right? If we are going to ban athletes for taking drugs, then it should be for life.

The problem is that the victimisation of Russia isn’t really about doping. That is just another excuse to stab the great bear and again vilify a country that gave millions of lives to save the world from fascism. It is all part of a long-established campaign to destabilise Russia and have it seen as a pariah state. It is carried out through Western media and the drip, drip, drip of anti-Russian propaganda.

We in the West tend to forget the sacrifice made by Mother Russia in the last World War. Twenty-six million Russians died in the conflict, more than any other nation. Admittedly the Cold War brought a significant chill in our relationship with Russia, but surely things are different after Glasnost? The Iron Curtain has fallen, but some in the West are attempting to pin it back up again.

There seems to be a not-so-hidden agenda that wants to see Russia portrayed as a world villain not to be trusted and certainly not to be seen as a friend. Ronald Reagan did much to soften the conflict between America and Russia. This good work was quickly destroyed by those who followed.

President Clinton violated the promises given to the Russians that Nato would not expand into Eastern Europe. This breach of American promise was followed by the George W Bush regime withdrawing from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. This changed US war doctrine to permit pre-emptive nuclear attack by the US on other countries, principally Russia. It is no wonder that the Russians feel under threat knowing that US missiles are just miles away from their border. Imagine how we would feel if there was a Russian missile base on the Isle of Man.

The Obama regime aided a coup in Ukraine, long a province of Russia, and the establishment of a US-backed government to threaten Russian security. Russia is again under threat. With the expansion of the European superstate, it is no wonder Putin has put up his defences.

Since the United States was founded in 1776, the country has been at war during 214 of its 235 calendar years of existence. In other words, there were only 21 calendar years in which the US did not wage any wars.

In its history, America has invaded 70 nations. According to the American historian William Blum, since 1945, the US has tried to overthrow more than 50 governments, many of them democratically elected; grossly interfered in elections in 30 countries; bombed the civilian populations of 30 countries; used chemical and biological weapons; and attempted to assassinate foreign leaders.

Obama alone has ordered the bombing of seven countries in his six years of office. So much for him being a world peacekeeper. What right has America to tell the world how it should live? Sadly, to achieve real peace, we have to take a step back from the policy of Western expansionism. The days of empire are over and America and, to some extent, Britain have to try to make friends and not enemies. There is a very real threat to peace in the world and it certainly isn’t Russia.

It is time to bring Russia in from the cold as a trading partner, cultural friend and 
an ally in the fight against 
radical Islam. Banning such 
a country from the Olympic Games only serves to instil a sense of Us V Them in the national psyche.

It is sad that in times like these the world cannot forge links with those it does not agree with and find the common ground to turn enemies into friends.

GP Taylor is a writer and broadcaster and can be followed @GPTaylorauthor.