I'm always a little confused about what the hell is going on with
Colin Powell. He doesn't seem shifty, he doesn't seem like a neocon, he doesn't seem like a greedy, lying politician.
But then every time you turn around he's crossing his heart and hoping to die if the photos and intercepts of WMDs in Iraq are a lie or doing something else to keep on supporting this lying, cowardly administration we have. I can't fathom his motivations but I can tell you that yesterday he was in Moscow and "wrote" an Op-Ed piece for Izvestia newspaper that completely slams our hopeful ally and is just another sad, sad example of the Bushies putting their fingers in people's eyes for daring to disagree with the "mighty" United States of America.
This excerpt from the proudly displayed posting on the taxpayer funded
State Department website:
Today, as I return again to Russia, I see that the country is still immense, and still very beautiful. I see that the common humanity of the Russian and the American people has triumphed over old differences. Most important, I see that Soviet terror is gone, enabling both sides to cut away at the thick crust of suspicion that characterized our Cold War relationship.
Thirty years ago, Russian and American leaders sat in separate rooms, looked at maps, and saw target sets. Today, Russians and Americans often sit in the same room, look together at maps, and see targets of opportunity for cooperation on common problems.
We do this in our joint efforts to fight terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and as we together fight HIV/AIDS and drug-resistant tuberculosis.
We are friends now, and we can speak frankly to each other as only true friends can.
It is natural that there will be occasions for such frank speaking. Although we share much in common, our histories, cultures, and geographies are different. So we do not agree on all policy questions; but then, no two major nations do.
But as democracy is a work in progress even where it is most mature, so it is a work in progress in Russia. We know that the civic institutions of a democratic society take time to develop, that a nation cannot leap all at once out of its history anymore than a person can leap out of his skin. We know that the path to a democratic future is not a straight or an easy one.
Russia's democratic system seems not yet to have found the essential balance among the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government. Political power is not yet fully tethered to law. Key aspects of civil society - free media and political party development, for example - have not yet sustained an independent presence.
Certain aspects of internal Russian policy in Chechnya, and toward neighbors that emerged from the former Soviet Union, have concerned us, too. We recognize Russia's territorial integrity and its natural interest in lands that abut it. But we recognize no less the sovereign integrity of Russia's neighbors and their rights to peaceful and respectful relations across their borders, as well.
We hope that Russia's path to mature democracy and prosperity is cleared soon of all obstacles. We both have a large stake in that journey, and we trust in its eventual completion. It will take time.
Let's see here, and this is the short analyses of mine, but:
- Putin was elected in a free and fair election and Bush was "elected" in a disputed election, with legal voters barred from voting and his victory being granted by unelected justices with questionable loyalties.
- The recent Duma elections were criticized by the West, mostly because the West's favorite parties such as the SDS did not win a 5% share, but the West never criticized outrageous voting duplicity such as Georgia's 100% electronic voting debacle which miraculously ousted a Democratic governor for the first time in 120 years and a Senator lost after being called not patriotic enough after losing three arms and legs in a war that his country lost outright.
- Perhaps Colin Powell ought to fly down to Guantanamo Bay and ask all the people down there who are not American citizens when they should have reasonably known that aiding and abetting the legal government of their country (the Taliban) was a crime. A crime I might add that is so drastic that it warrants indefinite confinement in legal limbo without access to even a lawyer, much less letters or phone calls or visits from friends and family.
- Russia's actions in Chechnya, which I personally find barbaric, are within their territorial borders and hardly differ than Waco, Texas except in scale. Russia's actions look absolutely miniscule when compared to the United States invading and overthrowing at least one foreign government per year.
An addendum to Powell's visit which is contained in this article
here (sorry it's in Romanian language) is that Powell met with Igor Ivanov (his counterpart in Russia) and demanded that Russia withdraw its troops from both the Rep. of Georgia as well as the Ukraine and Moldova. I might add here that this must be the very, very definition of irony because of the sheer number of countries where the United States has soldiers, weapons and a controlling interest, including several on the borders of Russia itself.
When I find some English language response to the Izvestiya article by the Russian people, I will post it. Regrettably, I don't speak a lick of Russian.
A good analysis from the English-language Russian press is here.
In case you can't guess, the hypocrisy of this just makes my blood boil.