This week end, Vladimir Putin said a number of things that most of us here on ET would consider basic truths. He said it to the people that need to hear it, i.e. the political-military leadership of the Atlantic Alliance.
The result? Not only was he demonized, as one would have expected from the recipients of that criticism, but what he said was brushed aside and ignored - and made to appear absurd because of who said it.
Yet another demonstration of how our "common wisdom" is controlled and how the mass media, and most people in their wake, swallow that "wisdom" uncritically.
Via the New York Times
The world, he said, is now unipolar: "One single center of power. One single center of force. One single center of decision making. This is the world of one master, one sovereign."
(...)
"It has nothing in common with democracy, of course," he added. "Today we are witnessing an almost uncontained hyper use of force in international relations — military force."
"Primarily the United States has overstepped its national borders, and in every area," said Mr. Putin
(...)
American military actions, which he termed "unilateral" and "illegitimate," also "have not been able to resolve any matters at all," and, he said, have created only more instability and danger.
"They bring us to the abyss of one conflict after another," he said. "Political solutions are becoming impossible."
More via the Financial Times
He added: "We don’t have enough force to resolve anything comprehensively." He said that only the United Nations – not Nato or the European Union - could authorise the use of military force around the world, and even then it should be as a last resort.
(...)
Mr Putin said Russia’s decision to deploy new Topol M long range missiles in Russia were to ensure that Moscow’s nuclear deterrent remained potent in the face of more developed US missile defences.
"If you say that your ABM system is not directed at us, our missiles are not aimed at you," he said.
How this is controversial, I fail to see. The pretty explicit doctrine of the USA (and not just of this administration) is to maintain absolute military superiority over all rivals. "Carry a big stick and speak softly" is almost a century old. Europe is being mocked for having no "hard power". In recent years, that has been exacerbated to an unprecedented degree, and the "big stick" bit has very obviously taken over the "speak softly."
And the description of the military action in Iraq is the best summary you can see.
- Illegitimate. Check.
- Creating instability and danger. Check.
- One conflict after another. Check.
- No political solution. Check.
NATO provides no international legitimacy for military action. Built as a permanent "coalition of the willing" against the Soviet Union, it has been seeking a role for the past 15 years and increasingly looks like the White House's Very Own Foreign Mercenaries, mobilised only for US-directed military adventures.
And star wars... Let's not even go there. If it's not aggressive, defensive measures against it are not either, by definition.
:: ::
Thus a prominent international leader, who was not so long ago a friend of the Bush administration, has made the "War on Terror" his, who has had a close relationship with the Germans and the French. and he tells the simple truths everybody knows but that nobody dares say to the runaway administration in the White House. You'd expect maybe some gratitude for taking over this hard job?
Nope.
But if Mr Putin expected to expose the splits in Nato, his truculent performance had the opposite effect. For the first time in at least a decade, the senior politicians, diplomats and defence ministers of the 26 Nato allies managed to close ranks against a common enemy. It was almost a relief to have a good old-fashioned Russian bogey-man to bash.
Mr. McCain then hit back at Mr. Putin more directly. "Will Russia’s autocratic turn become more pronounced, its foreign policy more opposed to the principles of the Western democracies and its energy policy used as a tool of intimidation?" he asked. "Moscow must understand that it cannot enjoy a genuine partnership with the West so long as its actions, at home and abroad, conflict fundamentally with the core values of the Euro-Atlantic democracies."
Replace Russia by the US, and Moscow by Washington, and you have a good question. How is the war of agression in Iraq compatible with "the core values of the Euro-Atlantic democracies"? How is Guantanamo comatible with "the core values of the Euro-Atlantic democracies"? How is the support for the oil regimes of Azerbaijan, Saudia Arabia or Libya compatile with "the core values of the Euro-Atlantic democracies?
Mr. Gates chose words of velvet, not steel, in offering Washington’s fullest response. As Mr. Putin had, he invoked the cold war more than once.
"As an old cold warrior, one of yesterday’s speeches almost filled me with nostalgia for a less complex time," he said. "Almost."
(...)
"And, I guess, old spies have a habit of blunt speaking," Mr. Gates said. "However, I have been to re-education camp — spending four and half years as a university president and dealing with faculty." His remark drew laughs and applause.
What's so depressing is not that McCain and Gates would reply as they did - after all, they are all out hawks, and having Russia identified as an enemy is mentally simple, convenient, and a useful distraction from the very issues raised by Putin.
But that European leaders fall for that tribal tripe, and that the media so compliantly relay that viewpoint as obvious and natural, without actually looking at what is said, is still breathtaking.
And that's where we see that the "softening" of public opinion of the past 2 years has borne fruit. Putin is now officially - if not an enemy, at least a worrying powerful adversary, and thus his words can be discounted.
We've documented this extensively over the past year, at least, here on ET. The new gas war, a diary posted last April, summarises what happened last spring, when the anti-Putin machine, led by Cheney and Blair, kicked into full gear. It's become a steady drum over the past months, with the rivalry with Russia overshadowing other issues in recent G-8 and European Union meetings, and Russia's "unfair" use of the "energy weapon" being lambasted in every publication, without consideration for the not unreasonable arguments brought forward by Russia.
No critical thinking in our media. The mindless repetition of the arguments spun upon us repeatedly by our leaders - even as we know they've lied shamelessly to us in the past. And we end up with another bogeyman, whose arguments do not even need to be listened to - they are just published to give us an opportunity to say "how wild"! while sucking up to our Dear Leaders who contemptuously dismiss, again, the truth. And as they are stated by Evil People, they must be false, right?
We are acting fundamentally in line with the core values of the Euro-Atlantic democracies.
We are not nostalgic for the Cold War age with its clearly identifable enemy, its easy certainties and its comfortable budgets.
Repeat again:
We are acting fundamentally in line with the core values of the Euro-Atlantic democracies.
We are not nostalgic for the Cold War age with its clearly identifable enemy, its easy certainties and its comfortable budgets.
Yes.
We are acting fundamentally in line with the core values of the Euro-Atlantic democracies.
There. Easy, isn't it?