Blundering Bush
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Blundering Bush
Charlie Reese
May 20, 2005
Charlie Reese
May 20, 2005
It's too bad the president cannot tell the difference between a foreign diplomatic trip and a domestic-campaign photo opportunity. He continues to demonstrate that he is dangerously inept when it comes to foreign policy.
There is only one country in Europe that is vital to U.S. security. That country is Russia. It might not be a superpower measured by its gross domestic product, but it remains a superpower measured by its strategic nuclear forces. The president had an opportunity to further good relations with Russia when he was invited to Moscow to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II.
But what does he do? He stops in the Baltic States and, after visiting Moscow, goes to Georgia, where he blathers on about democracy in ways that are insulting to Russia. It was stupid. It was the equivalent of Russian President Vladimir Putin sandwiching a visit to the U.S. with stopovers in Canada and Mexico, where he would makes speeches insulting to the U.S. Naturally, Putin has more sense than that.
The Baltic States are so small they are insignificant. Yes, they were occupied by the Soviet Union. So what? If, God forbid, there is ever a war with Russia, they will be occupied again in about one day. They are to Russia what Kuwait is to Iraq too small and too powerless to play any kind of strategic role. As for Georgia, the birthplace of Josef Stalin, it is neither democratic nor strategically significant. What Mr. Bush is hailing as a democratic victory is one election, after which the new president quickly and undemocratically consolidated nearly all of the power in his own office.
The United States will get nowhere lecturing Russia on democracy, especially when it uses specious arguments and deliberately avoids looking at Russia's problems realistically. Putin has not clamped down on a free press. Russia didn't have a free press. The same oligarchs who stole 85 percent of the country's wealth also took control of the media. The Russians were not getting objective news. They were getting the propaganda the oligarchs wanted them to get.
If these oligarchs were patriots instead of thieves, why have they fled the country? Five have taken up residence in Israel. Others are in Europe, and a lot of the anti-Putin propaganda in the West likely can be traced back to these robber barons. Russia wants many of them for suspected economic crimes.
Much of our own media is controlled by oligarchs, too, only the U.S. doesn't have the guts to deal with them. As for changing the law to appoint governors, Putin probably wants to make sure all of the government is on the same page and not on the payroll of oligarchs who want a government they can control and that won't interfere with their plundering of the country's natural resources.
Putin has a tremendous task ahead of him. The collapse of the Soviet Union as a catastrophe. In the rubble, the money system went kaput, and crooks using bribes grabbed off most of the country's wealth, which properly belongs to the people. Corruption and crime are rampant. It's going to require a strong hand to put the country back together again.
There is only one country in Europe that is vital to U.S. security. That country is Russia. It might not be a superpower measured by its gross domestic product, but it remains a superpower measured by its strategic nuclear forces. The president had an opportunity to further good relations with Russia when he was invited to Moscow to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II.
But what does he do? He stops in the Baltic States and, after visiting Moscow, goes to Georgia, where he blathers on about democracy in ways that are insulting to Russia. It was stupid. It was the equivalent of Russian President Vladimir Putin sandwiching a visit to the U.S. with stopovers in Canada and Mexico, where he would makes speeches insulting to the U.S. Naturally, Putin has more sense than that.
The Baltic States are so small they are insignificant. Yes, they were occupied by the Soviet Union. So what? If, God forbid, there is ever a war with Russia, they will be occupied again in about one day. They are to Russia what Kuwait is to Iraq too small and too powerless to play any kind of strategic role. As for Georgia, the birthplace of Josef Stalin, it is neither democratic nor strategically significant. What Mr. Bush is hailing as a democratic victory is one election, after which the new president quickly and undemocratically consolidated nearly all of the power in his own office.
The United States will get nowhere lecturing Russia on democracy, especially when it uses specious arguments and deliberately avoids looking at Russia's problems realistically. Putin has not clamped down on a free press. Russia didn't have a free press. The same oligarchs who stole 85 percent of the country's wealth also took control of the media. The Russians were not getting objective news. They were getting the propaganda the oligarchs wanted them to get.
If these oligarchs were patriots instead of thieves, why have they fled the country? Five have taken up residence in Israel. Others are in Europe, and a lot of the anti-Putin propaganda in the West likely can be traced back to these robber barons. Russia wants many of them for suspected economic crimes.
Much of our own media is controlled by oligarchs, too, only the U.S. doesn't have the guts to deal with them. As for changing the law to appoint governors, Putin probably wants to make sure all of the government is on the same page and not on the payroll of oligarchs who want a government they can control and that won't interfere with their plundering of the country's natural resources.
Putin has a tremendous task ahead of him. The collapse of the Soviet Union as a catastrophe. In the rubble, the money system went kaput, and crooks using bribes grabbed off most of the country's wealth, which properly belongs to the people. Corruption and crime are rampant. It's going to require a strong hand to put the country back together again.
The United States should be encouraging Putin and offering help instead of criticism. All of this yapping about Putin turning away from capitalism and democracy is just so much robber-baron bull. All it does is alienate the Russian people and cut the ground out from under the Russians in government who do want to establish a democratic country.
Helping Russia to join the democratic West is the singlemost important foreign-policy goal the U.S. ought to have. Instead, the Bush administration, with its superficial and uninformed grandstanding, is likely to accomplish the opposite.
When China went communist, there was a big political battle in the U.S. over the question of "Who lost China?" If it ever gets to the point where people are arguing about "Who lost Russia?" the answer will be quite clear: George W. Bush, the most inept foreign-policy president in U.S. history.
© 2005 by King Features Syndicate, Inc.
posted by Kevin @ 5:22 PM
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