From Russia, With Love...

When (if ever) will this ridiculous neoconservative administration start to realize that this country no longer wields anywhere near as much clout it did, say, six years ago?

http://select.nytimes.com/2007/04/24/opinion/24wright.html

I guess Richard Wright does a more than adequate job of addressing this contemplation, so I will simply have to digress slightly:

I posed the quasi-rhetorical question above because the US is once again ruffling feathers in Eastern Europe by proposing a new missile defense system, not in any way intended to remind us of the good old Cold War days I’m sure, to have bases constructed in Poland and the Czech Republic.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/24/world/europe/24gates.html?ref=world

What is Defense Secretary Gates and co. going to propose next? “Let’s see if we can’t send a man to the moon!”

Why must these people be so fatally stuck in the past? “Let’s re-invade Cuba! Surely we’ll get rid of Castro this time!”

America cannot afford to keep pissing off allies or even countries slightly less than allied. Take Russia for example, who is not entirely happy with our most recent “let’s forget the past and be BFF!” For better or for worse, Russia has rebounded extremely well from the chaos ensued after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989. The passing of former President Boris Yeltsen is symbolic in that he got the ball rolling to help bring Russia where it is today. While his rule was a rather tumultuous one, marked by a great deal of uncertainty as to whether or not democracy could/would work in a post-communist state. This question actually still remains as signs of a return to its iron-fisted ways of the past are certainly manifested in ex-KGB operative, President Vladimir Putin.

Whenever a former leader passes, it inevitably evokes memories and reflections on the time said leader ruled, but the Bush administration obviously cannot get it through their ever so thick skulls that times have changed and Russia is no longer some charity case. I realize Bush ‘looked into [Putin’s] eyes’ or whatever and thought he saw good and decency, but we all should know by now how outstanding a judge of character he is.

“I don’t recall…”