Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Tables Turned

By Cernig

It's a measure of just how much damage Bush and the neocons have done to America's reputation that a Russian general can say stuff like this and the world doesn't automatically laugh in his face:
Yury Baluyevsky, the chief of Russia's general staff, said in an interview with the Russia Today TV channel on Tuesday that the Russian Armed Forces were under no obligation to protect the world from the U.S. Answering a question as to whether or not the world could count on Russia to defend it from "insidious American plans," Baluyevsky replied, "Today, there is no need to be afraid of the Russian Armed Forces. However, I do not believe that the Russian military is obliged to defend the world from the evil Americans".
The world should laugh, but it doesn't. Even Anne Applebaum admits that America's prestige has suffered a massive blow - although Kevin notes that the reason she's upset by the Iraqi misadventure and America's diminished credibility is that it makes it less likely that anyone will support U.S. military action against Iran.

It's exactly that kind of non-thinking by bush and his neocon WormTongues that has managed to posthumously deprive Reagan of his Cold War PR victory and hand it to Putin's Russia instead. When the current crop of Republican presidential candidates are, at one and the same time, treating Bush as a messianic figure who has done no wrong and each trying to claim Reagan's reputation for themselves, could someone please point out that the two are mutually exclusive?

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