Never have so many been so damaged by the insanely stupid actions of so few (David Michael Green)

[kpete]

My Army Went To Iraq And All I Got Was This Lousy Airlift: The Bush Doctrine Meets Reality. Reality Wins.

Hey, guess who's got a whole ocean of oil at their disposal? Guess which country is growing rich and powerful because of that? Guess who is able to throw its political weight around based on this economic power?

by David Michael Green | August 15, 2008 - 9:38am

......................

........... How is it, by the by, that Russia went from being a former superpower on the way toward becoming a third world country - so severely flattened that the very life span of its citizens had decreased by some ten years or so - to now racing back toward becoming a global great power again, and a very pissed off one at that? Well, one good explanation would certainly have to do with how the US reacted as the country was imploding in the 1990s. Rather than reaching out with Marshall Plan type assistance, we sent an army of right-wing economists instead, who advised privatizing everything in sight. Which they largely did, and largely to disastrous consequences. One of Putin's achievements has been to regain the primacy of the state, and bring the hammer down on the latter-day robber barons who were formerly carting it off, piece by petro piece. In doing so, he has restored a measure of Russian dignity following the humiliation of the triumphalist US fire-sale treatment, and along with that comes no small degree of national pride at humbling exploitive and supremely arrogant Americans.

................

If you were wondering a week ago how the buffoons in charge of American foreign policy could possibly screw it up any worse than they already had, now you know. If you were pondering whether the results of America's invasion of Iraq could conceivably get more disastrous than they have been for the last five and a half years, look no further.

For the neocon fantasy has now not only wrecked Iraq and wrecked America and wrecked US relations with longtime allies and destroyed the reputation of America abroad. It has also torn a gaping hole in the power and significance of international law and the hopeful notion that wars of territorial acquisition were a thing of the past. And it opened the door for the Russians to do precisely the same thing, further exacerbating those tendencies. The post-Cold War moment of hopefulness regarding a more peaceful world has now been crushed, and it wasn't the supposed black hats who originally kicked down that door. It was us nice, peace-loving, god-fearing, law-abiding folks here in good old 'Murica who did it.

With apologies to Churchill (who owes an apology or two of his own), it may be said of our time, and of the those in charge of running the world's only superpower, that never have so many been so damaged by the insanely stupid actions of so few.

more at:
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/16493

[malaise]

1. Profound

idiotic neocon commentators - the same people, mind you, who brought us the Iraq debacle - are already haplessly foaming at the mouth about Russian aggression in the Caucuses, demonstrating as always, but now more emphatically than ever, how irony and hypocrisy coexist so comfortably in the (puffed out) regressive chest.

[MadrasT]

2. Damn.

"The post-Cold War moment of hopefulness regarding a more peaceful world has now been crushed."

That says it all. :cry: