"I refer... to Russia's intimidation of its sovereign neighbours, its use of oil and gas as a political weapon... its threat to target peaceful neighbours with nuclear weapons... and its persecution - or worse - of Russian journalists and dissidents." Thus spake Condoleeeza yesterday, in a speech evidently attended by people who've been living in Western Sahara or the Papuan rain forest for the past 8 years - anyplace bereft of world news feeds. She went on to add, "What has become clear is that the legitimate goal of rebuilding Russia has taken a dark turn - with the rollback of personal freedoms, the arbitrary enforcement of the law [and] the pervasive corruption at various levels of Russian society." One also has to assume that no one in attendance recently spent a week in St.Paul-Minneapolis, where US cops arrested hundreds of political demonstrators along with more than a few journalists.
It seems like a waste of time to deconstruct these remarks, so i'll just note that under Condi's watch, the US has built a wall along its border with Mexico, tried to overthrow the sovereign govt of Venezuela and the democratically elected govt of Palestine (and recently Bolivia as well - or so it appears), succeeded in overthrowing Aristide in Haiti, Saddam in Iraq and the Taliban govt in Afghanistan, maintained its support for Karimov in Uzbekistan - the list of dark turns is long and, after eight years, feels too tedious to type out. i might add that these only touch on the international-level hypocrisy in her speech; when we look at what's gone on inside the US' borders, it just gets more hypocritical - shamefully so. This kind of rhetoric makes americans look like total idiots to the rest of the world; it's no small wonder that Putin's grin won't go away and NATO heads of state are counting the days till Condi & C0. pack up their rolodexes and return to their old jobs in the corporate sector.
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