[показать]From:"Serguei Alex. Oushakine" <oushakin@princeton.edu> To:"genis" <kcgs_discussions@kcgs.org.ua>
Subject:[GS_DISC:] STEPHEN F. COHEN: The New American Cold War (The Nation)
Date:Fri, 30 Jun 2006 15:24:33 -0400
The New American Cold War by STEPHEN F. COHEN [from the July 10, 2006 issue]
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060710/cohen

...when NATO expands to Russia's front and back doorsteps, gobbling up former Soviet-bloc members and republics, it is "fighting terrorism" and "protecting new states"; when Moscow protests, it is engaging in "cold war thinking." When Washington meddles in the politics of Georgia and Ukraine, it is "promoting democracy"; when the Kremlin does so, it is "neoimperialism." And not to forget the historical background: When in the 1990s the US-supported Yeltsin overthrew Russia's elected Parliament and Constitutional Court by force, gave its national wealth and television networks to Kremlin insiders, imposed a constitution without real constraints on executive power and rigged elections, it was "democratic reform"; when Putin continues that process, it is "authoritarianism."...

...
As a Eurasian state with 20-25 million Muslim citizens of its own and with
Iran one of its few neighbors not being recruited by NATO, for example, Russia can ill afford to be drawn into Washington's expanding conflict with the Islamic world, whether in Iran or Iraq. Similarly, by demanding that Moscow vacate its traditional political and military positions in former Soviet republics so the United States and NATO can occupy them--and even subsidize Ukraine's defection with cheap gas--Washington is saying that Russia not only has no Monroe doctrine-like rights in its own neighborhood but no legitimate security rights at all. Not surprisingly, such flagrant double standards have convinced the Kremlin that Washington has become more belligerent since Yeltsin's departure simply "because Russian policy has become more pro-Russian."

...