Speaking of Cheney ...
I remembered that I saw a brief item on Cheney recently, which turns out to have been a portion of a preview of this whole little overseas trip with a massive focus on Russia. I hadn't heard of the Adriatic Charter before, which of course has bipartisan support in Congress. (Note the explicit, blatantly captured imperial bribe in that last document concerning relocating overseas military bases to Albania. The Adriatic Charter conveniently serves a dual purpose: expanding American influence in the former Soviet sphere and further isolating Serbia.)
It's yet another one of those below-the-radar expansions of the pax Americana; NATO has become a sort of soft reverse Iron Curtain, turning back across Europe toward Russia in a moving line of economic exclusion, absorbing former Warsaw Pact and Soviet Socialist Republics and causing Russia encirclement anxiety. (The Russian press is speaking of Cheney as a latter-day Churchill, demarcating with this speech the launch of a new Cold War.) Expanding NATO's membership to include nearly all of Europe helps neutralize a huge swath of nations' foreign policy toward an increasingly renegade United States by allying with them militarily, and the countries want it because it is very much a lever for entrance to other treaties such as the EU, the WTO, etc.
It all bodes well for the Security Council talks on Iran, donchathink. Russia and China have been stubbornly recalcitrant up to this point about passing a resolution under Chapter 7, which would authorize follow-up punitive action. The two-headed Presidency decides to pursue a foreign policy trip that aggressively targets Russia, attempting to extend and consolidate past injury to its prosperity and prestige and continuing to lay the groundwork for future military threat, jeopardizing an important upcoming G8 summit in St. Petersburg. What possible happy outcome is there in this scenario?
While searching around for links to the stuff I'd seen, I found this nugget from CBS that really wraps it all up in a nice small Orwellian package. American news isn't that bad if you read it right.
This guy really broke the mold of his office, hasn't he? No other Vice President has been co-sovereign. What a fig leaf this request is. "President Bush asked Vice President Cheney ...."
It's yet another one of those below-the-radar expansions of the pax Americana; NATO has become a sort of soft reverse Iron Curtain, turning back across Europe toward Russia in a moving line of economic exclusion, absorbing former Warsaw Pact and Soviet Socialist Republics and causing Russia encirclement anxiety. (The Russian press is speaking of Cheney as a latter-day Churchill, demarcating with this speech the launch of a new Cold War.) Expanding NATO's membership to include nearly all of Europe helps neutralize a huge swath of nations' foreign policy toward an increasingly renegade United States by allying with them militarily, and the countries want it because it is very much a lever for entrance to other treaties such as the EU, the WTO, etc.
It all bodes well for the Security Council talks on Iran, donchathink. Russia and China have been stubbornly recalcitrant up to this point about passing a resolution under Chapter 7, which would authorize follow-up punitive action. The two-headed Presidency decides to pursue a foreign policy trip that aggressively targets Russia, attempting to extend and consolidate past injury to its prosperity and prestige and continuing to lay the groundwork for future military threat, jeopardizing an important upcoming G8 summit in St. Petersburg. What possible happy outcome is there in this scenario?
While searching around for links to the stuff I'd seen, I found this nugget from CBS that really wraps it all up in a nice small Orwellian package. American news isn't that bad if you read it right.
This guy really broke the mold of his office, hasn't he? No other Vice President has been co-sovereign. What a fig leaf this request is. "President Bush asked Vice President Cheney ...."
posted by Blake at 12:01 AM
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