From ABC News:
Oct 13, 2006 — BERLIN (Reuters) – Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, who played a key role in ending the Cold War, said the United States had squandered an opportunity to improve global politics after the Cold War, a paper said on Friday.
I’m not entirely sure that he played such a key role in ending the Cold War, unless you accept the fact that he bungled the last chances the Soviet Union had at staying together as the Soviet Union.
OK, Mr. Gorbachev….let’s give you that one. In the meantime, what were YOU doing to help out and "improve global politics"? Not much is coming to mind….ummm….nope, not a thing.
It is so easy to throw stones, isn’t it?
In comments that were among the harshest he has made about the United States, Gorbachev compared U.S. foreign policy to one of the deadliest diseases on the planet — AIDS.
"Today our American friends are suffering from an illness worse than AIDS. And I would say this is the victor’s complex," Gorbachev was quoted as saying in an interview with the Netzzeitung.
At least he got the name right: VICTOR’ complex. As opposed to "runner up" or second place, which the instructors at the Navy SEALS Buds training call "first losers".
Unable to extricate itself from its Cold War mentality, the United States was playing a dwindling role in world politics, while Russia, China, Brazil, Europe, India and Japan were becoming stronger, Gorbachev said.
Only in relative terms could this assertion ever be held true. Nothing ever stays the same and the scores of nations "at the top" are always swapping spots…..
North Korea, which said on Monday it had successfully completed a nuclear test, was an example. Only China and Russia were in a position to handle Pyongyang, he said.
Well, if the US had chosen to act like the old Soviet State did with respect to its former satellite states, we most certainly could have – just nuked them. Case closed, problem over. Much easier than tanks in Czechoslovakia, eh?
Washington will in future have to act less on its own and get used to a position of diminished importance, he said.
For the forseeable future, only if WE believe that we are of diminished importance, will the above assertion be true. This is more of a political will situation. Also, this is true ONLY IF one does not compare our capabilities with those in the countries he lists.
He said the United States and other Western countries had missed an opportunity to make the world a better place after the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 ushered in the end of communism.
Like he was helping to usher in a new era of cooperation and friendship?
Methinks the operative word here is:
sour grapes
