Rash indeed, a mini 'shock and awe' against a civilian based community.
The hypocrisy continues with the statement "Putin and his associates in the Kremlin don't accept post-Soviet realities." The real post-Soviet reality is that the Russians suffered immensely under the rapacious greed of Washington consensus methods applied to their country with Yeltsin in control but then under the leadership of Putin were able to not only regain control of their resources, but also gain significant financial support from them as well as increasing their own geopolitical prospects in Central Asia and elsewhere. It is the U.S. that does not want to accept post-Soviet reality as it turned out against their favour.
The double standards go on. Is Ukraine next wonders Brzezinski? Is Iran next wonders the rest of the world? Brzezinski sees a "supranational entity" overseeing "much of the former Soviet territories." Those of us in North America with our eyes and ears open see a U.S. "supranational entity" overseeing a North America contained within a Security and Prosperity Perimeter, essentially meaning security and prosperity for the U.S. at the literal expense of Canadian and Mexican resources, already well underway with the current NAFTA protocols.
The more global perspective for Brzezinski is a combination of morality and geopolitics – strange bedfellows for sure. Moral because Georgia "gained its independence only recently" and "deserves international support." Of course, as is usual with the tricky combination of morality and oil (vis a vis Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan et al) is that "An independent Georgia is critical to the international flow of oil." As always with American rhetoric, Brzezinski conflates morality with oil resources, a quite unnatural alliance of ideas, both for consumption by the supposedly ignorant masses at home.
Trying to find solutions gives Brzezinski some difficulty. He thinks Russia should be made to see the dangers of being "ostracized" with the billionaire oligarchs standing to lose the billions of dollars frozen in western bank accounts. Putin would probably be quite happy to see more of the Yeltsin era oligarchs take a hit; if the Putin era oligarchs take a hit, then that only denies Brzezinski's contradictory argument about supporting a "democratic Russia". Oligarchs and democracy do not go together – one cannot save the oligarchs and their money and still have a democracy. His other solution is the lame call to boycott the next Winter Olympics (2014) in Sochi, comparing this to both the Afghanistan invasion and Hitler's Berlin Olympics.
I have to admit that Brzezinski does avoid the true neocon response that envisions a winnable nuclear war with Russia, as "American foreign policy, with its goal of ringing Russia with US military bases, is leading directly to nuclear war."[6]
Finally, the concluding statements support his introductory statements in their obvious and absurd hypocrisy/double standards:
"[The West's] objective has to be a democratic Russia that is a constructive participant in a global system based on respect for sovereignty, law and democracy."
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