U.S. wasted chance to improve the world: Gorbachev

[rs]

1 hour, 49 minutes ago

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.

Yes, but this assumes that the US ever even desired to "improve global politics"...

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.

This is an interesting analogy. AIDS is Aquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, an autoimmune disease of the immune system itself. In this disease, it is that which protects us from external threats that turns on itself and the eventual collapse of the defenses leaves one vulnerable to the most trivial of external threats and one dies of diseases one would normally easily defend against. The analogy is so incredibly appropriate that I wonder if this choice was an accident?

"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.

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.

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.

Washington will in future have to act less on its own and get used to a position of diminished importance, he said.

"The Americans will have to understand that in future they will have to cooperate and make decisions jointly, instead of just always wanting to give orders," Gorbachev said.

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.

"At that point, the West focused more on its geopolitical interests," Gorbachev said, adding that Western countries had been more interested in cashing in on the "unbridled burst of globalization" that followed the end of the Cold War than in improving the international political climate.

I sense a certain bitterness in Gorbachev lately. It is as though he consciously set in motion certain events that led to the collapse of the USSR with the [foolish] expectation that somehow the forces of love and light would fill the vacuum instead of the arrogance of victory and empire.

Sorry, Michey, but wishful thinking gets you every time...

 

[Azur]

I sense a certain bitterness in Gorbachev lately. It is as though he consciously set in motion certain events that led to the collapse of the USSR with the [foolish] expectation that somehow the forces of love and light would fill the vacuum instead of the arrogance of victory and empire.

Sorry, Michey, but wishful thinking gets you every time...

Your premise (and assumption) is glaringly simplistic. Not to mention the smell of acetic acid from the glue that is cementing the closed box of perception you have constructed. You certainly make it sound like you have an air-tight, caulk'ed take on things.


Give your head a shake, you are wishfully thinking that you know better what Gorby is thinking than he does.


And my comment to you has nothing to do with what Gorby is, was, or may think.

Cheers.

 

[Mr. Premise]

I think RS is essentially right. Gorbachev, like many in the eastern bloc, was way too naive about the west and capitalism. He may well have been an agent of western intelligence agencies, groomed to take over. At least that seems to be what many Russians think. Remember, he is hated there and adored in the west.

Azur, your post makes no sense.

 

[Azur]

I think RS is essentially right. Gorbachev, like many in the eastern bloc, was way too naive about the west and capitalism. He may well have been an agent of western intelligence agencies, groomed to take over. At least that seems to be what many Russians think. Remember, he is hated there and adored in the west.

Azur, your post makes no sense.

Not a big thing, but I was trying to underline here how misguided it is to think that one can make a statement such as RS' regarding what goes on in another person's head. I doubt very much that Gorby is as naive as he was made to be. Maybe he is, maybe he isn't. It just kind of struck me as hubris to say that Gorby was "wishfully" thinking that

with the [foolish] expectation that somehow the forces of love and light would fill the vacuum instead of the arrogance of victory and empire.

when possibly no one other then Gorby knows why he did what he did.

There wasn't any disrespect towards RS in my post. None intended in any case.

Cheers.

 

[ScioAgapeOmnis]

Not to mention the smell of acetic acid from the glue that is cementing the closed box of perception you have constructed. You certainly make it sound like you have an air-tight, caulk'ed take on things.

You sure went far to drive your point about just how closed you think RS's mind is though! I mean I understand the point you're trying to make as you've explicated to Donald, but I'm sure you don't have to hit someone over the head with a hammer the size of a car to make it either. Just a thought. I guess what I'm saying is, even if RS was making an assumption (and that's still open to discussion), you could've pointed it out in a less harsh way or something.

 

[Azur]

Yes, I think you're right.

It's a hot button of sorts for me, and I overreacted. I'm a little too attached to the idea that people make such assumptions and how possibly dangerous it is (for themselves and others).

RS, if you took offence, accept my apology for a poor delivery.