Back in the U.S.S.R.

Dick Cheney had some harsh words for Russia in a speech in Lithuania that was seen to represent the Administration's position on Russia. While Cheney rightly criticized the Putin Administration's commitment to democracy, I have serious doubt about Cheney's commitment to democracy. Many of this Administration's tactics have verged on totalitarianism, especially the reaction to critical thinking within the Administration (on Iraq troop levels, economic policies and illegal domestic wiretapping) and criticism of the administration. This also is suspicious given that Bush "had looked into President Putin's eyes and 'got a sense of his soul.'" Back then, the Putin government had been supportive of the Bush administration so it seems funny that now that they will not toe the line on Iran, that now they are not democratic. Russia has not been very democratic in the fifteen years since the end of Communism, and it has been deteriorating since Putin took over in 2000. The recent criticism has (intentionally or not) coinsided with the takeover of Yukos, the large gas company run by the now-jailed oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Funny how democracy promotion follows hand-in-hand with efforts to secure American gas supplies for the Hummers and gas-guzzeling SUVs the Republicans drive, not to mention their prostitution on behalf of the oil and gas industries. I think that this is another instance in which democracy as a concept is paraded out in a deeper, more sinister effort to push the Bush imperialist doctrine (and I say that in the least Marxist way possible).