Putin hits the nail on the head

Mr Putin told senior security officials from around the world that nations were "witnessing an almost uncontained hyper use of force in international relations". "One state, the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way," he said, speaking through a translator. "This is very dangerous. Nobody feels secure anymore because nobody can hide behind international law. "This is nourishing an arms race with the desire of countries to get nuclear weapons." - BBC NEWS

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It is interesting to read the accounts of Putin's speech in Germany. So far I have yet to find an article which mentions the simple fact that Putin's criticism of American foreign policy is a mainstream view in Europe and getting to be quite common in the United States itself. It is, in fact, the center of the position taken by both progressives and "realists" alike on the war in Iraq and the possibility of a war with Iran in the near future.

Probably the stony faces of many of the European leaders present can be explained by the fact that they hear the very same opinions that Putin expressed at the conference from their own families, when they are sitting around their dinner tables at home... certainly they hear them expressed in their parliaments and read them in their most respected opinion journals. By speaking so much common sense in such an important forum, with its attending media coverage, Putin has cut the ground out beneath many European conservatives as they try to re-sell the relationship with the USA to their skeptical voters at the same moment when the "CIA flights" scandal is growing daily more embarrassing.

Putin, by giving these views such a significant sounding board, has done a great service to all who are trying to stop another chapter in the neocon saga from being written in the blood of Iran's civilian population. DS