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

[DeepModem Mom]

U.S. wasted chance to improve the world: Gorbachev
Oct. 13

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.

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.

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....

***

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.

http://reuters.myway.com/article/20061013/2006-10-13T160754Z_01_L13180540_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-RUSSIA-USA-GORBACHEV-DC.html

[fooj]

1. Smackdown.

In other words...we fucked up.

[Xipe Totec]

2. Gorby,

I am truly sorry!

I wish you could run for president here.

[OKthatsIT]

3. Who knows...maybe he will do that someday, after we go Global

watch yur back.

[Gregorian]

4. And we went bankrupt not doing it.

We've got quite a track record.

[bonito]

5. It's a mess alright

With Russia now sending troops into Lebanon, making a statement of interest in the area, and of course N.Korea gone wild, So.America unsettled, necons just want to squeeze the world as much as They can get away with, and screw everyone else. They must be thinking they live in a different world.

[leesa]

6. This guy is always spot on. He ended the cold war for us to allow us to

make it better and we blew it with our greed and arrogance.

[DeepModem Mom]

7. Yep. (I love Gorby.) nt

[Eurobabe]

8. So is he ABC too?

Always Blame Clinton.

[Freedom_from_Chains]

15. I don't think that was what he was getting at. n/t

[krkaufman]

22. Well, he does appear to be criticizing unrestricted globalization...

... as less-than-optimal relative to improving the global political situation, and Clinton *was* a pro-free trade, pro-globalization guy.

[Toots]

23. Clinton is not without blame that's for sure

We have to remember though that Clinton was going through a very ugly period in American history. America's morals completely collapsed and Republicans were swept into office. I am not talking about any of Clinton's sexual escapades either. I am talking about the immorality of hate that the GOP preached constantly throughout the eighties and ninties. I am talking about Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter and Hannity and Gingrich and all those that used hatred to advance their careers instead of working for a better America. The immorality of the GOP is astonishing..Hate mongers, fear mongers and just out and out bastards.

[The Backlash Cometh]

9. We should have retired our cold war dinosaurs.

Their vision of the world was obsolete, but, somehow, they managed to keep control.

[pinniped]

10. * and his minions are FN richer now than before.

You can't improve the world and reap Merkans at the same time. It requires too many resources and * doesn't give a shit anywways.

$$$$

[Phredicles]

11. Once again the man is right.

Gorbachev is a hero of mine. I wish he could look upon a better world than this as an outcome of his efforts.

[GOPBasher]

12. He's right. n/t

[jwirr]

13. Very insightful. He knows what he is talking about. Emmanuel Todd

comments in his book that Russia has moved to make alliances with EU,Iran and Turkey while we have pushed them away. The world is shifting its power base and we are not it.

That may be why we are hearing more and more about the secret linkage between Canada/Mexico/US. They are the natural alliance in a regional sense but I don't blame either Mexico or Canada for not wanting to play with us. We do not play fair.

[Freedom_from_Chains]

14. Yep, won't bee long now until our empire comes to an end.

[keta11]

16. Say that again, Gorby

[IndianaGreen]

17. It is only fair that the American Empire would follow the USSR

into the ash heap of history!

At the end of the Cold War we were presented with a clear choice: Republic or Empire! Many progressives demanded a "peace dividend" be returned to the American people that had so long sacrificed during the Cold War. Militarists on both major parties opposed this, and they launched a search for new enemies to justify a Pax Americana.

The cry of freedom and democracy was heard from the White House to the halls of Congress. No one bothered to understand that by freedom we meant the freedom of capital to move unobtrusively across national boundaries and untouched by national restrictions, or that by democracy we meant that political power and influence was determined by the size of the portfolios of the owners of capital.

The night I watched the Soviet flag being lowered from the Kremlin on ABC News, I turned to a friend and told her that we were next. I never suspected that our end would come so quickly, and so cruelly, or that it would entail the end of Constitutional rule and the imposition of a dictatorship.

[Superman Returns]

19. weve been an empire

since the spanish-american war.

[IndianaGreen]

20. We were a regional, not a global empire back then

We viewed Latin America as a resource for brown-skinned slaves, to be exploited by the rising capitalist class just as the Southern landed gentry exploited their African slaves. Two world wars, and the advent of the atomic age, made us a global empire.

[samsingh]

18. bush and his goons did.

[stepnw1f]

21. He is Right...(nt)