TWO FINGERS TO THE RUSSIANS...

“The Monroe Doctrine means what it has meant since President Monroe and
John Quincy Adams enunciated it, and that is that we would oppose a foreign
power extending its power to the Western Hemisphere, and that is why we oppose
what is happening in Cuba today. ..That is why we worked in the Organization of
American States and in other ways to isolate the Communist menace in Cuba. That
is why we will continue to give a good deal of our effort and attention to
it.”

Thus John F. Kennedy in 1962. The Invasion of Grenada followed in 1983.
Codenamed Operation Urgent Fury, it was an unspoken, if perfectly illegal
invocation of the same doctrine. The United States, and members of the
Organization of Eastern Caribbean States landed troops on Grenada, defeated Cuban resistance and overthrew the military government.

Throughout the history of Empires, superpowers have always adopted local client regimes, each of which rivalled its opposite in viciousness and provocation. History will come to realise, as many contemporary Americans did not, that John F. Kennedy, too, was a dangerous imperialist, whose egomania almost precipitated a catastrophe. In the event it was but an interlude of maritime confrontation and, one supposes, of mutual discomfort. For the history of the next thirty years
turned on the attempts to solve this discomfort. Finally, in 1991 came the total
abrogation of the Soviet Union. Its collapse was so complete, that even America
was uncertain of how to proceed...

Today, history has been stood upon its head for the victim is Russia.

As if to underline the change of status, Americans have been invading her traditional spheres of influence, entering into dangerous political alliances which blatantly contradicted the very principles for which, in their own case, the Monroe Doctrine stood. Recriminations haven
taken the place of facts. And finally to top it all, a US-educated lawyer, aged
40, and President of Bush’s client state of Georgia, has became a swaggering
agitator in Cuban heels.

Two fingers to the Russians!

To court Mikhail Saakashvili - a man of wildly inventive statements - without at least
neutralizing his belligerent fervour, would, in my view, be a terrible calamity.
The move to arm Baltic subs with nuclear warheads is just one of Russia’s
responses to American plans for a missile defence shield in Eastern Europe.
Another is the threat of nuclear retaliation, directed at Poland, for agreeing
to host US rockets on its soil. An act which nothing can justify, and which
simply increases Russia's efforts to prevent Soviet successor regimes from
joining the Western Alliance. Indeed, the consensus on the part of Nato for the
inclusion of Georgia into the Western defence system is nothing but farce. As an
unproductive, not to say insane idea - and let’s cut to the chase on this, shall
we? - it is rather like suggesting Alabama should have become part of the Warsaw
Pact, some twenty years ago.

And I‘m being conservative here!

In truth, the man who presides over all this has already been dismissed as a moron, a
cowboy, a bigot, and hailed as a dedicated advocate for the war on terror. A
statesman of no vision, of little wit and a buffoon, little more than first
cousin to a mule. A post-modern man in his ignorance and freedom from
imagination. A madman in an age dominated by political extremists. Whereas
Vladimir Putin has been justly described as “the most effective leader in the
world today”. Determined, decisive, and direct, he has made his point.