The Horribly Impolite Trurh

February 12, 2007

Remember the initial looks of shock on the faces of theatre goers to "Springtime for Hitler"? The dropped jaws, the catatonic stares, the frozen visages of incredulity?

According to news reports, there was a repeat performance of that audience reaction in Munich Saturday, as an estimable assemblage of Western government officials, leading politicians and political cognoscenti were treated to a blistering reality check by an exceedingly undiplomatic Vladimir Putin.

Attending the 43rd Munich Conference on Security Policy, an annual gathering of Cold War origins, Mr. Putin said, in effect, You got your policies, you got your conferences, but global security is increasingly fleeting -- a victim of one superpower's chauvinism, ignorance, hubris and unidimensional thinking.

"One single center of power. One single center of force. One single center of decision making. This is the world of one master, one sovereign," said President Putin to the stunned gathering, many of whom in representative attendance by the maligned "one sovereign."

International conferences are usually polite open forums for equally polite closed minds, but Putin would have none of it.

"It has nothing in common with democracy, of course.

"Today we are witnessing an almost uncontained hyper use of force in international relations -- military force"; an assessment he further peppered with the adjectival rebukes of "illegitimate" and "unilateral" -- a force that has "overstepped its national borders" and "not been able to resolve any matters at all."

Instead, "They bring us to the abyss of one conflict after another. Political solutions are becoming impossible."

Yet Mr. Putin's most poignant and helpfully exhortative observation was of a Cassandra-like bent, which likely will meet the same reception as the Greek prophetess'. Any power that arrogantly presumes a globally hegemonic right, Mr. Putin forewarned, "destroys it[self] from within."

History is riddled with unexceptional examples, the dark warnings of which are ignored only at a modern perp's peril.

One could respond anemically with an irrelevant, ad hominem "poisoning the well" argument, as Senator and wannabe president John McCain did: "Will Russia’s autocratic turn become more pronounced, its foreign policy more opposed to the principles of the Western democracies?"

But what, item by agonizing item, of Mr. Putin's points? Ah, there's the rub.

Or, after recovering from "surprise" and "disappointment," one could offer an exhaustive critique of profound counterargument, as a White House spokesman did: "His accusations are wrong."

Ouch.

Or, after failing to logically punch holes in Mr. Putin's blunt "accusations," the "one sovereign" could simply heed his insights and set about correcting course.
Before it's too late.

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The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.