DOUBLE STANDARDS IN U.S. POLICIES George W.Bush is displeased with the Russian general elections, which, according to the American media, George W.Bush revealed in a telephone conversation with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. In defiance of a time-tested tradition, President Bush refrained from congratulating his Russian counterpart on a landslide victory in the recently-held elections, which makes French President Nicolas Sarkozy the first western leader to congratulate Putin. A mouthpiece of the Bush Administration, the Department of State, has, instead, voiced concerns about alleged violations of the Russian electoral law.
Paradoxically, the man who poses as a champion of true democracy, George W.Bush, lost the presidential elections of seven years ago by an impressive margin of half a million votes to Albert Gore and owes his presidential mandate to a Supreme Court verdict, not the people of the United States. It is not that isolated episode but the political philosophy, the approach of the American ruling elite that makes the weather. Domestic and foreign policies of Washington rest on double standards that allow the elite to praise what benefits it and dismiss as unacceptable what fails to meet its interests. The American response to the Russian elections comes as another manifestation of that doubtful sort of policy-making. Ignoble policies of double standards date way back. When his attention was turned to American support of Nicaraguan dictator Anastacio Somoza, President Roosevelt made the following contribution to the global compendium of political quotations: “Somoza may be a son of a bitch,” he cynically said, “but he’s our son of a bitch.” Washington keeps drawing a line between its own and other sons-of-bitches. A notoriously known terrorist, Hashim Thaqi, won his presidential mandate in what Washington describes as democratic elections. He has since enjoyed unconditional support in the United States which intends to recognize the quasi-sovereignty of his province of Kosovo. But Belgrade, which was bombed by the United States in the last year of the 20th century, is subjected to unfair and undeserved discrimination. The White House has yet to recognize what Congress recognized a short while ago: the genocidal extermination of Armenians did take place in the Ottoman Empire in 1915 and 1916. Its dual approach to facts and figures explains the presidential veto on the Congressional decision to mourn the 1.5 million Armenian deaths. How Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili dealt with unarmed protesters on the main square of Tbilisi left the American protectors of democracy unimpressed. “Their own son of a bitch!” At the same time, the Moscow march of hired anti-government protesters was played up by Washington as an event of historical significance. But even the Brussels-based protectors of unblemished democracy felt forced to speak up when surviving members of the Nazi German SS-division started marching on the coast of the Baltic Sea. So they did when rights abuse was first reported by the ethnic minorities of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. And yet, President Bush welcomes Baltic dignitaries when they happen to visit his country. “His own sons of bitches,” is that how he sees them? Double standards apply equally well to global policy-making. Washington and its allies and partners in the Old World have, for eight years now, been reluctant to sign the Treaty on conventional armed forces in Europe. But a by-product of their reluctance, suspended Russian membership of that piece of international law, outrages them. I do not think you will find a more telling example of the application of double standards. It is not think tank briefs but sad personal experience that gave America and Europe an idea of how disregard of environmental problems may strike back at the human race. But even the catastrophic aftereffects of natural disasters fail to outlaw policies of double standards. Because the United States refuses to put its signature next to those of 180 other nations under the Kyoto protocol, President Bush says his country is expected to foot others’ bills. That one quarter of the hazardous emissions into the atmosphere are American may be ignored thanks to the application of double standards. Washington has, under all sorts of pretexts and all kinds of circumstances, insisted on the application of policies of double standards. Important as they may be, it is not events but the philosophy and politics of Washington that the problem boils down to. The elevation of far from perfect and basically dishonorable policies to the rank of national philosophy reduces the moral rating of the United States of America and will inevitably result in the loss of global confidence. Can Washington see that sad truth before it gets too late? Voice <http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=eng&q=20274&p=14.12.2007> of Russia
