US has abandoned politeness regarding Russia
WE TOOK note of a letter, “Envoy not being diplomatic or gentlemanly”, from Bill Constantine published on April 14. Thank you for your interest in the Alternative Viewpoint series, Mr Constantine.
We understand that you are dissatisfied with our analysis provided in the latest article. Nonetheless, it is with pleasure that we got from your letter that we nonetheless agree on our article's very essence – that interventions and use of force are integral parts of Washington's foreign policy.
If US military interventions weren't so “costly”, Washington would just carry on with them, US interventions have nothing to do with democracy because “promoting democracy” serves as a mere smokescreen to call those interventions “well intentioned”. In your letter, you haven't refuted any of the aforesaid. We would rather write about Russia and US working together – in the area of space exploration, for example. However, Washington's course on confrontation with Moscow deprives us of this opportunity.
On April 12 we celebrated the 60th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's flight to outer space. US Department of State “celebrated” too – by publishing a post in Facebook with congratulations on Human Space Flight Day … without even mentioning Gagarin's name. Instead, it attached a photo of a US astronaut. By contrast, we mentioned the joint USSR-US Soyuz-Apollo mission, “handshake in space” in our article.
Maybe US Department of State was guided by logic that USSR's legacy can be treated every which way because the Soviet Union is gone? If that's the case, then what is this if not “beating a dead horse”, as you put it?
We took note of your title, USAF Brigade General. If you happen to be in Pretoria on May 9, we would like to invite you to the embassy's function dedicated to the 76th anniversary of Victory in WWII. Let's pay tribute to our war heroes and when USSR and US fought together and defeated Nazism.
When it comes to Russia, Washington has abandoned politeness long ago. Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has already said the West seems to have forgotten how to use diplomacy. Even Henry Kissinger, prominent US diplomat, wondered whether the US needs a foreign policy at all, as its dominance seemed to last forever. In the official US documents Russia is labelled as “adversary”. In 1983, the then US president Ronald Reagan called our country the “Evil Empire”, senator John McCain said that “Russia is, more or less, a giant gas station pretending to be a real country”. And the latest example is US President Joseph Biden calling Russian President Vladimir Putin a “killer”.
These are not ambassadors, these are presidents and a presidential candate. Does this “cast a shadow on long-standing traditions of honour, respect and fair play practised by members of the diplomatic community” and beyond it? If your answer is yes, would you write a letter or, perhaps, an article on that as well?
No? Then we will.