by Daniel Capurro (The Telegraph)
The name Vladimir Putin is now a byword for villainy and deceitfulness - yet two decades ago, the desire to integrate Russia into the geopolitical establishment was such that Sir Tony Blair was calling for him to have a seat at the top table.
Newly released documents from the National Archives reveal how, in the wake of Sept 11, Sir Tony and other Western leaders thought that and convinced to work in favour of counter-terrorism and the liberal world order.
Just months after Putin had shocked the West with his army’s brutal destruction of the Chechen capital Grozny, he was , who visited him in Russia in March 2000.
Archival material reveals how intent the former prime minister was in reaching out to his Russian counterpart.
However, other world leaders were skeptical, with the United States in particular wary of whether Moscow had truly changed.
My 5 cents: The total lack of accountability and self-awareness of the Anglo-American neocon/neolib regime and its vast propaganda apparatus is mind boggling.
Reality no longer seems to matter to them. It seems that these people have learned nothing from hundreds of years of imperialism. How is this even possible that a people can be so diluted as these people ? They believe their own lies and deceptions and they have been making decisions based on their own lies and deceptions (for the past 20 years). Totally unwilling to take any responsibility for their malign and destructive behavior on the world stage, yet trying to sell themselves as the "good guys". I hope one day soon, that their will be a day of reckoning and accounting for these neocon/neolib imperialist/propagandist scumbags , where the world and their own citizens will see them for what they truly are.
This is not unique to American politicians or US. I think, as a student of history, it is entrenched interests that are not going to relinquish their privileges voluntarily via peaceful means, regardless of races, states or societies. This issue is magnified in the US today and is decades in the making. MAGA has only one pragmatic way to succeed: safeguarding the constitution. But entrenched interests have been eroding the constitution from left and right, particularly accelerating this process after the end of the Cold War. US today is vastly different from the US 100 years ago or even 50 years ago. As you pointed out, neocon and neolib are the two sides of the same extremism, which are spreading like viruses.
When people are growing old with entrenched interests,
(1) people hear what they want to hear,
(2) people see what they want to see, and
(3) people believe in what they want to believe.
This phenomenon occurred throughout the Chinese dynastic history. US is no exception.
