Hidden and Denied: Russia’s Growing Strength
Really, Really, REALLY... Unpleasant
Written by the eXile’s Mark Ames
This week’s edition of Newsweek features one of the most bizarre articles I’ve read in a long time. It’s called “Why Russia Is Really Weak,” and as the schoolyard-taunting title suggests, it’s a desperate attempt to convince Newsweek readers that Russia isn’t as strong as they think. Really. No, really, Russia really isn’t! Dontcha believe us?
It’s the “Really” in the headline that’s really, really revealing. Because it suggests nervousness on the part of the authors--a pair of academic beigeocrats with appropriate ethnic names: Rajan Menon and Alexander Motyl.
They’re nervous--they and the presumed Newsweek reading public--for the obvious reason that Russia is actually getting much stronger. As we know, the American way to react to unpleasant turns in events is to simply deny they’re happening, and then to posit their opposite, and leave it at that.
Russia wasn’t supposed to get stronger, certainly not on its own, without the West’s help. It just doesn’t make sense. Moreover, it’s somehow cosmologically wrong that Russia should become stronger right at the time when American power is in a freefall. That just ain’t right...so therefore, the authors offer a solution: cup your ears, close your eyes, and scream, “Russia is really weak! Russia is really weak!” and it’ll all go away, like a bad dream...
Oddly enough, the authors claim in the first paragraph that alleged Western “news stories” uniformly tout a “predictable theme”--that theme being Russia’s growing strength. Moreover, these Western media outlets are guilty of an even worse sin: they’re supposedly going farther by calling on Western leaders to “adjust to this new reality.” In other words: appeasement.
And now Newsweek is out to set the record straight.
Umm...what the fuck are Menon and Motyl talking about? What media outlets have they been smoking? And can I score some of that shit? Seriously, where are these alleged rah-rah-Russia articles appearing? In the Washington Post? The Wall Street Journal? The New York Times?
Entire article by Mark Ames, America’s Pathetic Putin-Envy
Cartoon by Nikola Otas