Heh - Pooty-poot schools Obama and Kerry

From the New York Times of all places:

A Plea for Caution From Russia
Recent events surrounding Syria have prompted me to speak directly to the American people and their political leaders. It is important to do so at a time of insufficient communication between our societies.

Relations between us have passed through different stages. We stood against each other during the cold war. But we were also allies once, and defeated the Nazis together. The universal international organization � the United Nations � was then established to prevent such devastation from ever happening again.

The United Nations� founders understood that decisions affecting war and peace should happen only by consensus, and with America�s consent the veto by Security Council permanent members was enshrined in the United Nations Charter. The profound wisdom of this has underpinned the stability of international relations for decades.

No one wants the United Nations to suffer the fate of the League of Nations, which collapsed because it lacked real leverage. This is possible if influential countries bypass the United Nations and take military action without Security Council authorization.

The potential strike by the United States against Syria, despite strong opposition from many countries and major political and religious leaders, including the pope, will result in more innocent victims and escalation, potentially spreading the conflict far beyond Syria�s borders. A strike would increase violence and unleash a new wave of terrorism. It could undermine multilateral efforts to resolve the Iranian nuclear problem and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and further destabilize the Middle East and North Africa. It could throw the entire system of international law and order out of balance.

A lot more at the site. I would love to sit down and have a couple beers with Putin. In this relatively short editorial, he has cut the legs out from underneath Obama and Kerry and is schooling them on some of the history of that area -- a subject they are sorely lacking on. Vladimir closes with this far-seeing paragraph:

My working and personal relationship with President Obama is marked by growing trust. I appreciate this. I carefully studied his address to the nation on Tuesday. And I would rather disagree with a case he made on American exceptionalism, stating that the United States� policy is �what makes America different. It�s what makes us exceptional.� It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord�s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.

Our current administration is extremely dangerous indeed. We are speaking loudly and carrying a very small stick. Obama is not building, he is tearing down and using the rubble to fill the bellies of the institutionalized poor, not realizing that he is making us eat our own seed corn. We are spending more and more on panem et circenses and failing to build our economy.