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LOL!  Uhm, have you checked out the kinds of "democracies" America has been creating throughout the world and at home?!  I think you've misunderstood - or I did not clarify.  Actually, looking at the original article, which I simply copied and pasted here, you will see it reads like this:

With respect to the long term, ever since the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, a succession of American administrations has acted as if the creation of Russian democracy were a principal American task. Speeches denouncing Russian shortcomings and gestures drawn from the Cold War struggle for pre-eminence have occurred frequently.

So as you can see, the thrust of the comment is not Democracy but America's role.  

Whether or not America had sincere intentions for creating a Democratic system in Russia is an extremely complicated subject.  Like the Kremlin, there are many actors in Washington.  I don't doubt that some actually believed that supporting Chubais and Gaidar was supporting democracy.  I don't doubt that for many "democracy" -as has been the case in so many regions we've attempted to bestow with it- was/is simply code for "submission to America" and/or "casino Capitalism."  I'm currently reading Collision and Collusion: The Strange Case of Western Aid to Eastern Europe.  Interesting stuff.  America is not solely to blame for Russia's ills.  But the arrogance with which we we prance about the globe "solving" everyone's problems has not helped.  I think this is Kissinger's point.  His point is not about "democracy" which is an almost meaningless term in my opinion, but about America's image of itself and its relationship to the world, about our attitude.

Make more sense now?

"Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.

by poemless on Tue Jul 8th, 2008 at 10:56:06 AM EST
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