This episode, which has caused strong worldwide condemnation of the United States and its diplomats, once again drew attention to these people, who are now deciding the destinies of the world – trying to teach others. V. Nuland is not a simple person, but flesh of the leaders of the U.S. State Department, conducting its policy of “democracy” in all the countries of the world.
Who is this Victoria Nuland? The U.S. Congress has recently appointed her as Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs. Previously, she was the head of the U.S. Department of State Press Service. Now V. Nuland is responsible in the State Department for relations with Russia. Speaking earlier at the Senate hearing on the approval of her candidacy, she underlined the great desire of President Barack Obama’s Administration “to bring cooperation (with Russia) to a new level”. What kind of level was she speaking about, an obscene one?
Prior to this, V. Nuland worked at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow in the early 1990s, participating in disarmament negotiations and traveling to China and Mongolia. In 2005-2008, she was the U.S. permanent representative to NATO, as an ambassador, and since May 2011 – when Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State – V. Nuland was the official representative of the Foreign Ministry. Earlier this year, she was replaced by Jen Psaki and V. Nuland was nominated by President Obama to the post of Assistant Secretary of State, previously held by Philip Gordon, who joined the U.S. National Security Council.
In other words, V. Nuland, according to her biography, is a very experienced diplomat, and she knows how to negotiate with other diplomats. Then this emotional explosion occurred. Explosion? This is no explosion, this action of hers clearly points to the characteristic feature, typical for American diplomats. This is the way Americans do business abroad.
The U.S. media write that there is not even an elementary respect shown by the State Department and Congress towards their foreign partners. In these high corridors of State Department and Congress, it is possible to hear dirty words, swearing, and nicknames when referring to foreign leaders of the highest rank. Usually, before a meeting with foreign leaders, the assistants of American politicians are busy preparing a note that will help them during the upcoming conversations. Still, these so-called diplomats regularly confuse Austria with Australia, Venezuela with Venice, Belize with Benin. Until now, many Americans are quite convinced that Russia still has the KGB and GULAGS.
For example, as Julian Assange and Edward Snowden confessed, the former Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, was referred to as the ‘African monkey’ who has just jumped off the palms or ‘corporal’. After having read the message about the capture of the ‘corporal’ by the rebels, the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, happily exclaimed – “Wow!” Later, when information about the murder of the Libyan ‘corporal’ arrived, the Secretary of State, who might have considered herself a great Roman general, gleefully uttered: “We came, we saw, he died”. No wonder that even American colleagues called this lady – “Hitlery Clinton”.
American diplomats and politicians have absolutely no respect for the leaders of the Middle East. It is necessary to cite only some nicknames referring to the Arabs: “dirty Arab”, “fat cat”, “camel driver” and these are not the most insulting nicknames for the people who in the Middle Ages created a powerful Caliphate and made an invaluable contribution to science. If this “enlightened” American would be told that, for example, astronomy was created and significantly developed by the Arabs and that NASA uses their knowledge for space exploration, this “democrat” would be very surprised.
One even cannot imagine what offensive nickname the Americans use to refer to Saudi Prince Bandar. He was the first who dared to criticize U.S. policy in the Middle East. Americans have completely forgotten that Riyadh entered into a strategic alliance with the U.S.A. in 1944 and strongly supported American economic, financial and political arenas. It is enough to say that very recently the Saudis purchased U.S. weapons to the tune of $30 billion and thereby, are helping support the military-industrial complex and the U.S. economy. Shortly after that, the famous Bandar Bush was transformed into a ‘dirty camel driver’ in the eyes of the American politicians. Nickname “loser” is one of the more decent nicknames used in reference to the rich Saudi official, whose friendship was sought by many Americans.
So how, for example, are we to analyse the current behaviour of Secretary of State John Kerry, who has publicly declared that the United States, in following its obligations, will not allow Iran to develop a peaceful nuclear program. Indeed, just yesterday some countries, including the United States, involved in the negotiations with Tehran, agreed on the prohibition of the Iranian military component of the nuclear program and permission for implementation of a peaceful nuclear program. Then suddenly, Kerry engages in such frank lies. What does this mean? – Is this the usual lack of human morality, and a decline in morals among senior American politicians?
Incidentally, in the early twentieth century, Russian philosophers wrote that the person who cannot see evil is unarmed, as one’s personality is created in the process of distinguishing between good and evil – in the delineation of evil. When these boundaries are erased, the person begins to disintegrate. An illustrative example is the behavior of U.S. politicians and diplomats. Here it is worth mentioning last year’s adoption by the U.S. military of official permission for sexual relations with animals, creating appropriate amendments to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, Article 125 (the article that earlier prohibited sodomy and included a paragraph on bestiality). It is said that the writer Vladimir Nabokov, who lectured at Cornell University to American students – the Slavisists – struggled in trying to explain to them the essence of untranslatable Russian concepts such as “intelligency” (intelligentsiya), “vulgarity” (poshlost’) “narrow-mindedness” (meshyanstvo), and “boorishness” (khamstvo). They say that he could explain the meaning of “intelligency” (intelligentsiya), “vulgarity” (poshlost’) “narrow-mindedness” (meshyanstvo), but he did not manage to explain the word “boorishness” (khamstvo) to the Americans.
In the United States, “boorishness” (khamstvo) means pushiness, courage and bravery in dealing with any matters, regardless of others’ position. In other words, the word “boorishness” (khamstvo) in American English is not a swear word, and the deeds committed by the cads are welcomed. As they say, every nation has its manners and customs. There is a set of typical American politicians’ features. These are pushiness without moral and legal grounds, impudence combined with the lack of shame and of conscience. Moreover, the false smiles of the Americans when meeting other people and foreign leaders cannot hide the true feeling that the Americans really do not care for the interlocutor. Apparently, we should agree with the famous neo-Freudian apologist for immorality and sexual promiscuity, Erich Fromm, who considered that the society, as a whole, might be sick. Only the essence of this disease is not the excessive moral constraint and people’s complexes, as the German psychoanalyst claimed. The disease is expressed by American consumerism and personal disregard of what is happening in American daily life and in the foreign policy of their country. Analysing the current moral decline and lack of even rudiments of morality in the U.S.A., I want to shout: O tempora! O mores! – Oh, the times! Oh, the morals!
Viktor Mikhin, member of Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, exclusively for the New Eastern Outlook online magazine.
