Serge Schmemann Quotes
Back when George W. Bush was identifying his Axis of Evil, it struck me that a longer and more instructive list could be compiled of the Axis of the Humiliated (or Insulted and Injured, to borrow from Dostoevsky).
Schmemann, Serge. "Editorial Observer." The New York Times, 2006.
At the time our strongest allies in the Middle East were Monarchies, dictatorships, and Principalities. See {586704}.
This is a statement that was meant as a criticism but would be interpreted by many Americans as just a straight forward description. Many believe that is the way it should be.
At the time many physicians believed that “bleeding” patients would contribute to their health. So bloodletting was then a standard medical treatment.
Graham was a very strong advocate for democracies. However, many politicians advocated staying out of that struggle. They pointed out that Graham was very inconsistent. He opposed the U. S. taking sides in most of the other struggles between democracies and dictatorships such as in Saudi Arabia, Arab Emirates, Kuwait and the dictatorships of Azerbaijan, Zimbabwe, and Burma among others. Graham was a strong anti-Russian and supported countries who were against Russia or with whom Russia was at odds.
Many cultures and nations, even after a century will not admit to the human rights violations that previous governments might have committed. Most dramatic is the Turkish government's not even allowing studies or discussions about the organized government mass murders of citizens of Armenian extraction—–the so called "Armenian Genocide ", but even in his native Poland there was and has been little admission of those Poles who collaborated with Hitler and the Nazis in the murder of millions of polish citizens and stole the residences, farms and other properties of Jews and other Poles who the Germans sent to concentration camps and even for the few who survived threatened them with death when they returned to reclaim their own property. Most modern societies have great difficulty coming to grips with police brutality and often denying that it is an endemic problem as opposed to one or two "bad apples".
After the economic & power collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States was the only remaining superpower. Givern Russia's diminshed capability and many Americans still carrying resentments about the Cold War, America's foreign policy and diplomacy did not treat Russia as if they were a very important power in the world. Puten greatly resented the fact that Russia was no longer considered or treated like a world power, Russia had a nuclear arsenal and a total delivery system what was in the same destructive potential class as the United States. There were many Russiabs who had similar resentments and Putin sert out to adopt policieis and practices that would force the United States and the other nations to consider them with more dignity, respect and consdideration. This was a typical statement of the period when he was "stoking the fires of Russian resentment.
Serge Schmemann is a writer and was editorial page editor of the International Herald Tribune, the global edition of the New York Times which ceased publication under that name in 2013. Earlier in his career, he worked for the Associated Press and was a bureau chief and editor for The New York Times.
