Final Word from Tuesday, February 23, 2010
The Cold War, as we've said before, was a battle within Euro-American civilization, not a clash between two discrete civilizations. For half a century, our attention was diverted from the real civilizational clashes brewing in Asia and Arabia. The Cold War, like Bolshevism and Putinism too, served to bring the Russian end of Euro-American civilization to its knees. Today, according to journalist Yulia Latynina, Russia is a country in the advanced stages of decay, where a corrupt police have occupied the country and Chinese already have more rights than Russians. Whatever its problems, the West isn't there yet. Miloš Zeman acknowledged on OVM that Russia is part of Euro-American civilization, but by stressing that Lukoil is a Russian-American company and that Westinghouse might bid for Temelín jointly with Rosatom, he was promoting Putin's interests by equating today's Russia with the West. Instead of bringing Russia up to the West's level, which should be our goal, Zeman is happy to bring the West down to Russia's.[Czech Republic Vladimir Atomstroyexport Atomstrojexport United States of America Kremlin]
Glossary of difficult words
discrete - individually separate and distinct;
to bring someone/something to his/its knees - to reduce someone or something to a state of weakness or submission;
Arabia - used in the sense of Arabia as the historic center of Islam.