Clifford D. May has done a good job setting up a scene for telling how a diplomatic exchange may unfold between the Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Western counterparts.
Whereas
his point of view is expressed with clarity, there is another point of view that
needs to be expressed if only to balance what he offered as opinion based on
his observations.
May did
all that in an article that came under the title: “What diplomacy with Putin
would look like now,” published on October 1, 2022 in The Washington Times.
I shall keep
intact the excellent scene that Clifford May has created, and use it to tell
the other side of the story. In fact, I shall even use the two characters he adopted
to represent and speak for the Western countries. The characters are French President Emmanuel Macron (nicknamed Manny) and
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (nicknamed Scholzy,) both of whom Clifford May
assures us have long enjoyed amicable relations with Mr. Putin.
Here is how the conversation unfolds:
Manny: It is nice of you, old friend, to find
the time to meet with us and listen to what we have to say.
Putin: Let’s get on with it, what do you
have on your minds?
Manny: What else could we have on our minds
at a time like this but freedom. We want freedom for the Ukrainian people,
something that is dear to them and to us, something you’re robbing them of.
Putin: Freedom? What kind of freedom is
that? The one that America drilled into your heads? Is it the freedom of total
permissiveness that leads to crimes like mugging, sucker punching and shooting
people in public, in broad daylight? Hah!
Scholzy: Surely, my wise Russian friend, it
must be that you understand that when we say freedom, we mean the fresh air of
freedom that allows you to live your life in liberty, and pursuing happiness as
you see fit. Yes, some people deviate from that ideal, but this is why we have
laws that protect us from the deviants among us.
Putin: Talk all you want about breathing the
fresh air of freedom, Scholzy my boy, but what the world sees are the choke holds
that prevent people from inhaling the life-sustaining breath – killing them
before they get to a courtroom or see how America’s legal system works or fails.
That’s what you’re telling me is superior to what we have? Hah!
Manny: And then, there is the matter of
foreign policy, Vlad my old friend. You support regimes like those of Iran,
Syria, North Korea and others whose record on human rights is dreadful. What is
it that attracts you to those kinds of leaders?
Putin: Not a single regime of those you
mentioned did anything that comes close to the one you skipped. This would be Israel,
the only entity on the planet today that is occupying another country and engaging
in genocide, which it commits with impunity in public and in broad daylight being
protected, financed and armed by America. That’s what you’re telling me is
superior to those who defend themselves against attackers by remaining within
their own borders even when they have the means to pursue the attackers and
annihilate them once and for all? Hah!
Manny: We came to talk to you about Ukraine
but you kept referring to America. It is obvious you have a fixation on that
country. So, tell me, is there a message you want me to take to the Americans;
one that would guide them on what to say or do that will alleviate your
anxieties about them?
Putin: Yes, there is a message that tells
of the difference between the life-sustaining culture of Russia, and the life-depleting
culture of America. Take the message to the Americans, and hammer it into their
thick skulls.
Sholzy: I believe we covered that subject already.
Putin: No. What we did is discuss what ordinary
Americans have become, living as they do in a culture of death that’s trickling
down on them from above.
Manny: I don’t believe what I’m hearing. But
I’m listening.
Putin: The difference between us and the Americans
is demonstrated in the way that we both developed our nuclear deterrent. We,
Russians developed the hundred-megaton hydrogen bomb to let our potential
adversaries know that we love life so much, if someone tries to destroy us, we’ll
take him down with us as ferociously and thoroughly as we can.
Sholzy: Isn’t that what the Americans are
doing with their ten and twenty-megaton bombs?
Putin: Yes, the ten, twenty and hundred-megaton
bombs do that. But the Americans have done something else—something that tells
you what motivates them. They built the neutron bomb that kills people without
destroying the buildings or the assets they house. This means, the Americans consider
the nuclear weapons to be not instruments of deterrence, but instruments of
murder and theft of what belongs to those they murder.