Paul Edwards: Concept of allies

"The world according to Pravda" appears to me to be a world where the USA is forcing other countries to do what it wants. And any country who supports USA is obviously a sycophant, what other explanation could there possibly be? I'm not sure why Russians find the concept of allies so difficult to understand. I can assure you that the countries of Western Europe (and for that matter, my country, Australia), are not sycophants. If we thought for a moment that the USA was a force of evil in this world, we would be forming an alliance against the USA. Guess what, we did form an alliance, and we decided that the USA more-or-less shared our own value system. We are in the alliance because we believe in burden-sharing, as opposed to being selfish and letting the USA do all the work. Your news reports, while interesting/amusing to find out about Russian paranoia, are splattered with the concept of US hegemony. I can't think of a single country that the US has hegemony over. It gave up its Philippine colony decades ago. It has liberated many countries, but occupies none. I would like to know Pravda's view of which countries US has hegemony over, and what exactly it forces those countries to do. The only things I can see the US forcing on countries is: 1. Not to be a threat to any allies. 2. To respect human rights of their own people. And that to me is not hegemony. That is self-defence and human rights. Hegemony would be if it say decided to colonize Iraq so that it could steal Iraq's oil without having to pay for it. I see no evidence of anything remotely like that. As far as I can tell, the Russians are just jealous that they have been denied the opportunity to assert hegemony over people all over the world. In fact, they're incredibly upset that they can't even assert hegemony over their neighbours, be it the Baltic or Central Asia. Anyway, your articles clearly show this anti-US bias, and it prevents your news being objective. I am under the impression that Pravda is no longer a communist propaganda machine, and that you have freedom of press in Russia. So I am not looking for propaganda from Putin in your articles. But by the same token, you should not be looking for sinister ulterior motives from the USA, all controlled by some mysterious business tycoons. The motives of the USA, and indeed, my country, are to promote democracy, freedom of speech, free trade, human rights. These ideals were suspended in various theatres, for the more imperative task of winning the cold war, but it doesn't change the underlying desire. Indeed, complaints about Russian human rights abuses in Chechnya have been suspended due to a more important goal that requires Russian help. Of course all countries also have self-interest too, e.g. the US needs secure supplies of oil. So, the US will sometimes defend a dictator like Kuwait from another dictator like Iraq. It has every right to only defend countries where it has its national interest threatened. Although I should point out it did a lot more than this, it defended most of western Europe too, not for the first time. The other interesting thing is why Russia is so concerned about their "Slav brothers" in Serbia. As far as I can tell, that was out of naked racism. But for all the talk of "illegal aggression" etc, you might like to contemplate why your "Slav brothers" are falling over themselves to try to “JOIN” NATO now. There is nothing stopping Serbia from being neutral, but in fact, they are being DENIED entry into NATO for the moment. Your other "Slav brothers" in Bulgaria are also falling over themselves to get into NATO. If you want your publication to be professional, you need to stop judging the actions of others based on your own barely disguised ambitions for world hegemony. The rest of the world will be continuing as before, i.e. maintaining an alliance to prevent Russia, China, Iran, etc from imposing hegemony on anyone in the free world. I am proud, not sycophantic, to be a member of that alliance. I wish New Zealand was also part of that alliance, it was very sad to see them leave ANZUS. I hope one day that Russia can join the alliance, but I'm afraid that that really requires a cultural change to get rid of rampant Russian nationalism that treats its citizens as ants, and seeks to subjugate others in its name. See you again in 20 years. :-) Paul Edwards