RUSSIA, SOUTH OSSETIA, GEORGIA: THREE YEARS AFTER THE FIVE DAYS

The European Union has officially recognized Georgian as a culprit of the armed conflict, having held it responsible for the attack at Tskhinvali. Then, all of a sudden, three years after the U.S. Senate passes on a resolution, accusing Russia of the occupation of Georgia, clearly referring to the sovereign Abkhazian and South Ossetian territories, where Russian troops are stationed in a strict accordance to the bilateral agreements with these countries. Meanwhile, the thought to accuse Americans of occupying Serbia due to the fact of deployment of the largest American military base Kosovo hasn’t occurred even to the most radical critics of the USA yet.

Eight years that changed America. Part II

8. Iraq. The Iraq war was a screw-up of such colossal magnitude that it's easy to forget how many discrete screw-ups went into the making of it. There were the nonexistent weapons of mass destruction and the nonexistent links between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. There's the humiliating spectacle of Secretary of State Colin Powell presenting hours of bogus testimony to the U.N. Security Council. There was Paul Wolfowitz's bizarre claim that the war would pay for itself, when the real price tag is now in excess of $1 trillion. And let us not forget the 4,000 Americans and 100,000 Iraqi civilians dead, more than 30,000 American soldiers wounded, and several million Iraqi refugees forced to flee their homes. A strategy that was supposed to bring U.S.-friendly democracy to the Middle East instead produced an empowered Iran and a more fragile balance of power in the region. The only thing more astonishing than the scope of these blunders is the fact that the former president does not regret his decision, even now.