putin ain't entirely wrong

Russian President Vladimir Putin let the US have it at an international conference in Germany. Specifically, he criticized the US for being unilateralist and for insisting on having its way all the time.

Much negative reaction, from punditry and US politicians. But you know, Putin isn't wrong. The US is unilateralist -- just watch our upcoming unilateral attack on Iran, part of a pattern of unilateralism that dates back to the pre-9/11 days of the de facto Bush presidency, when Bush renounced the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia and quit the Kyoto climate change agreement (which admittedly, we hadn't ratified).

And our national security strategy is explicitly designed to allow the US to remain unilateralist. We want to maintain complete military superiority. In the days of empire, the British Navy wanted to be equal to the second and third biggest navies in the world. The US military's position is that it should be more powerful than every other military on the planet. And we are, and we pay for it -- we spend more on defense than every other military on earth.

Putin was wrong on one count, though. He said Bush "is a decent man."