One need not agree with Putin’s claims that American crimes have been “worse” than Stalin’s crimes to admire his calling a spade a spade. After President Bush sanctimoniously “unveiled a monument to the victims of communism in Washington” at which he “compared those totalitarian regimes to modern terror groups,” Putin

suggested the United States’ use of atomic weapons against Japan at the end of World War II was worse than the abuses of Stalin. He also cited the U.S. bombing campaign and use the defoliant Agent Orange during the Vietnam War.

“We have not used nuclear weapons against a civilian population,” he said. “We have not sprayed thousands of kilometers (miles) with chemicals, (or) dropped on a small country seven times more bombs than in all the Great Patriotic (War)” — Russia’s name for World War II.

Tell it, Pootie-Poot.

The Best of Stephan Kinsella