Unfortunately, not today

For all its ability to play Olympian games of chess, what has the American experiment accomplished? It fought the good fight against Communism and endowed the world with its movies; it provided much needed aid to Britain in the forties and then persuaded us to join its invasion of Iraq. It has given the world Disney and Coca Cola and a war on terror that no one really wants. In a world driven by economies no one can afford to dismiss America. What the world can do is as America has always done - pay lip service to the beast.

A paradigm shift has occurred and America has been shifted to the side. It no longer holds the West in awe, Svengali like, for its underbelly has been revealed to the world. If ever there was a conspiracy it was America's belief that it deserved special mention in the annals of the West. Only now are the rest of us beginning to laugh at the American joke.

It was given more of a chance to fulfill its potential than most but only because we needed it to succeed. A successful America took the pressure off the rest of us; we could wend our way through history and leave America to carry the load. America became the ass of the West, carrying the baggage of power up the slope of history. Until it became just an ass.

'Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man' is nothing more nor less than America gazing at its own mythology. What other nation would find sympathy in the evil that men do?

Europe can look at Hitler and say he loved as men love, he cherished children as men do, he abhorred the treatment of his country after the First World War as any proud German would do. But we find no sympathy in our hearts for a man who reaped such evil upon the world. Seeking a way to understand the enemy is good strategy, seeking sympathy is a way to become the enemy. And America is on the road to becoming the enemy.

The West cannot tolerate an America that refuses to live up to decades of promises. At a time when the truth must be sought in the words of Russians and the actions of Chinese, America must be relegated to the minor leagues of world history.

With China's help, the world will move forward to renewable energy and a cleaner world, hoping that America's determination to continue its polluting ways can be off set by the efforts of those who care about our legacy to the future.

There once was a time when the CSM's words held the West to ransom. Maybe it was even the case that America could kill us whenever it pleased. But not today.