With "Friends" Like These...

With the return of Russian leader Vladimir "The Little Czar" Putin, relations between the Russian Federation and the U.S. have taken a turn for the worse.  The former KGB colonel is still bitter over the implosion of the Soviet Union and resentful of the U.S.'s prominence.  His sheltering of NSA leaker Edward "Shoot My Balls" Snowden, his crackdown on dissidents, his homophobic policies,  and his support for the brutal Assad regime in Syria are evidence of a return to an authoritarian Soviet mentality on the part of The Little Czar.

Now, in a show of defiance, he's asserting that Assad's forces didn't use chemical weapons against his own people (weapons which almost certainly originated in Russia), calling it "nonsense."  U.S. and European intelligence, and U.N. observers might disagree.

As there should be some price to be paid by an illegitimate regime for using chemical weapons against its people, there should be a price for those covering for that regime, say something involving their participation in the G8 economic group.