this must happen I don't trust iran though I don't trust russia either

Well, you could of course tell Russia to lay off the nukes and to dismantle and even to withdraw.

But before they will have a good laugh, they might point at you and your nuclear weapons and occupated lands first...

As good you can wish that Santa Claus really exists...

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"Every country gets the cuisine it deserves"

February 13, 2007

Does Putin Not Have a Point?


by Patrick J. Buchanan


"A soft answer turneth away wrath," teaches Proverbs 1:15.

Our new secretary of defense, Robert Gates, seems familiar with the verse. For his handling of Saturday's wintry blast from Vladimir Putin at the Munich security conference was masterful.

"As an old Cold Warrior, one of yesterday's speeches almost filled me with nostalgia for a less complex time," said Gates, adding, "Almost." A former director of the CIA, Gates went on to identify with Putin: "I have, like your second speaker yesterday … a career in the spy business. And I guess old spies have a habit of blunt speaking.

"However, I have been to reeducation camp, spending the last four-and-a-half years as a university president and dealing with faculty. And as more than a few university presidents have learned in recent years, when it comes to faculty it is either 'be nice' or 'be gone.'"

Gates added he would be going to Moscow to talk with the old KGB hand, who will be retiring as Russia's president around the time President Bush goes home to Crawford. Excellent.

For one of the historic blunders of this administration has been to antagonize and alienate Russia, the winning of whose friendship was a signal achievement of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. And one of the foreign policy imperatives of this nation is for statesmanship to repair the damage.

What did we do to antagonize Russia?

When the Cold War ended, we seized upon our "unipolar moment" as the lone superpower to seek geopolitical advantage at Russia's expense.

Though the Red Army had picked up and gone home from Eastern Europe voluntarily, and Moscow felt it had an understanding we would not move NATO eastward, we exploited our moment. Not only did we bring Poland into NATO, we brought in Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, and virtually the whole Warsaw Pact, planting NATO right on Mother Russia's front porch. Now, there is a scheme afoot to bring in Ukraine and Georgia in the Caucasus, the birthplace of Stalin.

Second, America backed a pipeline to deliver Caspian Sea oil from Azerbaijan through Georgia to Turkey, to bypass Russia.

Third, though Putin gave us a green light to use bases in the old Soviet republics for the liberation of Afghanistan, we now seem hell-bent on making those bases in Central Asia permanent.

Fourth, though Bush sold missile defense as directed at rogue states like North Korea, we now learn we are going to put anti-missile systems into Eastern Europe. And against whom are they directed?

Fifth, through the National Endowment for Democracy, its GOP and Democratic auxiliaries, and tax-exempt think tanks, foundations, and "human rights" institutes such as Freedom House, headed by ex-CIA director James Woolsey, we have been fomenting regime change in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet republics, and Russia herself.

U.S.-backed revolutions have succeeded in Serbia, Ukraine, and Georgia, but failed in Belarus. Moscow has now legislated restrictions on the foreign agencies that it sees, not without justification, as subversive of pro-Moscow regimes.

Sixth, America conducted 78 days of bombing of Serbia for the crime of fighting to hold on to her rebellious province, Kosovo, and for refusing to grant NATO marching rights through her territory to take over that province. Mother Russia has always had a maternal interest in the Orthodox states of the Balkans.

These are Putin's grievances. Does he not have a small point?

Joe Lieberman denounced Putin's "Cold War rhetoric." But have we not been taking what cannot unfairly be labeled Cold War actions?

How would we react if China today brought Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela into a military alliance, convinced Mexico to sell oil to Beijing and bypass the United States, and began meddling in the affairs of Central America and Caribbean countries to effect the electoral defeat of regimes friendly to the United States? How would we react to a Russian move to put anti-missile missiles on Greenland?

Gates says we have been through one Cold War and do not want another. But it is not Moscow moving a military alliance right up to our borders or building bases and planting anti-missile systems in our front and back yards.

Why are we doing this? This country is not going to go to war with Russia over Estonia. With our Army "breaking" from two insurgencies, how would we fight? By bombing Moscow and St. Petersburg?

Just as we deluded ourselves into believing this war would be a "cakewalk," that democracy would break out across the Middle East, that we would be beloved in Baghdad, so America today has undertaken commitments, dating to the Cold War and since, we do not remotely have the resources or will to fulfill. We are living in a world of self-delusion.

Somewhere in this presidential campaign, someone has to bring us back to earth. The halcyon days of American Empire are over.

Well, incase of a new polarization, some european friends of USA (France-Germany) seems more close to other camp other than China, Iran and Latinos (Who knows maybe also Turkey) ... So polarization doesn't seem in American interests now and Putin is making good use of this fact....

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I think this point proves that the article is rather biased. There is after all the brutal repression of an area that wanted independance just like Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Macedonia.

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... I am surprised at your insolence in writing to me at all. You know, as I know, that I bought this constituency... may God's curse light upon you and may it make your women as open and as free to the excise officers as your wives and daughters have always been to me while I have represented your scoundrel corporation.
I have the honour to be... your obliged humble servant, Anthony Henley
- MPs reply to constituent, mid 1700s

Brother Oz, I actually agree with you
Since Serbia itself went to the trap of ultra nationalism and hatred and gave a certain reason, if they could stay calm, manage the crisis and only target the armed separatists not all ppl including civillians, nobody would get a reason for involving..

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Ultranationalism was an immunity reaction to undercover invasion of the guests into Europe in Kosovo. Now the rising ultranationalism in Crimea and Odessa is a sign that NATO is busy in the area. It must use more precise moral values to separate the husk from the grain in such opeartions. Its manners are too brutal and death toll is higher that that of any terrorist or ultranationalist. It fails with its demonized partners in the regions in the greater europe view. Russia=Ukraine are united by one language and warming up ultranationalist powers in the regions is a mistake. Minorities like ukrainians+poles, and arabs is a wrong bid if you look for peace and support of Israel. They are good for small scale blackmail only. NATO chose antisemitic-demonized nations (I am not saying the nations are that but they were brainwaashed to play that role) to fight russian nationalists who support Israel. NATO uses depopulation approach in Ukraine. In God We Trust. That cuts both ways.

11 марта 2007 г. исполнился ровно год со дня смерти в застенках Международного уголовного трибунала для бывшей Югославии (МТБЮ) экс-президента Югославии Слободана Милошевича, который после победы "цветной революции" 2000 г. в Югославии был тайно выдан на расправу МТБЮ. В обмен Запад пообещал финансовую помощь для новых "демократических" властей страны в размере 450 млн. долл. от Евросоюза и 580 млн. долл. от Всемирного банка (которая так и не была предоставлена). Однако после его загадочной смерти главный прокурор МТБЮ Карла дель Понте в интервью бельгийской газете "Суар" была вынуждена признать, что экс-президент Югославии умер юридически невиновным. Кроме того, одними из главных обвинений МТБЮ в адрес С.Милошевича было обвинение в причастности к "геноциду" боснийских мусульман в анклаве Сребреница во время гражданской войны в Боснии и Герцеговине (БиГ) 1992-1995 гг. В этой связи в материалах обвинений против экс-президента Югославии фигурировала видеозапись расстрела подразделением боснийских сербов "Скорпионы" шести пленных боснийских мусульман в этом анклаве. Сторона обвинения на судебном процессе назвала эту видеозапись первым вещественным доказательством причастности подсудимого к массовому убийству боснийских мусульман в Сребренице в июле 1995 г. Прокуроры Гаагского трибунала поспешили заявить, что подразделение "Скорпионы" подчинялось министерству внутренних дел Югославии, из чего был фактически сделан вывод, что приказ о расстреле принимался на уровне высших должностных лиц Югославии, то есть на уровне самого С.Милошевича. Но 26 февраля 2007 г. Международный суд ООН признал, что Сербия не несет ответственности за убийство боснийских мусульман в Сребренице. Таким образом, Международный суд ООН признал, что ни Югославия, президентом которой на момент гражданской войны в БиГ был С.Милошевич, ни современная Сербия, как правопреемница Югославии, не несут ответственности за те события. Тем самым Международный суд ООН фактически посмертно снял обвинения против С.Милошевича в причастности к "геноциду" боснийских мусульман. Поэтому С.Милошевич остался непокоренным сербом, отданным "демократами" на заклание Западу

Wasn't the whole Yugoslav kingdom and what has developed out of it illegitimate?

After all, the Slovenians and Croatians only joined because the Serbs promised that it will be a community of equals. A kingdom of all the peoples that will be united, and not just the Serbs. This promise was broken. The only thing that kept the country together was suppression from the very first day, to the last of its existence.

To speak of Slovenia, Croatia etc as seperatist regions is unjustified. They just dissolved the bond that was based on a big lie, and as the Serbs did not allow to do that in peace, it meant war.

To put that right, this all does in no way legitimate the war crimes also committed from the side of the Croatians and others. It might be even worth to discuss if the war was really the right tool, but the aim to reestablish sovereignty was justified.

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"Every country gets the cuisine it deserves"