LOGO: Truthdig: Drilling Beneath the Headlines. A Progressive Journal of News and Opinion. Editor, Robert Scheer. Publisher, Zuade Kaufman. Winner 2013 Webby Awards for Best Political Website
May 21, 2013

 Choose a size
Text Size

Trending:     chris hedges     economy     elizabeth warren     politics     robert scheer
Most Read

Rise Up or Die

Revenge of the Bear: Russia Strikes Back in Syria

Real American Boy: How Our Byzantine Immigration System and Failed Economy May Have Made a Terrorist

Tumblr Is Worth $1.1 Billion to Yahoo For One Reason: You

It's News, Not Espionage

Most Comments
Most Emailed

Reports
 * NEW! * It’s News, Not Espionage

Ear to the Ground

A/V Booth

Arts & Culture
Act of Congress
Daily Rituals
The Girls of Atomic City

Digs

Truthdig Bazaar
The Bubble and Beyond

The Bubble and Beyond

By Michael Hudson

more items

 
Ear to the Ground

Putin Blasts Missile Shield Scheme

Email this item Email    Print this item Print    Share this item... Share

Posted on Apr 26, 2007
putin
AP Photo/Mikhail Metzel

Upping the ante:  Russian President Putin.

Russian President Vladimir Putin took a moment during his final parliamentary address to make it eminently clear that he disapproves of a U.S. plan to create a missile shield in Eastern Europe, vowing to put a hold on Russian compliance with a key European military treaty in retaliation.


BBC:

The Russian president suggested that his country should freeze its compliance with the 1990 Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty—which limits military deployments across the continent—until all NATO countries had ratified it.

The treaty was adapted in 1999 after the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, but NATO states have not yet ratified the new version, linking it to the withdrawal of Russian forces from Georgia and Moldova.

Mr. Putin accused NATO states of exploiting the situation to increase their military presence near Russia.

Read more

Click here for the BBC’s excerpts from Putin’s speech.

More Below the Ad

Advertisement


New and Improved Comments

If you have trouble leaving a comment, review this help page. Still having problems? Let us know. If you find yourself moderated, take a moment to review our comment policy.

PatrickHenry's avatar

By PatrickHenry, April 26, 2007 at 3:55 pm Link to this comment

Russia (Putin) doesn’t want “the interceptor missles” on their (his) borders.

I’m sure the citizens of the eastern european country where “the interceptor missles” are to be stationed don’t want them in their country. 

It makes them a target. 

The few stooge politicians who are for “the interceptor missles” in those countries where they are to be stationed are likely paid off by the US defense industry lobby, alot like in our country, the U.S. of A.

I believe there should be a referendum on this issue with the US voters.  I know I don’t want my tax dollars to pay for this program, given so many negatives with it. 

I bet “the interceptor missles” will get shot down.

Report this

By QuyTran, April 26, 2007 at 3:54 pm Link to this comment

Between Condĩ Rice and Putin we never trust any ones.
They’re both big liars of all times. The one uses “blow job” foreign policy to sell the war, while the other one is champion of using poison for killing pleasure.

Report this

By Stephen Smoliar, April 26, 2007 at 3:21 pm Link to this comment

The BBC seems to have missed out on the best part of this story.  Condi did not just dismiss Putin’s remarks are “ludicrous.”  According to SPIEGEL ONLINE, she went on (in front of reporters) with a truly fascinating sentence:  “The idea that somehow 10 interceptors and a few radars in Eastern Europe are going to threaten the Soviet strategic deterrent is purely ludicrous and everybody knows it.”

Did you know there was still a “Soviet strategic deterrent?”  Has Condi decided to revive the Cold War and the Soviet Union along with it?  Even if it was a slip of the tongue, it was certainly very telling!  More details and hyperlinks can be found at:

http://therehearsalstudio.blogspot.com/2007/04/is-condi-still-fighting-cold-war.html

Report this

By American Slave, April 26, 2007 at 3:15 pm Link to this comment

It is weakness, not strength, that invites war.  The demise of Evil Empire #2 in 1990 gave Evil Empire #1 the opportunity to turn the Cold war into a hot one, with the neocons now preparing to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear non-aggressor states.

The neo-cons who are targetting Iraq, Iran, Russia, and indeed, the entire world, are fascists or worse. Putin understands that fascists cannot be appeased: Throwing meat to a wolf only whets the beast’s appetite and invites other wolves.  So Putin is making a (half-hearted) effort to stand up to the global gangsters. 

Perhaps the Russians are drawing inspiration from their heroic effort in WW II.  In that war, the German army was first stopped at Moscow and first turned back at Stalingrad. Although most Americans are told that the U.S. “Saved the World”, 75% of the fighting in WW II occurred on the Eastern Front, with Nazis and Zionists alike fleeing to the WEST. 

The Nazis eventually found employment in the CIA after “Operation Paperclip” and the Zionists found employment in AIPAC and the American media.  As a result, the outcome of the war against fascism remains unfinished: Germany lost, but German fascists have gone on to dominate America.


http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110009983
+(
“Between 1992 and 1994, the rise in the death rate in Russia was so dramatic that Western demographers did not believe the figures. The toll from murder, suicide, heart attacks and accidents gave Russia the death rate of a country at war; Western and Russian demographers now agree that between 1992 and 2000, the number of “surplus deaths” in Russia?deaths that cannot be explained on the basis of previous trends?was between five and six million persons.”
)+
—cited by Justin Raimondo, http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=10867

No wonder the Anglosphere lionizes Yeltsin!—Yeltsin almost succeeded where the Germans failed.

Report this

By dale Headley, April 26, 2007 at 12:06 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

The so-called “missile shield”  is just another scam perpetrated on the American taxpayer by the warmongers and the weapons builders.  It is predicated on Ronald Reagan’s deluded recasting of his 1939 “B” movie, “Secret Service of the Air”, wherein he heroically shot down enemy planes with his “star wars” ray gun.  Reagan even alluded to it in speeches as an actual “invention” he reacalled from WWII. 
  Assuming that some country manages to construct an intercontinental ballistic missile system without the U.S. knowing it in plenty of time to destroy it; and assuming the enemy lets us know when they are going to fire their missiles; and if the enemy tells us exactly how many will be fired, from where, and in what trajectory, then maybe we…never mind - it still won’t work. 
  How stupid do the Bushies think potential enemies are, anyway?  As we spend trillions of dollars building a fantasy missile shield, they are spending a pittance to devise other means of attacking us.  I mean, if I were the enemy, I’d just find a way to sneak in a nuclear weapon in a cargo container to be detonated in an American port, since George Bush doesn’t want to spend much money on inspecting them.

Report this
Newsletter

sign up to get updates


 
 
 
 
Join the Liberal Blog Advertising Network
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

A Progressive Journal of News and Opinion. Editor, Robert Scheer. Publisher, Zuade Kaufman.
© 2013 Truthdig, LLC. All rights reserved.