Posted on 04/19/2007 8:55:33 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
Russia has complained long and loud about U.S. plans to put a missile shield in place in Eastern Europe. So the U.S. offered Russia a chance to join the effort. Now we have Russia's answer: Nyet.
Russia has said repeatedly that it sees the U.S. decision to erect a missile defense shield in Poland and the Czech Republic by 2013 as a threat. "The U.S.-declared threat (in Iran)," then-Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said last November, "is only an attempt to cover up efforts to change strategic stability and to weaken Russia's deterrence potential."
Moscow obviously doesn't think Iran's a threat. But last month, Iran fired its first rocket into outer space, a sign of its growing sophistication with potential nuclear delivery systems and quite clearly a shot across the bow of the U.S. and Western Europe.
Just this week, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog noted that Iran had cranked up 1,300 new centrifuges, on its way to having 50,000 to 60,000 in operation...
"As for possible cooperation in strategic anti-missile defense, honestly speaking, I see no reason for that," he said earlier this week. "We believe this strategic anti-missile defense system is somewhat chimerical, to put it mildly." In other words, it's phony.
Let's see if we have this straight: The U.S. shouldn't put a missile interceptor bank in Poland and two radar systems in the Czech Republic because they're a threat to Russia. But Russia won't cooperate because missile defense won't work. Which is it?
The fact is, Putin & Co. seem to have different ideas entirely — as the arrest this week of chess grandmaster and dissident Gary Kasparov shows. Putin and Ivanov want Europe, especially Germany, intimidated while they consolidate their power. If that means starting a new Cold War, so be it.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
Eat shiite, Putin.
This is all just posturing for domestic consumption. Putin needs an “American threat” to keep people united at home. He knows very well that the 10 to 12 missile intercepters pose no threat to the hundreds of missiles that Russia can launch.
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