G, R U in love or what?
Posted on 07/24/2002 11:22:21 AM PDT by knak
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said Wednesday that Washington was using the United Nations ( news - web sites) to soften up world opinion for military strikes against Iraq, RIA news agency reported.
"Within the U.N. Security Council they may be beginning to prepare public opinion for a dangerous turn of events (on Iraq)," the agency quoted Ivanov as saying.
"There are all the signs that the Americans have become more active," he said.
Russia has spoken out against any U.S. military action against Iraq, which has the world's second largest oil reserves and has traditionally been close to Moscow.
Speculation has mounted recently that the United States is planning to invade Iraq to oust President Saddam Hussein ( news - web sites), whose government is deemed by Washington to be part of an "axis of evil" seeking weapons of mass destruction.
U.S. and British jets have patrolled no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq since they were set up by Western powers after the 1991 Gulf War ( news - web sites).
Baghdad does not recognize the zones, which the West says were imposed after the war to protect a Kurdish enclave in the north and Shiite Muslims in the south from possible attacks by Iraqi government forces.
And U.N.-Iraqi talks have failed to produce an agreement on the return of weapons inspectors, who came after the 1991 Gulf War but left Iraq in 1998 on the eve of a U.S.-British bombing campaign to punish Baghdad for not cooperating with inspections.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Saltanov is currently on a tour of Middle East states to discuss Iraq and the Palestinian-Israeli crisis.
"The political-diplomatic potential for resolving the Iraq situation is far from being exhausted," Ivanov said.
He said it should aim to ensure Iraq rids itself of weapons of mass destruction and at the same time offer Baghdad the prospect of an end to crippling sanctions.
"It is very important that Iraq in the very near future, accepts the return of international inspectors, who could ... confirm the declarations of the Iraqi leadership that they have no weapons of mass destruction and no program to create such weapons," Ivanov added.
"Gentleman (and comrade), when the operational range of your frontline bomber is 14,000 miles, and when they get there they can drop half their bombs within a six foot circle of error, and no one has an air defense system or air force that can touch you, you DO already rule the world. It's simply a question of when and where you need to prove it to the more slow-witted."
"...Yes, there is continuity and pattern in history, but there is also change. We live in the time of change."
"The American Republic is not riding the tide of history; it IS the tide of history. We are, in the next 20 years, going to see the culmination of the process begun when Alexander first came ashore in Asia: the unification of the world under the Western Cultural system. That system will triumph because it is the only one that recognizes and operates on the fact the determinative unit of human destiny is the individual, not religion, race, class, sex, ethnicity or anything else. None can resist that truth for long; it sweeps all before it."
"Our glorious and imperial republic has not wiped out, with its own blood and treasure, the stain of slavery, plowed under the Habsburgs and Hohenzollerns, flattened imperial Japan, fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, and ground down the false dogma of communism -- we have NOT done all that, to be stopped now by a bunch of wild-eyed pistol-wavers from the 13th century. Men who think it a sagacious, pro-family move to remove the clitorises of pre-turn girls; who won't keep dogs as pets because they view those animals as "unclean," but who at the same time think nothing of wiping their own butts with their own bare hands -- such people have no hold on history or our national destiny."
Ty Bomba - 11:08am Mar 26, 2002
This comment tells it all. Everyone knows Iraq HAS weapons of mass destruction, and that they will never accept an inspection program that could actually result in their elimination.
Since all the players involved know this, Ivanov is sending a different message than appears on the surface. The real message is that Russia will not support Iraq when we attack.
Wrong. They are exhausted. Time to move on to 'politics by other means'.
No, the real message is that Russia wants to be on Europe's good side. When the attack comes (as it will), Russia will make itself look like it's holding its nose (along with Europe) when it decides to support us (as it will).
What groups are you referring to? As far as I'm aware, we're the ones who propped up Sadam (when Iran was the #1 bad guy) and we also supported Bin Laden's and his mujihadeen crew in Afghanistan against the Soviets.
Kinda funny how intervention breeds the necessity for more intervention, eh? But forgive me, such statements are verboten nowadays.
And the attacker is? ........Door A, Door B or Door C?
Ah yes, Uncle Sam's lackey the UN.
As if the Security Council was some spoil of the Cold War or something or -- just because Bill and Hillary are mere resident scourges, along with the UN, in the State of New York -- the UN is now a Good Thing ... a Partner, perhaps, in the War on Terror.
Using a matter-of-fact observation from some Former Soviet Communist who brokered our pact for Afghanistan with Pickering in August 2000, the lead itself makes crystal clear that this is (the Body, the "Human Face" Nexus) of World Revolution at work and yet we beat our chests. GO UN!! GO UN!! GO UN!!
No more pissing-on-the-UN gifs around here, baby. They're on our side now. Do what we tell 'em, when we tell 'em whether the World -- and their soon-to-be softened brains -- likes it or not. Because, evidently ... as Right and as Moral and as Justified as we are, the US cannot make its case to the world and must needs rely on the Professional Opinion Makers at the UN who've done such a job on us to help us.
This is precisely the thing that so appalled and astonished me when Jeane Kirkpatrick spoke at CPAC this year. Indeed, Uncle Bill, I was shocked, for I'd heard her two years prior, under Clinton, decrying precisely the World State's "war time" undermining of national sovereignty she now supports in earnest. Complete 180 on the UN because ... this time, for a change ... they were serving our purposes.
What does that say about our purposes when the UN's pleased to be serving Same ... "softening up world Opinion" no less?
This is your brain ... this is your brain on Pragmatism.
If Pragmatism hadn't existed (and it didn't) they'd have had to invent it (and they did) so the West would get a buzz of Esteem and Empowerment in making -- and cheering -- the almighty Choices it rationalized relative to its own destruction.
Well ... it's not like we're just going to sit on our duffs now that we're firmly within what Putin called the "House of the Soviets".
Western leaders revelaed, by their remarks following the ceremony [welcoming Russia, somewhat, to NATO], that they continued to lack any understanding of Russian strategy, or even to recognise that Moscow has any strategy at all.Soviet Analyst, Vol. 28 No. 1, June 2002Mr. Bush shaid that cooperation with the World's largest nuclear power was 'more likely to be achieved by welcoming Russia West'. One senior Bush Administration official, ignorant of the reality that the new ex-Warsaw Pact NATO members are agents for a hostile Moscow, added: "You can't surround the Russians with more and more NATO members and do nothing to ease the pain." As for the remarks of Bush's Secretary of State, Colin Powell, these are excoriated on page 3.*
So what did President Putin have to say after signing the document setting up the new Nato-Russia Council? This is what he said:
We should call ourselves the House of the Soviets A few leaders, including Mr. Bush, chuckled. And so that it would not be recorded in the Minutes, that "ex"-Communist Lord Robertson, the NATO Secretary General, responded: "I will declare that to be a joke."
But what was funny about Mr. Putin's remark?
*[If you want his and Condi's quips, I'll print them.]
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.