Posted on 02/11/2007 7:08:38 PM PST by blam
US hits back after Putin tirade
By Adrian Blomfield in Moscow
Last Updated: 2:31am GMT 12/02/2007
The United States and Russia were locked in a bitter war of words yesterday as officials reacted furiously to a speech by Vladimir Putin that represented the most ferocious attack on US policy by a Russian leader since the Cold War.
Although Mr Gates sought to cool some of the angry rhetoric flying between the two former Cold War adversaries by describing Russia as a "partner", he added: "We wonder too about some Russian policies that seem to work against international stability such as its arms transfers and its temptation to use energy resources for political coercion."
President Vladimir Putin speaking at the Conference on Security Policy in Munich
The comments, echoed by officials across the US political spectrum, came a day after astonished delegates listened to an unprecedented tirade from the Russian leader that was at times reminiscent of Nikita Khrushchev's shoe-banging rhetoric.
Reflecting the growing chill in relations between the two countries, Mr Putin accused the United States of trying to subjugate the world and termed its policy in the Middle East as "unilateral and frequently illegitimate."
"Today we are witnessing an almost uncontained hyper-use of military force in international relations that is plunging the world into an abyss of permanent conflict," he said.
"The United States has overstepped its national borders in every way. This is extremely dangerous. It results in the fact that no-one feels safe because no-one can feel that international law is like a stone wall that can protect them." While many of the assembled European politicians may have secretly agreed with Mr Putin's feelings on America's invasion of Iraq, fear of Russia's democratic trajectory and growing energy might united delegates in condemnation of the speech.
Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt said the West had to accept that Mr Putin's speech represented "the real Russia of today". His Czech counterpart, Karel Schwazenburg, said the speech showed "clearly and convincingly" why Nato had been right to expand into eastern Europe.
The Nato secretary general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, also condemned the speech.
Mr Gates, a former CIA officer, tried to put Mr Putin's comments down to the Russian president's KGB background.
"I guess old spies have a habit of blunt speaking," he said. "However I've been to re-education camp," — a jibe that won approving laughter and applause from the audience. "One Cold War was quite enough."
For weeks, the Kremlin had indicated that Mr Putin would make a key foreign policy statement at the conference. Foreign policy aide Sergei Prikhodko said last week that Mr Putin was going to outline "his vision of the place and role of Russia in the present day world". And while the tenor of Mr Putin's speech may have caused outrage, it has hardly caused surprise.
Relations with both Europe and the United States have been deteriorating as a newly assertive Russia, buoyed by booming energy prices, has shaken off the post-Soviet malaise of the 1990s.
Western criticism has mounted as Mr Putin curtailed freedoms in Russia and imposed economic punishments on ex-Soviet neighbours who had pursued a pro-Western course.
In return the Kremlin is particularly angered by US plans to move missiles into eastern Europe. While Washington insists that the missiles are directed at the growing threat of Iran and North Korea, the Kremlin is convinced they are directed at Russia.
Last week, hawkish defence minister Sergei Ivanov, seen as a possible successor of Mr Putin when he stands down next year, announced an eight-year £100 billion military upgrade. Defence spending has quadrupled since Mr Putin came to power.
But western diplomats argued yesterday that Mr Putin's speech reflected as much weakness as it did strength.
Russia's military hardware is largely rusting and, even though the Kremlin may be trying to develop new missiles, it has lost the nuclear race.
"Putin's speech was in part impotent rage," said a Western diplomat. "He's a strong believer that the Cold War principle of Mutually Assured Destruction made the world a safer place." "When he railed against a unipolar world, he was essentially acknowledging that for the first time in 50 years the United States has reached nuclear primacy."
Bush looked into Putin's heart and saw somebody worthy that he could work with like a soul mate.
Bush, of course, is a genius at sizing up people and situations. We have nothing to worry about Russian KGB agents as leaders.
Humans can't exist (totally) without it. Yeah, maybe we should ask, first.
I'll check-out 'Utopia'.
"We don't want such "freedom" like in Iraq" (C)
There is no 'freedom' in Iraq. Yet. They're still in the 'bomb-throwing' stage of development. No one considers themselves a citizen of Iraq. Just a member of a religious sect or other. They'll just have to keep killing each other, in the name of God, until they realize they're citizens within a country and share a common existence. 'Till then, boom, out go the lights.
Freedom is much more do-able than communism, and lasts longer besides. It comes naturally, doesn't require massive state investment, and is the cheapest form of civilization known to man.
Unfortunately, an auto-immune reponse to freedom usually arises over time, placing it in jeapordy such as, that which we must defeat at election time. Lucky for us, we chose elections over revolutions. Less blood spilled, same result. Imagine that.
I wish it ain´t so, but the US gets bashed for Gitmo, and as long as this camp exists, the US will be seen as of the same level like Russia or China.
It not pathos, it is a reality. The Most part of Russians already in furiousness for a long time from your impudence, and frank rudeness. ==
Common Semargl it is not exactly true. I know may countrymen who admit that if Russia were America then it coud be even worse. America is just the mild world policeman. America went to Iraq jut persuing the maybe weak idea of country progressing. Neocons wanted to progress whole Middle East just to make it safer for Israel of cause and America. The opposites of it is just to nuke ME. We in Russia know that. The american problem as I see it is just America thought that she can find in ME the people who will be as teh Kadyrov in Chechenya will fight for american interests. But they didn't accually.
After all if you live in Kazakhstan then you should be more afraid not of America but of China.
Cheers from Moscow.
Serbs accully had the SOVIET weaponry not russian weaponry. That is why you see T-55 tank which was built in 1950th.
Russian weaponry are Ak-74M, T-80&90 tanks, Mig29SMT&OVT, BTR80&90, S-300 antiaircraft and TOR-1M, Tunguska, Missile Topol-M and so on.
Those AKs looked pretty new to me.
Now the USA insist on declaration of independence of Kosovo.
So in other words, no one is 'annexing' Kosovo. Now we can debate the merits of that if you wish. But calling it an 'annexation' is simply untrue.
And if you want i tell you that it was very bad that Russia did nothing to stop aggression.
There wasn't a damn thing you could do about it.
And just for the record I thought our 'intervention' over there was a big mistake. It was quite simply none of our business.
L
D#mn, you're good!
heh...
Can you find the 10 distinction between RF And KZ?
8)
Minimum a third of population of Kazakhstan have relatives in Russia. 8) I have too, Pskov, St. Peterburg, Moskow, BAM, Vladivostok.... 8)
And about fear. The USA guaranteed the inviolability to Kazakhstan when Kazakhstan refused the nuclear weapon.
Well if USA will disturb the contract, KZ have contracts about mutual aid with the Russian Federation and China.
8D
Slushay vopros, tut na forume ne yurodlivie vstrechutsy ?
Bez propagandiskoy kashi v mozgah ?
I get mighty tired of wannabe Stalins from 2nd world has been crap holes ragging on my country.
There are 40 million more free people in this world now than there were in 2000 thanks to us and no thanks to the idiot Russians and their thug of a 'President'.
Russians wouldn't know freedom if it walked up to them, politely introduced itself, and then kicked them right in the balls.
L
The person is always free. The person can be the slave if he (she) think that he(she) is slave, and agree with it.
Everything else - illusion.
Tell that to the North Koreans.
Everything else - illusion
Is a bullet in the neck an illusion?
L
Actually I don't think they do. 94% of their population is younger than 65 so they've never known anything but life in a slave nation.
If they like the power of Kim - it's their problem.
Somehow I don't think they've ever been asked if they want a different leader.
If those people will decide that this form of power is bad they refuse it.
That's pretty tough to do when you're starving and without any weapons but rocks.
Excuse me if I has grieved you somewhere in my posts
No grievance taken from you. I'm just tired of your President saying that the US is somehow the cause of the difficulties Russia is having. I'm equally tired of Putin aiding every rogue nation on the planet.
Putin and his goons are the ones largely responsible for Russias present state. His government actively aided and abetted Saddam before the war and was in the Oil For Food scandal up to his eyebrows.
He's a cheap thug.
Best of luck to your country. I genuinely like most Russians I meet here in the US. I hope you get things straightened out over there. It'd be great to trade honestly with one another. Both nations would benefit greatly from it and it's long past time we became real friends.
L
Then America moved in and rolled 'em up like a carpet in less than 30 days.
Putin is a sour-grapes puss-bag. He can go suck an egg.
;-/
Vlad-baby still has a hard time dealing with the fact that he banged his (and the "Rodina's") hapless knuckle-head against the immovable object which was Afghanistan for over a decade and got his best efforts jammed up his greasey crease.
Then America moved in and rolled 'em up like a carpet in less than 30 days. ==
I try to understand you. You probably mean the soviet invasion into Afganistan in 1979? FYI it was Soviet Union not Russia. Scondly, Soviet Union rolled into Afgamnistan even faster then 30 days. I remember something like 7 days or so. All fun began later. Sameway like today for America.
This says it all. Putin could not save his beloved EVIL EMPIRE and he misses the days when the world feared its threat. We don't fear you now, comrade. Never again.
the US gets bashed for Gitmo
I guess the next question is: by what criteria? What are then values behind statements like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or the Geneva Conventions? What the the assumptions underneath modern notion of human dignity universally understood in Europe? Are they true or just a spur of romanticism-humanism? These are good questions, and I understand this will sound as outrageous as questioning 1+1=2 to European ears, but truth is truth, and they demand answers first before we can get to judge if Gitmo is moral.
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