Posted on 08/16/2008 7:31:37 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
Former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has criticized Georgia for the war over South Ossetia, calling Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili a gambler, and warning against allowing the country to join NATO.
In an interview with Der Spiegel magazine due out on Monday, Schröder said he thought Georgia’s chances of joining the transatlantic alliance had moved “even further into the distance,” following the fighting with Russian forces.
Schröder’s comments are sure to be scrutinized due to his close personal and political friendship with former president and current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, as well as his acceptance of a Gazprom job immediately after leaving office.
Schröder said he would support the idea of sending German troops as part of a potential peace-keeping mission under the auspices of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
But he added that should such a mission be instigated without the explicit support of Russia, “I would not like to see any German soldiers stationed there.”
Russia was not pursuing an annexation policy in the Caucasus, he said, and said he saw no reason for the concept of “strategic partnership” between Germany and Russia to be affected by the war.
“I reject the idea of demonising Russia. I consider Russia as a part of Europe,” he said.
Schröder has been heavily criticised for his dealings with Russia during and immediately after holding office.
While still in office, he and his wife Doris adopted a young Russian girl, and later adopted a Russian boy.
He described Putin as a good democrat as the rest of the world was starting to seriously doubt his democratic credentials, and took a lucrative job at a Gazprom subsidiary company after leaving German political office.
His appointment at the company responsible for building a controversial Gazprom pipeline under the Baltic Sea was defended by the then Gazprom vice president Dmitri Medvedev – now the country’s president.
I expected nothing less from Schröder.
I’m sure he blames the Czech’s for Sudetenland too.
Well, it’s about time someone asked you to start working for your rubles, Gerhard.
you gotta love europe.... I like the nachos.... ... or is it .... no ... i hate europe.
there’s probably some truth to that. the georgians have been unfair to the abkazians and ossetians; their mutual hatreds go back centuries.
this said, does europe want cheaper gas and oil?
will europe defend the pipeline?
i don’t think so, from what i read in the euro press.
How do you say “chutzpah” in straight-up german?
I can’t believe that bought-and-paid-for whore has the cojones to show his face. He shoved through a law favoring Gazprom as one of his last acts as Chancellor then immediately went on Pooty’s payroll the moment he left office.
Unfricken’ believable.
Well, he did have to find a new revenue stream after that Iraq Oil for Food scheme came to an end in 2003.
LOL!!!good one!
Once a leftist always a leftist.
and you know this about the Georgians how?
Wow, we knew Schroeder was Putin’s whore but this is too much. He thinks he has to not only sell his body to Putin but also pretend to ‘love’ his client. What a pathetic grovelling socialist POS.
Well, he did have to find a new revenue stream after that Iraq Oil for Food scheme came to an end in 2003.
I have a brother who works in Hollywood (actually Burbank) doing film editing. So he is in a cess pool of lefties. He told me, "I haven't yet met a socialist who can't be bought."
My brother has a gift for concise commentary.
He’s trying to get Merkel and the German people to be neutral about what’s going on in Georgia, so they won’t think along other lines now seeing how Russia can pull a country’s strings by using oil as a cudgel. He wants them dependent on Russia so he can make more money off his Gazprom interests. What a scumbag. He always was one. An anti-American and even anti his own country scumbag.
reading history and newspapers all of my life, and most recently:
>>>While Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin undoubtedly ruthlessly exploit the tensions in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, it is a foolish mistake to think they created them. Ossetians and Abkhaz remember all too well the aggressive and unpleasant Georgian nationalism during the early 1990s, and have no desire to be part of a Georgian state. Meanwhile, after the wars in both regions at that time, many ethnic Georgians still live as refugees in grim conditions in Tbilisi and other Georgian cities.<<<
It will take some rhetorical adjustment but I expect the useful idiots in America to fall into line directly. After all aren't Georgia, the Baltic States, Poland and the Ukraine just in Russia's legitimate "sphere of influence". You just can't expect Russia to tolerate hostile governments on her borders. I'll bet someone besides Schröder is soon at Putin's side. Obama, perhaps?
Schroder is in bought and paid for by Putin. Just another Marionette on strings pulled by petrodollars.
Just another politician that sells out his own country for the highest bidder.
Same ol’ song and dance.
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