Posted on 08/19/2008 9:36:37 AM PDT by Schnucki
The United States has been left diplomatically isolated after European members of NATO moved to reject an American proposal to scale back ties with Moscow following Russia's invasion of Georgia.
US diplomats attending an emergency NATO summit in Brussels had called on the alliance to suspend ministerial meetings with Russia, held twice a year, as a way of demonstrating the West's disapproval of the war.
But other members of the alliance, including Britain, rejected the plan, saying that it would be foolish to isolate Russia. Instead diplomats released their strongly-worded statement, stopping short of concrete action, at least for now.
David Miliband, the foreign secretary, implicitly criticized Washington's proposal to suspend the Nato-Russia council, established six-years ago to improve dialogue between Moscow and the West, as short-sighted.
"I am not one that believes that isolating Russia is the right answer to its misdemeanours," he said. "I think the right answer is hard-headed dialogue." A French diplomat, however, signaled that Nato was getting fed up with Russia's failure to carry out repeated pledges to withdraw its troops from Georgian territory and warned that the time could come for a re-examination of the West's ties with Moscow.
"We are at risk of entering, if there is not a very rapid evolution on the ground, into a relationship which will be of a different nature to what it was until now," he said.
Russia, however, seemed unfazed by the mounting criticism. Its troops smashed their way into the Black Sea port of Poti, blockaded it and then took 22 Georgian servicemen prisoner.
Russian forces last week used explosives to sink Georgian naval ships and coastguard vessels in the port as part of what appears to be a plan to damage the country's civilian and military infrastructure.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Yep, those “strongly worded statements” sure has the Russians running scared!
And when Russia clamps off oil to Europe, they will be begging us to help.
And we will. And I’ll be ticked off. As usual.
Can you say Russian gas ?
Neville Chamberlain lives.
Trade Russia Germany and France for New Europe.
Seeing as we basically flipped THEM off during the run up to the recent Iraq War, can’t be too surprised. What goes around, comes around. Shame everyone’s security suffers but that was Rumsfield’s perogative.
“misdemeanors”????????? So, like, what’s a felony these days in Europe??????????
Never again, we cannot take our troops out of Germany. We have a strong foothold in Central Europe and we must expand it to Ukraine.
If you’re saying trade Ukraine for Germany, I say let’s have Germany, Ukraine and Poland.
BTW, since when did the Germans agree on anything with the French?
The very definition of modern day Western "diplomacy".
Why doesn't it occur to Europe that fewer Russian tanks (& Russian tanks crewmwn) means more Russian fuel left over to sell to Europe?
Leave it to the Euros to lay down. Just another example of why we have to get out of NATO and the UN.
The next time the russian gets hungry and heads west again, I hope our next president will feel “too isolated” and just use “strongly-worded statements” to get the Beast from the East off their chest.
I sure that will scare him off/sarc.
“Seeing as we basically flipped THEM off during the run up to the recent Iraq War”
No we didn’t. It’s not our fault that they opposed freedom for the Iraqis.
But other members of the alliance, including Britain, rejected the plan, saying that it would be foolish to isolate Russia. Instead diplomats released their strongly-worded statement, stopping short of concrete action, at least for now.
Russia is at war within itself.
I think that's exactly what we should be telling NATO if they don't get their heads out of their asses.
We have troops stationed around the world to try and maintain peace and stability as best we can, and avoid another world war. Or if not avoid it, at least prevent it from spreading to far too fast.
We do not however have troops stationed around the world to mop up all the world's problems on our own while the rest of the world avoids taking a stand that might cost them economically or force them to actually maintain significant levels of military forces.
If they don't want to stop Russian expansion, we should make it clear that we will take it as a sign that they don't want our help in keeping Russia from absorbing them as well.
After all, if they want to become part of Russia, who are we to stand in the way.
However, I still have little faith that the corrupt Russian government can maintain a strong economy without external customers with better economic systems, and Europeans don't tend to make good subjects.
The real question is how to protect good allies like Poland. In theory NATO countries are bound by treaty to protect other NATO countries, but I question if most of NATO has it in them to actually force Russia back if they invade. I can see them calling for dialogue and peacekeeping forces, but not actual combat. I think they fear war more than being dominated.
Say what? France was NEVER going to go against Saddam, because the French were the chief beneficiaries of the corrupt “oil for food” program, which might better be called the “starve Iraqui children for oil profits while blaming the U.S.” program.
Can you say “Total-Fina-Elf”? Canada, too.
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