Posted on 11/30/2001 7:03:13 AM PST by oxi-nato
MOSCOW -- Russia on Friday welcomed a U.N. vote supporting the Anti-ballistic Missile treaty and said it was evidence of growing international support in the 29-year-old pact, the focus of a persistent dispute between Russia and the United States.
The U.N. General Assembly on Thursday voted 84-4 with 61 abstentions in favor of maintaining the 1972 U.S.-Soviet treaty, which governs American and Russian missile defenses. The resolution reflects the sentiment of the 189-member assembly but is not legally binding.
The United States claims it faces a threat from ballistic missiles that could be launched from so-called "rogue states" and wants to test missile-defense technologies that the ABM treaty bans. Russia insists that the treaty is a cornerstone of international security and opposes changes. "The results of the vote testify to the growing support in the world for this treaty and a striving not to allow its destruction," Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said in a statement.
The statement said Russia would continue to aim to "adhere to this unique treaty, which it said helps ensure strategic stability in the world while allowing for cuts in nuclear weapons.
The United States plans this weekend to test part of its missile defense program by trying to shoot a mock warhead out of the sky with an interceptor rocket. The Pentagon says the test is designed to stay within the limits of the ABM treaty.
The Interfax news agency quoted a senior Russian military official as saying Friday that Russia believed the United States may abandon the ABM treaty and that Russia was prepared to take reciprocal action. He did not specify how Russia might respond. "We are inclined to continue consultations with the United States on ABM, but I do not rule out that Washington could unilaterally leave this document," said Yuri Baluyevsky, first deputy head of the Russian General Staff.
But he said he had no reason to believe the United States intends to take actions that would violate the treaty in the immediate future. President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin failed to reach an agreement in their dispute over ABM treaty during a summit in the United States in mid-November.
Bush has said that unless he reaches an arrangement with Russia that accommodates his missile defense program, the United States will withdraw from the treaty, which it is permitted to do with six months' notice.
If this can be proven then we'd better check real carefully to see what we agreed to in treaties with Abyssinia, Basutoland and the Ottoman Empire.
Besides, as to the UN, who died and left THEM Pope?
i do not like the un much more than you but the un is the only body that democratically represents the world!
sorry, the u.s. is not the voice of the world and no is her nato allies!
It was written in the Bible anyhow, that the smart and stubborn would fall off the deep end in matters of reasoning in the end.
sorry, the u.s. is not the voice of the world and no is her nato allies!
Well, don't worry, because NATO now is becoming Eastern Europe's and Russia's butt boy.
As for the US deciding everything, that is hardly the issue, the issue should be if the USA should repent to UN demands or the UN repent to US needs. To me, history should tell that the UN should repent to the US, but socialites don't think so because socialites would rather forget the past in their unrepentant progressism.
US: [from the Declaration of Independence]
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.
UN: [from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Articles 29 (2) and (3) and 30]
(2) In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.(3) These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
Article 30.
Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.
The former states that human rights are inalienable and that the purpose of government is to safeguard same; and that the people can amend or abolish any government which fails to do this;
The latter states that human rights are conditional upon the approval of [insert name of governing authority here].
I eagerly await your counterarguments.
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