Posted on 05/19/2002 4:36:29 PM PDT by Shermy
Edited on 09/03/2002 4:50:30 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
For 57 years, Russians and Americans have marked the May anniversary of the Allied victory over Nazi Germany in World War II. This year the day took on a special resonance. When the U.S. Defense attache at the embassy in Moscow was promoted to brigadier general, who came to help pin on his stars and epaulettes? A senior general in the Russian Army.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.com ...
Good night. I won't be here, but enjoy the article.
Lets hope that this continues and is the beginning of the end of the tyranical control of the Opecker Princes on much of the world.
If we can get more oil out of Alaska, natural gas from Iran when it is liberated, the Opecker Princes will have to abandon their Mercedes and Rolls and go back to jockeying camels around the various oasisi!
This news had to make a lot of Opecker Princes pass a lot of their unnatural gas under their expensive silk robes from Harrod's.
Heheheh.
:) ttt
Perhaps we could offer to pay them $x per/barrel premium on oil they sell us until the total equals what they lost on the Iraq debt. All this, of course, in exchange for their support of the war.
This is the best thing I have ever heard about him.
The best kind of deal. Radical Islamic fanatics can go to hell. (That's where they're going anyway.)
Did everyone notice on all the morning talk shows the Dems were backing off their accusations from last week about Bush's "advance knowledge" of 9/11? The administration went after those RATS with guns-a-blazin'.....and now, three days later, the RATS look like the partisans they are.
The Russians are not to be trusted. We are being set up big time for the sake of the oil companies profits.
Beware of the post-cold war shoulder
Recent spats between the EU and the US could develop into a permanent rift - and a Russo-American axis that leaves Europe out in the cold, says Simon Tisdall
Friday May 17, 2002
This week's Nato ministerial meeting in Iceland provided a study in contrasts that may bode ill for Europe's future relationship with the United States.
On the one hand, Colin Powell, the US secretary of state, led a welcome for Russia into a new, partially integrated role in Nato.
For the first time, the US-led alliance will allow Moscow an "equal say" in much of its decision-making and future missions. This agreement was described by Britain's foreign secretary, Jack Straw, as "the last rites" of the cold war.
On the other hand, Powell spent a significant amount of time in Reykjavik emphasising the Bush administration's unhappiness with European levels of defence spending.
This is an old complaint. But it has become more urgent since September 11 and the subsequent $60bn (£41bn) increase in annual Pentagon budgets.
European members of Nato are well aware of their military and technological shortcomings when compared with the US.
They know the capabilities gap is growing. But, pleading poverty and budget deficits, none is currently proposing dramatic increases in military outlays.
Friction over "burden-sharing" within Nato is only one of many strains in the current US-Europe relationship. European leaders have a long list of grievances of their own.
This list includes US refusal to go along with the Kyoto protocol on climate change, differences over treaties on biological and chemical weapons, US opposition to the international criminal court, "unfair" American trade practices such as steel tariffs, and social issues such America's attachment to the death penalty.
Europe is, on the whole, highly critical of President George Bush's backing for Ariel Sharon's Israel. It does not want a new war with Iraq. And many in Europe's capitals view the so-called Bush doctrine governing the "war on terror" and the attempted isolation of "axis of evil" rogue states with a mixture of alarm and amusement.
For its part, the US government is plainly exasperated by Europe's backsliding on defence, its failure to speak with one voice on important foreign policy issues, and its opposition (though not unanimous) to Bush's national missile defence plans.
The Bush administration appears not to have been over-impressed by the level of European commitment to the "war on terror" (Britain excepted) and their insistence on maintaining relations and doing business with countries such as Libya and Iran which it distrusts.
A new, aggravating factor has arisen in recent months, with European support for the Palestinians being increasingly interpreted in the US as the product of an endemic, enduring European anti-semitism. It does not help that many Jews in Europe also feel that way, too.
The French elections, in which the National Front candidate, Jean-Marie Le Pen, did shockingly well, merely served to reinforce American impressions that Europeans, speaking crudely, are basically a bunch of racist, anti-semitic, xenophobic, untrustworthy freeloaders.
The recent upheavals in Dutch politics caused by the death of the rightwing populist, Pim Fortuyn, were taken as more evidence for this view.
Angry media rhetoric has being flying to and fro across the Atlantic for some time. Instead of encouraging understanding, this shouting match has just polarised opinion even further.
Given this mood, even Tony Blair, Bush's staunchest European ally, was forced this week to create a little space between London and Washington. Blair refused to adopt the "axis of evil" mantra, for example, and downplayed the likelihood (and advisability) of an attack on Iraq.
Of course, much of this is exaggerated or simplified. All relationships go through sticky patches, and the US-Europe relationship is no different. Blair and Straw never miss an opportunity to stress the paramount importance of maintaining close ties between the two continents. In their calmer moments, US officials say much the same thing.
All the same, the Iceland Nato meeting provided European politicians, if they care to look, with a glimpse of a new strategic paradigm that must surely worry them.
Against all expectations, the Bush administration and the government of President Vladimir Putin of Russia are finding they have more and more in common.
They agree on fighting terror, be it in New York or Grozny, Georgia or Moscow. Putin, remember, was the first foreign leader to call Bush after September 11.
They agree about weapons proliferation (although there are differences on Russian sales to Iran) They just signed a treaty to cut strategic warheads by two-thirds on each side.
They agree, increasingly, on open markets. Russia wants to join the World Trade Organisation. The US is increasingly interested in Russian oil as an alternative to dependence on the Middle East.
They agree, prospectively, on "regime-change" in Iraq. Russia has gone along with revamped sanctions. In the longer term, it wants a share of the business action (and old Soviet era debts repaid) in a post-Saddam Baghdad.
They agree, though they do not say so in public, on the potential strategic menace posed by China. Putin courted Beijing pre-September 11. But there now seems no doubt where he has placed his principal hopes for the future - in a pragmatic, profitable working relationship with the US.
To cap it all, it seems the US and Russia are about to agree on national missile defence (NMD).
Putin dislikes the Star Wars plans, but he knows he cannot stop them. So instead, he intends to make the most of it. It is expected an agreement on NMD will feature in next week's summit in Russia between Bush and Putin.
Contemplating all this, European leaders and the EU might be forgiven for wondering where it may all lead. They are accustomed, after all, since 1945, to being on Washington's team versus the Russians.
Could it be that a strategic shift is in the making that would leave the line-up looking like the US and Russia versus Europe?
Or, just as bad if not worse, Washington and Moscow ignoring Europe and doing what they want regardless? All experience and history suggests not. But if the transatlantic rows keep coming at the present rate, it is not entirely beyond the realms of possibility that the current falling out could become an enduring breach with the US, into which steps the canny Putin.
The Germans will not believe it until it happens. The Italians have probably not noticed. And the French may not care. But little wonder Tony Blair's Britain is keeping a foot in both camps.
simon.tisdall@guardian.co.uk
No, that's not the only question. The other question is: can the Russians trust us? Why the heck are we helping Chechens or slap Russian exports with tariffs?
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