Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Putin Blames Bombers of Belgrade for Iraq Upheaval
Moscow News ^ | 04.06.2004

Posted on 06/04/2004 8:47:58 AM PDT by Tailgunner Joe

Russian President Vladimir Putin believes that “if the international community had had enough courage and strength to prevent [in due time] the bombardments of Belgrade, today we would have had no such complicated situation in Iraq and the Iraqi crisis would be of totally different nature.”

The Russian President made the statement after talks with Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi on Thursday.

Putin also thinks that funds for the recovery of the Serbian economy “should be allocated by those who destroyed parts of its infrastructure with bombers”.

“They destroyed it all right, but they don’t want to rebuild it. The bridges in Belgrade are still lying in the Danube, and all European transport companies are taking losses as a result,” Putin said.


TOPICS: Extended News; Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; News/Current Events; Russia
KEYWORDS: balkans; iraq
Too bad, Vlad, so sad.
1 posted on 06/04/2004 8:47:58 AM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Tailgunner Joe
Russian President Vladimir Putin believes that “if the international community had had enough courage and strength to prevent [in due time] the bombardments of Belgrade, today we would have had no such complicated situation in Iraq and the Iraqi crisis would be of totally different nature.”

This coming from a guy who has no qualms about waging total war against his own terrorist problem. I agree that the Kosovo campaign was a bad thing, but not for the reasons Putin is stating here. We basically got involved in a conflict that was of no stategic concern to us, and made matters worse, not better in the process. In Iraq, the opposite holds true on both points - but, because our intervention is against Russian interests, Putin tries to whine about the lack of UN support for Iraq.

2 posted on 06/04/2004 8:55:45 AM PDT by dirtboy (John Kerry - Hillary without the fat ankles and the FBI files...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Tailgunner Joe
Putin believes that “if the international community had had enough courage and strength to prevent [in due time] the bombardments of Belgrade

What does Vlad mean by this? The "international community" (with the exception of Russia and a few others) was begging for the U.S. to come in there, side with Muslim terrorists, and bomb innocent Christian Serbs to smithereens.

3 posted on 06/04/2004 8:56:49 AM PDT by Mr. Mojo
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Tailgunner Joe
funds for the recovery of the Serbian economy “should be allocated by those who destroyed parts of its infrastructure with bombers”.

Uh sure, Putie... the check is in the mail.

4 posted on 06/04/2004 8:57:51 AM PDT by rhombus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Tailgunner Joe

It just leaves a bad taste in Vlad's mouth to be so impotent and marginalized in global affairs. And who can blame him?


5 posted on 06/04/2004 8:59:08 AM PDT by Gefreiter
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nunya bidness

Fascination bump.


6 posted on 06/04/2004 9:00:12 AM PDT by Askel5
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Askel5

I just love it when Russians lecture us on international etiquette.


7 posted on 06/04/2004 9:01:56 AM PDT by Right Angler
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Askel5
Viktor Chernomyrdin
Thursday, May 27, 1999

I deem it necessary to express my opinion on the Kosovo situation as the warfare escalates and the danger grows of a shift to ground operations, which would be even bloodier and more destructive. I also want to comment on certain ideas put forward by President Clinton in his contribution of May 16 to the New York Times.

In particular, I am anxious to express my opinion of his premise that "Russia is now helping to work out a way for Belgrade to meet our conditions," and that NATO's strategy can "strengthen, not weaken, our fundamental interest in a long-term, positive relationship with Russia."

In fact, Russia has taken upon itself to mediate between Belgrade and NATO not because it is eager to help NATO implement its strategies, which aim at Slobodan Milosevic's capitulation and the de facto establishment of a NATO protectorate over Kosovo. These NATO goals run counter to Russia's stance, which calls for the introduction of U.N. forces into Kosovo with Yugoslavia's sovereignty and territorial integrity intact.

Moreover, the new NATO strategy, the first practical instance of which we are witnessing in Yugoslavia, has led to a serious deterioration in Russia-U.S. contacts. I will be so bold as to say it has set them back by several decades. Recent opinion polls back this up. Before the air raids, 57 percent of Russians were positively disposed toward the United States, with 28 percent hostile. The raids reversed those numbers to 14 percent positive and 72 percent negative. Sixty-three percent of Russians blame NATO for unleashing the conflict, while only 6 percent blame Yugoslavia.

These attitudes result not so much from so-called Slavic fraternity as because a sovereign country is being bombed - with bombing seen as a way to resolve a domestic conflict. This approach clashes with international law, the Helsinki agreements and the entire world order that took shape after World War II.

The damage done by the Yugoslavia war to Russian-U.S. relations is nowhere greater than on the moral plane. During the years of reform, a majority of Russians formed a view of the United States as a genuine democracy, truly concerned about human rights, offering a universal standard worthy of emulation.

But just as Soviet tanks trampling on the Prague Spring of 1968 finally shattered the myth of the socialist regime's merits, so the United States lost its moral right to be regarded as a leader of the free democratic world when its bombs shattered the ideals of liberty and democracy in Yugoslavia. We can only regret that it is feeding the arguments of Communists and radical nationalists, who have always viewed NATO as aggressive, have demanded skyrocketing defense expenditures and have backed isolationist policies for Russia.

Now that raids against military targets have evidently proven pointless, NATO's armed force has moved to massive destruction of civilian infrastructure - in particular, electric transmission lines, water pipes and factories. Are thousands of innocent people to be killed because of one man's blunders? Is an entire country to be razed? Is one to assume that air raids can win a war?

I should like here to turn to the lessons of recent history. The U.S. Air Force and the RAF dropped several hundred thousand bombs on Berlin, yet it took a Soviet Army offensive, with its toll of several hundred thousand lives, to seize the city. American air raids in Vietnam proved pointless, and the Russian Army suffered setbacks in Chechnya. Serbs see NATO and the Americans as aggressors against whom they are defending their native land. I do not think a ground war will be a success, and I am sure it will bring tremendous bloodshed.

Further, it will no longer be possible to thwart the proliferation of missiles and nuclear arms - another negative consequence of NATO's policy. Even the smallest of independent states will seek nuclear weapons and delivery vehicles to defend themselves after they see NATO's military machine in action. The danger of global instability looms, with more new wars and more victims.

More bombing makes it pointless to plan a return of refugees. What will they come back to - homes in debris, without electricity or water? Where will they find jobs, with half of all factories in ruins and the other half doomed to be bombed in due course? It is time for NATO countries to realize that more air raids will lead to a dead end. No fewer than half of the refugees are not eager to leave a prosperous Europe to return to a devastated Kosovo to live side by side with war-embittered Serbs. Of this, I am sure. Clearly, every hundred Kosovars will have to be indefinitely protected by one or two soldiers; that is how NATO's presence in Yugoslavia will become permanent.

Also, sooner or later NATO will be expected by the world community to pay Yugoslavia for damages, to compensate the bereaved families of innocent victims and to punish pilots who bombed civilians and their commanders who issued criminal orders.

Thus, the bloc is headed for a Pyrrhic victory, whether the conflict ends with the Serbs capitulating or in an invasion of Yugoslavia. The campaign will not achieve its main goals. Not all refugees will come back to Kosovo, which will remain in some form under Yugoslav jurisdiction, and many billions of dollars will be spent rebuilding the country from the ruins.

Now, a few words about the ethnic Albanian paramilitaries. They are essentially terrorist organizations. Of this, Russia is sure. They are making money chiefly from drug trafficking, with an annual turnover of $3 billion. As it maintains close contact with these paramilitaries and modernizes their weaponry, the West - directly or indirectly - encourages the emergence of a major new drug trafficking center in that part of the world. It also encourages the paramilitaries to extend their influence to neighboring countries. The Greater Albania motto may soon start to take hold. This will mean more bloodshed, more wars and more redrawings of borders.

The world has never in this decade been so close as now to the brink of nuclear war.

I appeal to NATO leaders to show the courage to suspend the air raids, which would be the only correct move.

It is impossible to talk peace with bombs falling. This is clear now. So I deem it necessary to say that, unless the raids stop soon, I shall advise Russia's president to suspend Russian participation in the negotiating process, put an end to all military-technological cooperation with the United States and Western Europe, put off the ratification of START II and use Russia's veto as the United Nations debates a resolution on Yugoslavia.

On this, we shall find understanding from great powers such as China and India. Of this, I am sure.

The writer, a former prime minister of Russia, is President Boris Yeltsin's special envoy for Kosovo.




ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: You're absolutely right.

I think this is the first really complex challenge to American global leadership. And, if we falter here, the consequences would be devastating -- in the first instance, for Europe; secondly, for the American-European relationship; thirdly, for our position in the world; and then, in a sense, more generally for the kind of world that we will be living in the next few years.

So, in a microcosm, this is a real test case of what the world is about to be.

CHARLIE ROSE: So, if someone says to the president, ``Make the case why Kosovo is important,'' you say, ``This is a microcosm of the way the world is gonna be in the near future''?

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: That is right. You know, it hasn't been noticed very much, but the bombing coincided with another event which was very much obscured by the bombing and that was the decision by the British lords that Pinochet has to be responsible for what he did.

Now, without getting to the legalities of that, these two events signal something very important, namely the emergence of what might be called a ``global code of conduct,'' a global sense of responsibility, a global awareness of what is tolerable and what is not.

It's a difficult and painful process, but it's a process which has to be sustained if the next century is going to be better than this one. And this one certainly has not been very good



8 posted on 06/04/2004 9:07:27 AM PDT by Askel5
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Right Angler

Remember, it's we who granted them legitimacy to do so.


9 posted on 06/04/2004 9:08:08 AM PDT by Askel5
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: dirtboy
Interesting you should mention that. Back in 1999, I speculated at the time that the Russians adopted a "hands-off" approach to NATO's disgraceful war in the Balkans. In exchange, the U.S. basically gave the Russians free reign to do whatever the hell they wanted to do in Chechnya.

Putin does have a very cogent point, though -- he basically puts to rest all the nonsense about our self-adopted moral superiority in foreign affairs.

10 posted on 06/04/2004 9:09:57 AM PDT by Alberta's Child ("Ego numquam pronunciare mendacium . . . sed ego sum homo indomitus")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Alberta's Child
he basically puts to rest all the nonsense about our self-adopted moral superiority in foreign affairs.

In what manner? First of all, I do not consider the approval of the UN for an action to be any kind of moral sanction, especially given the fact that they currently have Sudan on their Human Rights Commission - instead, pointing to the lack of UN approval for Kosovo is useful solely to illuminate the hypocrisy of the Dems. Second, we tend to have much better results with foreign military campaigns when our interests are engaged - which is why Kosovo is a cesspool now whereas Iraq has made considerable progress. The Dems seem to think that any military action that is in the interests of the United States is somehow tainted. But, in the end, the United States has, over the last sixty years, been an instrument for positive political change in the world when we pursue our interests. Russia has nothing that remotely compares to that record.

11 posted on 06/04/2004 9:17:03 AM PDT by dirtboy (John Kerry - Hillary without the fat ankles and the FBI files...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: dirtboy

Well we can help rebuild serbia instead of iraq

and get the slavic world behind us in a crusade against the islamic world.


12 posted on 06/04/2004 2:44:16 PM PDT by jerrydavenport
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: Tailgunner Joe
Russian President Vladimir Putin believes that “if the international community had had enough courage and strength to prevent [in due time] the bombardments of Belgrade, today we would have had no such complicated situation in Iraq and the Iraqi crisis would be of totally different nature.”

How is it that bombing Belgrade under Clinton prevents us from having a good solution with Sadam? Is he meaning that he supports the terrorists in Iraq because he is bitter over the bombing of Serbia, and that 911 is a tit for tat answer to bombing Belgrade?

Sure seem like cryptic statements to me.

13 posted on 06/04/2004 4:42:55 PM PDT by JudgemAll
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: JudgemAll
Wouldn't it have been nice if the whole world, including Russia and France had gotten behind the UN resolution to put teeth in the 'force part' of the Iraq dance? Maybe if Putin and Chirac weren't so up to their ears in Iraq oil they could see how that act alone may have prevented the Iraq war. Saddam may have come to his senses if Putin had whispered the right words in his ear.

Nice how Putin joins the 'it's our fault' chorus, when the real cause lays at his feet.
14 posted on 06/04/2004 4:52:17 PM PDT by snooker (John Flipping Kerry, the enemy's choice in Vietnam, the enemy's choice in Iraq.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: Tailgunner Joe
Your spelling is awful!...It's Puking..not Putin
15 posted on 06/04/2004 4:55:26 PM PDT by Hotdog
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson