MOSCOW, May 31, 2007
Putin: U.S. Pursuing "Imperialist" Policy
Russian Leader Says Tests Of Missiles Were Response To U.S. Plans For Missile Defense
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Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, speaks at a news conference after a meeting with Greek President Carolos Papoulias in the Kremlin in Moscow on May 31, 2007. (AP)
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In a clear reference to the United States, Putin harshly criticized "diktat and imperialism" in global affairs and warned that Russia will keep strengthening its military potential to maintain a global strategic balance.
"It wasn't us who initiated a new round of arms race," Putin said when asked about Russia's missile tests this week at a news conference in Moscow.
In Washington, White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe indicated that Moscow's tests only underscore the U.S. contention that the missile defense system would not be a threat to Russia.
"Russia's strong missile capabilities are no match for our European missile defense plans and will not upset the strategic balance in the region," Johndroe said.
Putin described the tests of a new ballistic missile capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads and a new cruise missile as part of the Russian response to the planned deployment of new U.S. military bases and missile defense sites in ex-Soviet satellites in eastern Europe.
He assailed the United States and other NATO members for failing to ratify an amended version of the 1990 Conventional Forces in Europe treaty, which limits the deployment of heavy non-nuclear weapons around the continent.
"We have signed and ratified the CFE and are fully implementing it. We have pulled out all our heavy weapons from the European part of Russia to (locations) behind the Ural Mountains and cut our military by 300,000 men," Putin said.
"And what about our partners? They are filling Eastern Europe with new weapons. A new base in Bulgaria, another one in Romania, a (missile defense) site in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic," he said. "What we are supposed to do? We can't just sit back and look at that."
Putin and other Russian officials have repeatedly rejected U.S. assurances that the planned missile defense installations are meant to counter a potential threat from nations such as Iran and pose no danger to Russia.
He reaffirmed his warning that Russia would opt out of the CFE treaty altogether if NATO nations fail to ratify its amended version.
"Either you ratify the treaty and start observing it, or we will opt out of it," Putin said.
In remarks directed at Washington, Putin blasted those "who want to dictate their will to all others regardless of international norms and law."
"It's dangerous and harmful," he added. "Norms of the international law were replaced with political expediency. We view it as diktat and imperialism."
In one of the tests Tuesday, a prototype of Russia's new intercontinental ballistic missile, called the RS-24, was fired from a mobile launcher at the Plesetsk launch site in northwestern Russia and its test warhead landed on target 3,400 miles away on the Kamchatka Peninsula in the far eastern part of the country, officials said.
Deploying a new missile capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads could allow Russia to maintain nuclear parity with the United States despite having to gradually decommission Soviet-built ICBMs.
The military also tested a new cruise missile based on the existing short-range Iskander missile.
First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, widely seen as a potential Kremlin candidate to succeed Putin, hailed the missile's capability on Thursday.
"It can be used at long range with surgical precision, as doctors say" Ivanov said, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency. "Russia needs this weapon to maintain strategic stability."
ITAR-Tass said Thursday the new cruise missile, R-500, will have a range of up to 310 miles, the limit under a Soviet-era treaty that banned intermediate-range missiles. Putin and other officials have called the treaty outdated but have not said Russia would opt out of it.
© MMVII The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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See all 40 CommentsOSLO, Norway %u2014 A nuclear waste dump in the Russia Arctic may be in danger of exploding because of corrosion caused by salt water in enormous storage tanks, the Norwegian environmental group Bellona warned Friday. The three tanks are used to store spent nuclear fuel rods at Andreeva Bay, on the Kola Peninsula of northwestern Russia, just 28 miles from the Norwegian border, the Oslo-based group said in a statement. "We discover now that we are sitting on a powder keg, with a fuse that is burning, but we don't know how long that fuse is," said Alexander Nikitin, a former Russian navy officer who is now one of Bellona's nuclear experts. The group cited a report from Rosatom, the Russian nuclear authority, describing the danger. Bellona said the storage tanks were long believed to be dry inside, but that recent studies show corrosive salt water is inside the tanks. "Ongoing degradation is causing fuel to split into small granules. Calculations show that the creation of a homogenous mixture of these particles with water can cause an uncontrolled chain reaction," ...
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-- WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO MOVING AMERICA FOWARD ? --
Putin is right on - He couldn't - of defined the :
"Bush Administration" - More clearly"
Remember :
No one hates a : "Nazi" more so than a : "Communist"
It was the :
The "Reagan" - Communist witch hunts that
Defined him - as a : "Nazi"
The "Nazi" ideology - The "Communist" ideology.
Both striving for the same : Objectivity
One extremley rich society.
One extremley poor society.
(No middle class)
Both battling for World Conquest
"One World Order" - under - "One Subversive Ideology"
Ruled by one Totalitarian :
"Dictator"
It's too bad - Putin - does not give up
The evidence for the world to see.
He has it ! ! !
There was a time when - "Treason"
Was a criminal offense.
Lastdance
Its only a word for Putin to use to incite the world against his enemy. The truth is, Putim is re-establishing the old communist party in Russia under a different skin, a different smell, but the only thing certian is that the socialist republic's revolution against its communist party is over, and the people did not win.
You vastly overrate the capabilities of Russian forces. They have very low moral and often go without pay for weeks due to budget problems. Air forces get only a fraction of flying training time that western air forces get and much of the navy is rusting away. They can deploy only two naval battle groups at one time, based on the carrier Kuznetsov and the cruiser Peter the Great. Their submarine force is only deployable at a 1/20 the strength is used to be.
China has a large army, but it'sa ir force is no match for western counterparts. Their primary fighter is the J-7, a Chinese version of the old MiG-21. They don't have enough modern jets like the SU-27 or the ground attack SU-30 to be a match. Their nuke arsenal is about 400 warheads and only 20 ICBM's. A single US sub has more warheads than all the ones in the Chinese inventory capable of hitting the US.
Russia/China would not initiate a conventional war and neither side is going to start a nuclear one.
Posted by tribe at 01:10 AM : Jun 01, 2007
My, but, you are really full of yourself.
Thank you for reinforcing my point. Perhaps I was not clear that I regard the present situation to be a policy situation for the US not a choice to non-aggression by Russia.
If we handle things differently, we can do better.
Sorry if I'm trying to be too concise, but for me it goes with the territory.
The ONLY people who don't see that are The American Fascists.
It's a scary time. Our Country is FASCIST. The rest of the World knows it.
How has other Fascist Countries done in the Past? Let's see.. Ancient Rome. Gone. Nazi Germany. Gone. Fascist Italy. Gone. Imperialistic/Nazi Japan. Got NUKED.
Get out 1984 Orwell and Farenheit 451 (those of you that can read). See our Futures.
Posted by cozzicon at 12:29 AM : Jun 01, 2007
.............
Sadly, the statement above is commonly made by those who only get fed the filtered "news" from the U.S. corporate media.
Russia is still a threat to the U.S., but not on their own. China, Russia's newest best ally, is a much bigger threat to the U.S., and if any war against China starts up, Russia will be siding with them and not the U.S. (especially if Bush is still in the White House at the time).
A China/Russia one-two punch will clearly wipe out the U.S. in a full-on war, (which would ultimately lead up to a nuclear exchange). Their military is continuing to advance and grow beyond the 80's relics that most people think they have.
Though the cold war is well over, the cold hearts of the 'cowboy' foreign policy from the Bush Administration is in full swing.
... And that's enough to fear by itself!
Re:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8536707153900925247
Thank you for posting that URL. That is excellent background, and I had not seen that before.
Bill Moyers really cuts though the ***.
He's even undone his father's work. I didn't like his father as president. But he was not inept and he handled the changes in the eastern block very well.
To see Bush Sr's work undone worries me. I'm old enough to remember "duck and cover" drills in my grammar school and the ever present fear in my generation that we'd be nuked any time. Back then with the Bolshevik's running the USSR there was a good chance of something unprovoked happening as the rhetoric and ideological conflicts heated up (Thank god for Reagan and Gorbachev!!).
THIS time when they start putting it out into the media that Russia is a threat- I'm not going to believe it. I've been fed too much koolaid over the last 6 years and I'm not drinking any more.
This stuff ain't about party anymore. It's about maintaining national sanity. MAD (mutually assured destruction) is still a reality between all countries. Who's gonna touch one of those torches off?
A terrorist might get a nuke into one city- and then the middle east would glow.
But Russia as an aggressor? Not in this century.
You people who don't know what you are talking about should realize the Russians have saved your space program and will eventely save you from Bush.
That's the thing about war. You can look back and call Neville Chamberlain a whimp-loser or a careful diplomat based on the stakes in place.
Waiting to go to war, diplomacy, deal making, even with the bad guys- is far superior to knee jerk reactions.
Afghanistan: The right thing to do.
Iraq: Just Stupid
Problems with Russia: Unintended consequences.
I don't have answers, but I think I have the right questions:
1. How does our policy play into this?
2. Are any of his criticisms (And I'm not stating that he has a valid point) valid.
3. What should we do to cool things off.
Our own country's philosophy of "Manifest Destiny" is a mistake. We might be richer and more powerful than others. But we have to get long with everyone as well, without dictating their form of government.
Imperialism on the part of the USA may not in reality be a valid charge. But if it appears to others to be imperialism, they will act on their perceptions. We need to think a bit more about what other countries see us doing- even if we have the best of intentions.
Yep, same as 9/11 was a response to what we did and do overseas per Bin Laden's video tapes stating why he ordered the attacks- OUR Imperialism brought all of htis on ourselves.
But then again, the silent neocon coup in the U.S. similarly shows how a clique of deterimined mind thugs can work their way to the top and hijack a once balanced foreign policy. In Putin's case, one can see him as capable of duking it out in the streets. In the case of the chubby and pampered neocons, this scenario is laughable. So, Putin at least has an aura of honesty about his bluster. The neocons on the other hand, loudly thump their chests as the hollow ringing sound it produces sickens the audience.
Putin is right. The trashing of International Law by the Bush Administration is destroying the habitability of our world far faster than global warming.
Well....DUH!!
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