In response to Russian President Vladimir Putin accusing the United States of undermining global security, Sec. of Defense Robert Gates said â€We all face many common problems and challenges that must be addressed in partnership with other countries, including Russia. One Cold War was quite enough.â€
Here Here
Russian President Vladimir (Pooty-poot) Putin has been seen by the 43rd Munich Conference Security Policy complaining about the United States. Putin says the US is undermining global security.
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia accused the United States on Saturday of provoking a new nuclear arms race by developing ballistic missile defenses, undermining international institutions and making the Middle East more unstable through its clumsy handling of the Iraq war.
He had a list of “complaints about American domination of global affairs, including many of the themes that have strained relations between the Kremlin and the United States during his seven-year administration.”
He whines about why Russia is not already part of NATO, when other former satellite countries of the former Soviet Union are? And if Russia can’t be part of NATO, “Against whom is this expansion directed?”
Well, NATO members agree to play by the rules, and do. Don’t have to look far for why a Putin’ized Russia cannot be trusted to play by the rules. Who was it that was accused, by the victim, of assassinating a member of the Russian news media? And, who is it that provides and builds Iran’s nuclear reactors? Who is supporting the Iranian regime in terms of nuclear technology, and defending other nations at odds with the US? Oil-For-Food Saddam bribery scandal participant. Who uses natural gas and oil as diplomatic weapons to Russia’s neighboring countries? For starters.
It seems to me that the “against whom” would be nations that refuse to play by the rules. Like Russia.
He resents monitoring of elections in the former Soviet sphere. He resents free elections period, and called those monitors “a vulgar instrument of ensuring the foreign policy interests of one country.†Free and fair elections should be the policy interests of every country, including Russia, don’t you think? Especially a country who wants to join NATO.
Putin criticised the US for developing a missile defense system. Right. Can you say Kim Jong Il? Defense Putin, the word is defense.
Putin said the US is making the Middle East more unstable through its clumsy handling of the Iraq war. How many years was Russia fighting a war in Afghanistan? Wasn’t it something like 10 years before they gave up and went home? Putin doesn’t know what clumsy is. Putin does know he was Saddam’s nuclear supplier. Putin did supply Saddam with missile jamming electronics and missiles. Only Putin knows for sure, the location of banned weapons and technologies that were spirited out of Iraq months prior to the start of the war in Iraq. I’m surprised he missed the fact that we still have not found Bin Laden. The unstable-ness of the war is caused by war. The objective is to make things stable by winning it. And he knows it.
I’ve seen this before in this country. It is a political tactic. Putin, aside from being a communist in democratic clothing, has followed the democratic’s (sic) playbook to a ‘T’ in this way; when what you are doing is screwing things up, blame the other guy for doing it and screwing things up.
Or new low, depending on how you look at it. So your 17 yr old comes home boohooing that he got into a fight and lost. What do you do? Do you give him a pistol and tell him to go get revenge? That’s what one mother did in Mayor Nagin’s city, New Orleans.
A woman accused of giving her teenage son a handgun and telling him to take revenge after he lost a fight was arrested Thursday after another boy was killed, police said.
I think congress needs to step in and put an end to the skyrocketing crime rate. Per capita it’s safer in Iraq than in New Orleans. Here’s what they should do. Put Gov. Kathleen Blanco and Mayor Nagin on notice that they have 6 months to get the city under control or the federal government will start removing it’s assets out of New Orleans. This will send them the message that they need to act, positively, now.
There is just too much loss of innocent lives going on and ‘the American people’ are not going to support an inefficient and corrupt regime indefinitely. If they fail to take the necessary actions, then they can expect government funding to be cut off and the National Guard to be repositioned out-of-state. Some in Washington seem to think this method will work in Iraq. Hell, if it will work there, then its sure to work here. Maybe John Kerry will negotiate with France to help train police officers, in the French Quarter of course. But still, they only have 6 months.
MSNBC video
John Kerry on Iraq. . .
“The Congress should tell President Bush to end this open-ended commitment of American troops,” Kerry said. “The United States must get tough with Iraqi politicians – pressure them to meet tough benchmarks. … Congress must push this administration to find not just a new way forward in Iraq, but the right way forward.”
Title correction for Susan Cornwell, the Reuters reporterette. Despite the fact that the MSM calls it the opposite, such as “Republicans block Senate debate on Iraq.’ The measure that is being blocked is the one that allows for no debate, no opposing points of view, no coming together.
In an attempt to show an about-face on the Iraq war to Code Pink the other day, Sen. Hillary Clinton said this “[w]e should not go to war unless we have allies.” In my world, just an enemy is required before going to war.
Taking the first opportunity to show distrust and disdain of the military, democrats top-off their first 100 hours by kicking off the their second Vietnam campaign. That is to say, the democrat leaders today have turned the war on terror into a political battle with a penchant for sharing the Commander in Chief responsibilities.
Vietnam was lost hugely because of politicians running the war from Washington instead of generals running the war in theater. Today, right out of the box, democrats’ first position on the war was to ignore the advice of the general in charge, Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, and proceed with playing politics with our troops and the war with their ‘non-binding’ resolution.
According to the ‘democrat clock’, the ‘first 100 hours’ is not over yet. Here’s the addendum to the 100 hour blitz of 
democrat legislation. In the first 100 hours, Democrats rebuke the military.
Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the President’s pick to implement the new Iraq strategy, was lauded by all the democrat leaders in the house and senate. Within a day or two of the big welcome and confidence expressed for Gen. Petraeus’ record and judgement, democrats in the house ignore his advice and have their Iraq plan ‘no confidence’ resolution anyway.
Asked by Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) whether those resolutions would give encouragement to the enemy by exposing divisions among the American people, he replied: “That’s correct.”
So when people like Hillary Clinton chastise Bush for not listening to his generals (their spin), Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, John Murtha, Kucinich and the like are doing the same, to the real general, the one charged with the responsibility of prosecuting it, despite the fact that they know full well that the ‘unintended’ consequence of such a rebuff would give hope to the enemy. Giving hope to your enemy is not a way to win the war.
“Iran: Israel, US will soon die” Now there’s a headline you won’t see in your newspaper. I wonder how much help we will give Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad should we leave Iraq prematurely? I haven’t seen or heard anyone demanding that Mahmoud ‘negotiate’ with the US, have you? Mahmoud is on a mission and negotiations is but a sideshow to his mission.
Yaakov Lappin Published: 01.23.07, 22:24
Ahmadinejad: Be assured that the US and Israel will soon end lives
Israel and the United States will soon be destroyed, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday during a meeting with Syria’s foreign minister, the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) website said in a report.
“Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad… assured that the United States and the Zionist regime of Israel will soon come to the end of their lives,” the Iranian president was quoted as saying.
With the democrats proposing to have a resolution, ‘non-binding’ they’ll be sure to say, for the purpose of expressing their ‘no confidence’ on the President’s ‘surge’ plan, one wonders what the effect of such a vote would have on our troops, the war effort, and on our enemy if it were to occur? Simply, it would hurt the morale by showing non-support of and for the troops, and, it would offer hope to our enemy that they can prevail if democrats would have their way.
As a legislator, does it make any sense whatsoever to do something that would in one fell swoop, harm our troops and our war effort and help our enemy?
How about a resolution to win the war and defeat al-Qaeda and other terrorists around the world? Unity in fighting this war is more important to this country than whoever is in the White House. A concept which the current democrat leadership does not endorse.
Back to the point of not hearing anything from the MSM on the first 100 hours of the Democrat congress, here it is. Well, no it isn’t. AP calls it ‘Six for ’06’, which is the Democrats’ six-bill, 100-hour legislative agenda. Now there is an article, but none of the six legislative actions were listed. Here is what it is, and why it’s not being explained.
Today, Democrats stood united to say that we have kept our promise to the American people, said Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California.
She’s not referring to her promise of being partners, not partisans, with the minority. They were shut out of 100% of the 100 hours as far as input goes. There is this Democrat Clock that worked like this. . .
The Democrats’ clock, which counted only the time spent directly on the six bills, showed that 42 hours and 15 minutes had elapsed when the roll call ended on the last bill, energy legislation that would reimpose billions in fees, royalties and taxes on the oil industry.
What’s missing in the Democrats’ agenda?