Suddenly, from seemly out of nowhere, Bush announces plans to put missiles in Poland and the Czech Republic, right at Russia’s doorstep, under the guise of a NATO defense shield. A defense shield against whom?
CBS News chief White House correspondent Jim Azelrod reports that Mr. Bush explained to Russian President Vladimir Putin the new defense system was designed to protect NATO allies from a missile fired by Iran or North Korea. But neither Iran nor North Korea has a missile that can reach Europe. (AP)
“We are being told the anti-missile defense system is targeted against something that does not exist. Doesn’t it seem funny to you, to say the least? Putin asked. “It would be funny if it weren’t so sad,” he continued. (AP)
It seems frightening to me. Why are we aggravating Russia?
For 45 years we lived with the Cold War. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republic and its communist allies against the United States and the free world. Countries, like children in a schoolyard game, had to pick sides. They were for us, or against us. The U.S. or the U.S.S.R. Freedom or Communism. “Commies”, Reds, spy and counterspy. Missiles, bomb shelters, hidden missile silos, and more missiles, the arms race escalating and leading at one point to the Cuban Missile Crisis. Missiles in Cuba, at our very doorstep, aimed at us. It was a very frightening time.
One misstep, one wrong button pushed, and WWIII could have been started. The world heaved a collective sigh of relief when the first Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) began in 1969, culminating in 1972 with Nixon and Brezhnev signing an agreement placing limits on nuclear missiles. The Cold War that had dominated world affairs for so long, was cooling down, the arms race was slowing down.
Do we really want to go down that road again? We already have enough enemies, why create new ones?
After Bush’s announcement regarding missiles, Russia tested a new ballistic missile capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads and a new cruise missile. Although Western analysts said the system has probably been under development for several years, Putin said the test was part of Moscow’s response to the U.S. anti-missile plan. (AP)
Whether it was a new system or not, it certainly was a show of force.
“It wasn’t us who initiated a new round of arms race,” Putin said in a news conference in Moscow. He also commented that the planned system “would simply change the entire configuration of international security.” (CNN)
CBS News senior White House correspondent Bill Plante reports the missile defense standoff has set back American relations with Moscow like nothing else in years.
At the G-8 summit in Heiligendamn, Germany last week, Putin made a surprise proposal, saying that Moscow would drop its objections to the missile shield if the radar- based system were installed in Azerbaijan. “This will create grounds for common work,” Putin told Bush. He also laid out several conditions that include taking Russia’s concerns into account, giving all sides “equal access” to the system, and making the development of the system transparent. “Then we will have no problem,” Putin said. (MSNBC)
The Russian president has agree to meet with Bush for two days of talks in Kennebunkport, Maine on July 1, to discuss the missile shield compromise. Let’s hope, for everyone’s sake, Bush chooses diplomacy instead of divergence.
“If a part of the strategic nuclear potential of the United States appears in Europe and, in the opinion of our military specialists will threaten us, then we will have to take appropriate steps in response.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin
Cheri Cabot, Politics Correspondent
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Comments: 42
Also, because the comment has infuriated me since the moment it was spoken years ago, I'd very much like some enterprising reporter to ask Bush, at his next news conference, what he now thinks about his ability to look into Vladimir Putin's soul. That remark should go down in history as one of the most inane, inappropriate comments made by any president, and he should be called to answer for it. I would also bet that even now, Bush doesn't realize that he actually looked into the abyss, and he still doesn't recognize its similarity to his own.
thanks to both of you for you thoughtful and informative comments.
I read a book somewhere that spoke of a man at Ground Zero, a cop, who watching the trade center burning said, "Thank God!"
The man beside his said "What?".
The cop looked at him and told him," If they had a nuke, they would have used it."
We know there are very few factors left for Iran to finally have their nuke. They don't need a propulsion system and they know it. They don't even need a casing really. All you really need is someone to stand still and put two elements together. Like our world wasn't scary enough, now W has to go issue more threats to the global populous. Jeez!
The truly ironic part is that by Russia's bad management of their arsenal and our carelessness with nuclear technology (namely the process for enrichment of Uranium) both our countries have caused a nuclear crisis in the form of a black market.
Bush, for all his faults, will be know for one thing: Doing exactly the worst thing possible at exactly the wrong moment.
Horrible beyond belief.
a sad footnote in history.
Maybe the Republicans will learn something from this,
like: 'Don't elect an idiot for President of the United States',
but I doubt it.
There is nothing progressive about the Republican Party.
They all wax nostalgic about the days of Ronald Reagan
and wish there was someone to take his place.
They are stuck in the past, which is why they are
becoming irrelevant in this present age.
Also, the Defense system begun under Clinton is about the ONLY thing Bush continued. Naturally . . . it helps Corporations more than people. It's not a threat and Russia knows it's not but they still wax nostalgic over the satellite countries that they still feel hegemony. It's, indeed, a pissing contest.
Look at the bright side . . . Geo. II finally found the WMD . . . in Iran and North Korea . . . but at least he found them. Frankly, this is nothing more than a shift in his politics of fear that ALL politicians use so effectively. Terrorism may have a long shelf-life for this . . . but just suppose the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were ended. What can be used next? Since the days of President Kennedy's non-existent "missile gap", any politician with a partial education knows the country will unite against a common threat. Luckily . . . it's not hard to manufacture one!
Regards,
Doyle I <~~~~~
''Nobody tells me how to run my government!''
hmmm....
Could it be that Mr. Bush knew this technical shortcoming?
Could it also be that Mr. Bush knew that Putin would be furious over this?
Could it be that this was a brilliant tactical move by Mr. Bush to get our missile system shield closer to Iran, so that their missiles can be neutralized?
Putin has proposed that the shield system base be located in Azerbaijan..............only 300 miles from Iran.
I think some brilliant Defense Department analyst gave Mr. Bush an excellent strategic carrot to try out on Putin. Mr. Bush had nothing at all to lose, and everything to gain.
Plus, now the Russians are fully engaged in a joint deal with us, rather than being in a deal with the Iranians. However it happened, it was spectacular.
Iran bought their technology from A. Q. Khan. There's nothing we could have done about that.
In a need be to be convene about the subissues and is the President ready to defend and talk about it... of course by the people and being the President, he is the people... but it is a different thing...
I must say this is one of the best articles put up on Gather. You´ve given us some well researched events to consider.....which reads like a first rate horror movie. Great job of reporting the political news!
It sounds like you don't know who A.Q. Khan is.
I'll help you here : he's the Father of the Pakistani atomic program. He's a genius physicist who almost singlehandedly made the Pakistanis a member of the nuclear club. He's regarded as a national hero in Pakistan.
With all that power, he endeavored to sell this technology in the late 90's to anyone with enough dough. That's when his genius became mad genius. Numerous CIA personnel have testified before Congress that he was the one who engineered and sold nuclear material and know-how to the Iranians.
Prior to this sale, the Iranians were 20 years away from having working nuclear bomb making material. Then suddenly, after their cooperation with Khan, they were within months of having a working bomb............and that's where we are today.
Khan is under house arrest in Pakistan, and is a virtual prisoner because of his outrageous activities. Our FBI and CIA is the reason he's been unmasked as a nuclear salesman.
Like I said before - there's no way we could have stopped this. We could only contain it once we discovered it, which we did quickly and efficiently.
never get subpeona'd for their
crimes while in office, they
should be tried as private
citizens after they leave office.
Then they will no longer have
the mantle of the presidency
to hide behind.
All of their secret dealings
and shennanigans should
be made public.
I just hope another Republican
doesn't get elected President
in 2008 or, sure as shootin',
he will pardon Bush and Co.
as his first act in office.
Last report I heard Dubya is ignoring Putin's offer and putting the missiles in Czech and Poland. It is clear this is a shot across the bow to a resurgent Russian hegemony and return to Czarist-like oligarchy. Bush and the neo cons and the whole right wing ideology is in a hole and their solution is to keep digging deeper into calamity.
Nukes are defensive? Tell that to the survivors of Hiroshima. It's an offensive weapon when you want it to be. And during WWII, we wanted it to be.
An offensive nuclear strike is what most of the Western countries fear most from Iran, and it's terrorist allies. Iran is so connected to terrorism in the Middle East (Hamas, Hezbollah, etc.) that this is a real threat…………even AFTER Mr. Bush leaves office. Mr. Bush and his administration are just the ones pointing it out.
True enough WW2 saw the first and only use of nukes offensively; because there was no possibility retailiation in kind. Since Russia achieved nukes......
Iran has endured a generation of American threat and direct intervention. Bush's solution is isolation and confrontation and deepening the paranoia of Iranian fundementalists. The only certainty a state can have to retain involiable borders is nuclear weapons.
Their souls are already saved!
Agreed, mutually assured destruction is one way to limit nuclear weapons usage. However............what if your adversary actually WANTS the end of the world to occur? This is not just some scenario I dreamed up. Ahmedinejad has publicly stated that if Iran gets nuclear weapons, he'd share the technology with his allies (our enemies, in other words). How can that be good for the world?
This isn't about a country's sovereignty. It's about one country with a horrible inferiority complex, and a technology they are developing to "right all the wrongs", as they see it.
I truly fear this guy. When he publicly hates, the world SHOULD shudder.
Sadly, this is just the latest in Bush's horrendous foreign policy decisions that have lowered our standing in the world. It will take years to recover from the damage his administration has done.
Setting back American relations with Moscow is a continuation Bush's disastrous foreign policy and isn't what we need at this critical juncture in such an unstable world.
I think it was a stroke of genius for Mr. Bush to have proposed a missile shield in Europe right now, just as the Russians are in multiple negotiations with the Iranians. Suddenly, all the focus is on US-Russian relations, and not on Russia-Iran relations. This strategy may have worked even better than it was drawn out on the proverbial napkin : Mr. Putin now wants to have the proposed missile shield in Azerbaijan, rather than Poland or Romania. Azerbaijan is closer to Iran, and can more effectively shoot down the missile threat that Iran poses (the closer you are to the origin of a ballistic missile launch, the better your chances of shooting it down).
Mr. Putin's counter-offer has probably just made us life-long partners with Russia in Iran's backyard. Smart.........very smart!