NATO proposes new era of cooperation with Russia
| U.S.
| Reuters »
Posted By gamahuche
2 months, 1 week ago
in News
NATO proposed a new era of cooperation with the United States and Russia on Friday, calling for joint work on missile defense systems after Washington scrapped a planned anti-missile system.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin described as "correct and brave" President Barack Obama's decision to drop the missile shield planned for Europe by predecessor George W. Bush. Russia's NATO envoy welcomed the NATO co-operation proposals.
Some military experts saw the moves as a sign of weakness by Obama, that Moscow hardliners would want to exploit further. Putin called in a speech on Friday for Obama to follow up with concessions on trade and technology transfer.
Others described abandonment of the system as a bold gesture that could improve frosty relations between the West and Russia.
"I do believe that it is possible for NATO and Russia to make a new beginning and to enjoy a far more productive relationship in the future," NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in a speech in Brussels.
Read Full Story at reuters.com »
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Submitted By:
gamahuche
"I would rather be a square peg than fit in a pigeon hole" -
an essay which won me the "Lamb Essay Prize" at the Religious ...
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gamahuche2 months, 1 week ago
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This makes it very clear that this was NOT a unilateral move and, in fact, was nothing less than the culmination of a work that had been in progress for some time. None of the key players in the old scenario was blindsided by it. Great diplomacy - and a very positive substitute from the surly head-banging of the Bush regime.
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BB642 months, 1 week ago
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You really drank the Obama Koolaid didn't you?
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First the leaders of Poland and Czech republics openly refused to take the calls from Obama and Hillary Clinton when they tried to "officially" notify them.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-...
Sounds like a unilateral move.... When will Neville Obama hold a piece of paper and claim we have peace in our time? He's sold out the Czechs and Poles again. If you don't study and understand history, you will repeat it. -
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hyperbola2 months, 1 week ago
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We will see two things in this thread. All the "neocon" types will be regurgitating phony slogans about threats that never existed while extolling Reagan and will be lamenting the fact that Obama ends a gigantic corruption scheme for payoffs to corporate welfare queens (missile defense) that never has and never will work. Some people can be fooled all the time.
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How the Soviet Menace Was Hyped
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/091509b.html
To understand what happened to the United States over the past three decades, a good place to start is by examining the battles fought within the CIA’s analytical division over evidence of Soviet capabilities and intentions, which were systematically hyped by Cold War hardliners.
By exaggerating the Soviet menace, these hardliners manipulated the American people into allowing vast sums of taxpayers’ money to flow into the military-industrial complex. But a newly released U.S. document demonstrates how badly the intelligence was distorted, as former CIA analyst Melvin A. Goodman writes in this guest essay:
A recently declassified study on Soviet intentions during the Cold War identifies significant failures in U.S. intelligence analysis on Soviet military intentions and demonstrates the constant exaggeration of the Soviet threat.
The study, which was released last week by George Washington University’s National Security Archive, was prepared by a Pentagon contractor in 1995 who had access to former senior Soviet defense officials, military officers and industrial specialists.
...in 1975, presidential chief of staff Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld introduced a group of neoconservatives, led by Harvard professor Richard Pipes, to the CIA in order to make sure that future NIEs would falsely conclude that the Soviet Union rejected nuclear parity, were bent on fighting and winning a nuclear war, and were radically increasing their military spending.
This group of Cold War hardliners and neocons then wrongly predicted a series of Soviet weapons developments that never took place, including directed energy weapons, mobile ABM systems and anti-satellite capabilities. -
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hyperbola2 months, 1 week ago
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The US missile defence system is the magic pudding that will never run out
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/1...
.... The good news is that, at the present rate of progress, reliable missile defence is only 50 years away. The bad news is that it has been 50 years away for the past six decades.
The system has been in development since 1946, and so far it has achieved a grand total of nothing. You wouldn't know it if you read the press releases published by the Pentagon's missile defence agency: the word "success" features more often than any other noun. It is true that the programme has managed to hit two out of the five missiles fired over the past five years during tests of its main component, the ground-based midcourse missile defence (GMD) system. But, sadly, these tests bear no relation to anything resembling a real nuclear strike.
All the trials run so far - successful or otherwise - have been rigged. The target, its type, trajectory and destination, are known before the test begins. Only one enemy missile is used, as the system doesn't have a hope in hell of knocking down two or more. If decoy missiles are deployed, they bear no resemblance to the target and they are identified as decoys in advance. In order to try to enhance the appearance of success, recent flight tests have become even less realistic: the agency has now stopped using decoys altogether when testing its GMD system.
This points to one of the intractable weaknesses of missile defence: it is hard to see how the interceptors could ever outwit enemy attempts to confuse them. As Philip Coyle - formerly a senior official at the Pentagon with responsibility for missile defence - points out, there are endless means by which another state could fool the system....
..Missile defence is so expensive and the measures required to evade it so cheap that if the US government were serious about making the system work it would bankrupt the country, just as the arms race helped to bring the Soviet Union down. By spending a couple of billion dollars on decoy technologies, Russia would commit the US to trillions of dollars of countermeasures. The cost ratios are such that even Iran could outspend the US. -
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alakazam2 months, 1 week ago
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Gama...I have started to believe that no matter how overt the abomination that the slaves so many have willingly become will never wake.
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It has become the work of the Few to protect the Many...Lest everything fall into a Dark from which none living will see the end.
I watched a movie again the other night...I have seen it a few times over the years but this time it struck home. I thought of you and your indomitable spirit and I had to admire once again the refusal of the Czech to Submit.
It was about this guy...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinhard_Heydrich
The Architect of the Final Solution and you guys got the bastard.
I want to find that Spirit again amongst my Countrymen. I know it is there ...but it is so buried in bullshot.
There is a moral lesson there...and a warning for wannabees.
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TheRealizer2 months, 1 week ago
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Albmore2 months, 1 week ago
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The war that never was is because of our military spending. Ask people on the front lines in western Europe and those who were stuck behind the Iron curtian in Poland and Hungry. The wall would have never fallen without our might. I am proud to say I was a soldier in Germany when the wall fall.
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BB642 months, 1 week ago
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So now that we have a new Czar in Russia and he's more than willing to challenge us at every step, what future former ally is next? We've sold out the Poles and Czech again who's next?
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You talk about the military industrial complex, taking it from a speech made by Ike. You talk about the American military complex but refuse to mention the Russians, North Koreans, Iranians or Chinese. All are spending hugely on their military infrastructures. One other common item you forget is that they all consider the USA a viable target.
Tell you what, since you certainly are standing with the dictators in their desire to disarm our country, why not move to Cuba, North Korea or Russia. They have your socialized medicine you're side is trying to force on us. Tell you what, I'll buy your one way ticket with one condition. You never come back.
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BB642 months, 1 week ago
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So Barry sells out two allies in the hopes Putin will help deal with Iran and North Korea. But Putin is used to playing in the big game, Obama clearly is not. So instead of thanking Obama for the withdrawal, he's demanding more. Who will Obama sell out next? Poland and the Czech Republic were sold out. The people of Israel no longer trust us. The UK and France don't trust us either. Japan is openly expanding their military because they fear our lack of response when dealing with the nuclear armed North Korea.
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So tell me, was this really the hope and change we were looking for?-
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Albmore2 months, 1 week ago
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beavith12 months, 1 week ago
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and we do this after Russia explicitly states it won't stand for more sanctions on Iran with regard to Iran's nuclear weaponization plans?
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sounds like we're making some really good deals.
early this week, Russia warned any Georgian vessel in 'Abkhazian' waters would be boarded and taken to 'Abkhazian' ports. isn't that piracy?
it seems to me that Russia is calling the shots and we are now in full placation mode.
we've become patsies... EASY patsies. -
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almos_vagyok2 months, 1 week ago
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I do not understand these comments about "selling out two allies."
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Those systems were not there to protect Poland or the Czech Republic,
but to shoot down missiles aimed at the USA. If the USA now decides
(for better or worse) that it no longer wants these systems, how
is that selling out Poland and the Czech Republic?-
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Bkumm2 months, 1 week ago
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Because that's what some people on the political Right want it to be that way. Remember that although both Democrats and Republicans want to keep the country safe, Democrats would rather work with people for long term diplomatic solutions while keeping our sword in its sheath and Republicans would rather hold a knife to someone's throat and then telling them what we expect.
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It's a completely different approach to meet the same goals. Think of it in these two terms:
"Peace through superior firepower!!!"
"Peace through understanding and cooperation"
Different approaches, same result. However, one path tends to lead to resentments and long term animosity and the other does not. The Right is so fond of quoting Chamberlain, but they forget that the path that took us to Prague started with the vicious and unnecessarily harsh Versailles Treaty that ended WWI. -
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BB642 months, 1 week ago
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Protect the US from who? The missiles targeting the United States from Iran, Russia, China, or any other suspected enemy would cross over the pole. That isn't the targets suggested by intel captured from terrorists. They made it clear Europe needs to pay for their supporting the USA. Poland and the Czech Republic provided troops and let US planes land on their way to the middle east.
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As to selling them out, it's pretty clear from their leaders reactions, they feel betrayed. Perhaps there's more to the story on why their leaders are made but that's not being released. It is clear, they're mad at us. All of the anger is being directed towards the Obama Administration. So you tell me. Why are they mad if it wasn't a big deal? -
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Newperson2 months, 1 week ago
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Hi G.
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Thanks for keeping us updated on this. I have been reading your articles on this and you seem more informed than most of us on here. You started posting some time back before most of us knew anything about this.
Again Thanks G. -
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Progressive2 months, 1 week ago
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Here's the report explaining why Bush's expensive missile defense plan wasn't working and needed to be changed:
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http://gao.gov/products/GAO-09-856 -
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gamahuche2 months, 1 week ago
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FROM 3 weeks ago:
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http://www.propeller.com/story/2009/08/28/us-has-3...
"The shield is unnecessary and should be eliminated."
I agree but let's say the IDEA should be retired.
My betting is that it will.
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My comment - borrowing a quote from simonsez..
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Craig_MillerComment removed: Spammer
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oldslowjim2 months, 1 week ago
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There are two things coming up that will portend whether obama is a reincarnation of neville chamberlain or not.
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One is the troops needed in AFPAK. How hard he fights congress to get the needed additional troops will be telling in judging his commitment to national security.
The other is Iran. Now that he has given russia what they wanted, he'd better get some terrific help from them in sanctions and other actions (like not sending the anti-aircraft missiles to iran) to head off iran's missile/nuclear development.
If he fails in either then it doesn't forebode well for the united states' ongoing national security under obama. He could very well become the next neville. -
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AntiSocialistDemocrat2 months ago
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I believe that Obama has now begun to demonstrate his real intent. He is a THREAT to the liberaty and freedom of all Americans. He is intent on killing the USA as we understand it and as it was planned and invisioned by our forefathers. Barack Obama has asperations of becoming a true DICTATOR if not a pure African Traibal Chief. He has surrounded himself with maxists, socialist, communists and out and out anti-American zealots of every stripe. He is anti-Isreal and anti- Democracy--he is in fact a composition of all those things foreign to what the USA is. He claims to be a Christian, unfortunately this is just another front in his phony persona. If he is anything he is most likely an athiest.
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