Putin says Russia "has to react" to US missile shield in Europe
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Jun 2, 2007, 12:35 GMT
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I think the Missile Defense Shield is a white-collar welfare project of epic proportions. Such a system can never be proven to work when needed despite the number of 'successful' tests staged under 'just-so', softball conditions.
The likelihood of a 'rogue state' spending billions to develop an ICBM and nuclear warhead capable of hitting the US, and then actually using one to strike a US city has to be vanishingly small. It can't be done in secret. We are witnessing Military-Industrial-Complex fear mongering, preying on an unthinking public. This is the very thing that President Eisenhower warned us about when he left office back in 1961.
We've already seen the preferred method of terrorist weapon delivery: unorthodox, surprise, low tech. If terrorists ever get their hands on a nuclear device with the intention of destroying a US city, you can bet that it'll arrive via Rider or U-Haul and not on the tip of a ballistic missile where its route can be traced. It's clear that the decision makers in this country still can't think outside-the-box, and can only imprint our own methods on potential enemies.
If we in the US must spend our grandchildren's money on technological gadgetry from our trusty weapons makers, let's develop a meteor/asteroid deflection/destruction system that will benefit the entire world and not destabilize it. At least for this scenario we know for certain that such a system WILL be needed some day.
The 'Missle Defense System' is only as good as its operators. This is why NORAD, or state-of-the-art 'defense system' stood down during the 9/11 catastrophe.
And yes, whether people want to accept it or not, the cold war IS on again. Yet another figurative phallus measuring contest.
It would seem to me that if the US missile defense system currently being developed is as technologically useless as the left in the West has tediously insisted it will be for the past thirty years then Putin wouldn't be worried about it at all.
My first suspicion is that the Russians and Chinese both are seriously worried that the system will be scalable upwards from dealing with limited threats like North Korea and Iran to bigger threats like Russia and China.
Failing that, one must suspect that Putin has either lost his mind completely and there is some evidence for that or is playing quite another game that has little, if anything, to do with the missile defense system he is causing so much drama about. This last I am beginning to suspect more and more seeing the games he is playing with energy sales.
Also, it's quite remarkable how fear of another country developing a nuclear weapon is even thinkable despite the fact that the US is the most advanced, the most equipped nuclear power in the world.
The most technologically advanced and nuclear equipped power in the world need not fear another nation's development of a nuclear weapon. Yet, this was the very ground on which we attacked Iraq, and on which leaders seek to attack Iran next.
'Get 'em before they attack us' seems to be the mantra GOP have chanted since the 9/11 attacks. To date, more innocent civilians in Iraq have died (over 600,000) than the victims of 9/11 (approx. 3000) and even US soldiers (3,000). More needless war, death and suffering have been endured in 'pre-emptive strategy' than in waiting for an actual attack.
Oh and uh, by the way. Have we found those nasty WMDs yet? And Hussein was caught and hanged (yippee, hooray, bravo), but why have we chosen to kind of just forget that Osama is still at large?
Whatever, Putin is a little bitch....
To Joe in CA:
Where did you come up with 600,000 dead in Iraq ?
These numbers have been proven false time and time again
President Putin is nothing but a follow up of the Soviet Union. He was an important member of the terrorizing KGB and surely wants to go back to the 'cold war'. Democracy has to defend itself from Russia selling weapons to Venezuela, Iran, Korea, Cuba etc.... Putin, go to hell!!!
As long as one country builds nuclear weapons, another country is going to do it, and round and round it goes - where it stops NO ONE knows!!
the only feature of defense and international policy which continues to threaten our national security is our stubborn insistence upon maintaining a robust and large arsenal of nuclear weapons. we are so insecure that we insist upon being top dogs and are not comfortable unless everyone else has military forces significantly inferior to our own.
and, like any effort to control people, this one backfires, when China, who had long resisted modernization and buildup, chooses to do so in its own interests, and Russia reacts to a missile force in their own backyard. any watcher of Russia knows their historical fear of being surrounded and cultural fear of the foreigner. and we tell Iran they cannot have nuclear weapons? yet other countries who violated our wishes and international consensus, including India and Pakistan, are now our buddies.
right.
You are such an ignorant for saying that we don't need to be on the offensive.
Would you rather wait for another attack in US soil to react again.
'You are such an ignorant for saying that we don't need to be on the offensive.
Would you rather wait for another attack in US soil to react again.'
the 'attack' you site has been overplayed and overblown in stature, despite the obvious tragedy of losing 3000 people. if you will recall, in the days immediately following 2001-09-11 it wasn't clear HOW many people had been killed. it might have approached 20000.
the message taken from that event by this government and by the media focussed upon its tragedy. in fact, it should have been celebrated as an engineering and social success because, despite the unpreditability and enormity of the attack, the inappropriateness of fire and safety and engineering safeguards used at the WTC for it, and the police and fire response resources being overwhelmed, the system worked and most of those 20000+ people got out okay.
follow the money. follow the power. WHO benefits from the state of fear created by terrorist attacks? surely terrorists. but also central government and media.
also, i find al-Qaida quite puzzling as an adversary. they claim they want a body count, but really don't: they want the bright hot spotlight of international media attention. otherwise they'd go after far more mundane targets.
the idea of al-Qaida fielding nukes? sure, possible. but, as the experts have said, it is inevitable and a deterrent force of the Cold War sort won't deter them. frankly, the most likely route at present is for Musharraff in Pakistan to die or be deposed and Pakistan's nukes fall into Islamist hands.
if we're really afraid of nukes against U.S. soil we should interfere constructively with the marketplace and decentralize critical resources such as energy. but we don't. so we must not be so afraid.
also, any comparison of an aftermath of a terrorist strike with even a nuke is utterly insignificant compared to the risk we endured during the Cold War with a far more substantial adversary.
point is, nuclear weapons are useless as military devices. they were then. they certainly are now.
'You are such an ignorant for saying that we don't need to be on the offensive.
Would you rather wait for another attack in US soil to react again.'
Wait, when has the US ever been attacked? Are you refering to 9/11, because if I remember correctly, that was an independent terrorist attack that had absolutely nothing to do with Iraq. If I am correct, our government and US media would have us believe that it was all orchestrated by one Osama Bin Laden, which even after an offensive in Afghanistan (which I was totally for, by the way) is still at large.
So how many times are we going to one-up 9/11? How many countries are we going to 'pre-emptively' attack?
Let's address your strange question.
'Would you rather wait for another attack in US soil to react again.'
Why does the solution have to lie in lashing out at other countries that we 'think' might be 'plotting against us?' What good did it to to bomb Iraq? Did we ever find those weapons of mass destruction?
The fact of the matter is the US should have been ready, plain and simple. Instead of 'pre-emptively' attacking countries left and right, be READY for an attack on US soil.
We got love videos from Osama way in advance. Bush and his administration KNEW. Yet nothing was done. Why did Bush establish Homeland Security AFTER the fact? It is conspiracy theory to believe that perhaps the administration waited for such an attack ON PURPOSE so as to have this carte blanche to 'pre-emptively' attack any country of our choice. But let's not deviate. The fact of the matter is, we SHOULD HAVE BEEN READY.
What about MY questions? There was enough time between each building. Bush was told with enough time about the first crash, but he was too busy at an elementary school. (Actually, we were told that he was safe in a bunker somewhere...) Where was NORAD? Where were our planes? Why didn't Bush do anything after he was told of the first crash? Deliberate stand-down.
So to answer your question, no we shouldn't just be sitting ducks. We should be ready at all times in case of any event. The fact that attacks were recently foiled in New Jersey and recently at JFK airport means that America is as vulnerable as in 9/11/2001. The 'war on terror' isn't working. The answer lies not in going on a bombing spree. The answer lies in increased vigilance and always being READY for an attack. I think to just go around bombing countries we THINK might be plotting against us is ignorant. People that go around shooting other people unwarrented are known as serial killers. They are crazy murderers that are sick in the head. The excuse that 'I shot him/her because I knew that he/she was planning to kill me first' usually doesn't stand up in court.
Let me put this in perspective: 9/11 could have been a 'pre-emptive attack.' Pre-emptive attacks, by their very nature, are carried out un-warranted. 9/11, if it were an attack by any nation, which it wasn't, was an unwarranted, unprovoked attack.
The war in Iraq was an unwarranted, unprovoked 'pre-emptive attack.' We haven't even found the WMDs we were supposedly looking for. In 'not waiting for an attack on US soil,' we are as bad, if not worse than the 9/11 terrorists.
WASHINGTON — The United States has found 500 chemical weapons in Iraq since 2003, and more weapons of mass destruction are likely to be uncovered, two lawmakers said Wednesday.
'We have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, chemical weapons,' Sen. Rick Santorum, said in a quickly called press conference late Wednesday afternoon.
Reading from a declassified portion of a report by the National Ground Intelligence Center, a Defense Department intelligence unit, Santorum said: 'Since 2003, coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent. Despite many efforts to locate and destroy Iraq's pre-Gulf War chemical munitions, filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist.'
He added that the report warns about the hazards that the chemical weapons could still pose to coalition troops in Iraq.
Both Magog and Persia are on GODS diner menu schedule. It’s just a matter of time. No one messes with the blessed House of Israel.
Maybe instead of building a giant wall all around the Middle East, etc., the U.S. should just build one around them much like the old forts and man the battle stations!!!
The need for a cold war is obvious. This is how our economy has functioned since WWII, we need a threat that we can use as an excuse to drive spending on R&D and weapons production. The economy is about to take a serious nose dive and any threat to justify ramping up war production is gratefully accepted by the Cheney Administration and his poodle, George.
Clearly Global Warming isn't a manly enough threat, they need something that can be called 'evil' and villanized so that they can shoot at it - War on Drugs, War on Terror...something that we can mobilize military forces against. We don't hear about War on Poverty, War on Illiteracy, War on Women' Right to Choose, War on Valerie Plame, War on Dishonest Advisors like Meirs and Rove, War on Overbearing Religious Zealot Right Wingers,.... We only hear about Wars on things that can be shot at. Its a macho term, 'War on..'. It implies action and deadly determination. But it really means 'doing something stupid that sounds like action and screwing up lives and killing innocent people (see 'Drug War casualties' and 'Iraqs connection with Bin Laden')'. Everything else is ignored or handed over to the bible thumpers.
Heck, in 1960 the Russians had maybe 20 atomic missiles yet we were told that they had thousands and that the gap would continue - we must build more weapons to offset theirs... and the arms researchers and makers laughed to the bank and now history tells us that it was all trumped up bs. It wasn't until we escalated and scared the hell out of the Russians that they in turn escalated and justified the made-up bs that started the accelerated arms race to begin with. More nonsense from generals and politicos with big oil and arms makers whispering in their ears....
Heck, the Cheney Administration, the Bushs, and a number of the other key players in the current fiasco made their billions in arms and oil..and we need to trust them now that the missile defense system is the way to go... sure we do...sure we do...
Will the missile defense shield protect Arab nations from Israel's WMDs?
And by the way, when is Israel going to face the same noise as Iran with its destabilizing nuclear arsenal? When are we going to declare 'War on Foriegn Manipulation of US Politics by Theocracies and Self-Important Zealots'. The Jewish lobby has no business in US politics and our sad support of that regime is as hypocritical as our demands on China to respect human rights while we run secret CIA prisons and practice torture and abduction. Of course that is business as usual for Israel....
Listen to Israel rail against Iran's nuclear ambitions as it covertly threatens its neighbors with a nuclear arsenal that it created and maintains illegally. Bald-faced hypocrisy. That is the problem with Israel, it claims that everyone is against it when the world community calls its actions into question and then uses God as an excuse to break from the world community. No different than Iran or any other fundamentalist state. Israel hasn't shown respect for a single UN sanction but demands billions in US aid so it can continue to oppress and murder Arabs. It is an embarassment that many US citizens are tired of...
Of course, the Israeli's don't care. They are the chosen ones of God and can do no wrong and are justified at every juncture... nobody can question Israel, it holds itself above all laws including the Torah, the Koran and the Bible...Israeli's are fine with this because, in the end, God chose them and we won't even be around when their religion is finally victorious. They just use us to reach their own religious agenda and we play along because our politicians have their own religious agenda.... pathetic.
Religion and politics equals repression, murder and self-rightousness...
The world is always full of Neville Chamberlains. See how they work, see how those that follow them suffer!
star wars was a joke too when Reagan proposed it, now we learn North Korea has nuke and may be able to hit california eventually, it's NOT a joke now when you have rogue states with pscho in charge..
It is too bad that the US has to have this liar-sissy-cheetleader represent us to other countries. I cannot wait until we have someone that the rest of the world respects and trusts.
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