Posted on 06/06/2007 12:00:50 AM PDT by bd476
Much is on the table at the Group of Eight (G-8) Summit, which opens today in Germany, but casting a shadow over the official agenda are simmering tensions and worsening relations between Russia and the West.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice seemed to win an agreement from Russian officials last month to tone down the rhetoric. But the agreement hasn't stuck. Just last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin played host to Western journalists and grabbed headlines with menacing speculation about pointing Russian missiles at Europe.
Mr. Putin then deflected questions about his domestic policies with the claim that: "I am an absolutely pure democrat. The real tragedy is that I am the only one. Elsewhere in the world there just aren't any others." So absurd is the claim that it comes off as nothing more than a bungled barb.
The jab was most likely a soundbite for domestic consumption. The Bush administration has reminded Mr. Putin on many occasions that the Cold War has ended, but his remarks still play well with many Russians.
Mr. Putin is concerned with the fate of his system after he formally leaves the presidency, and filtering these comments through the state-regulated media, which usually fails to report the more tempered rebuttals, has its advantages for him.
In response to the proposed U.S. missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic, Mr. Putin said that Russia would "have to get new targets in Europe." The threat carries more rhetorical than military weight, since modern missiles can be targeted and re-targeted quickly. Russia made a more menacing gesture last week when it tested a new intercontinental ballistic missile that Kremlin officials suggestively announced could penetrate any missile defense system.
As planned, the missile interceptors are nothing...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Ya just can’t get the KGB out of the guy, can ya?
We need to spend our peace dividend, take out a second mortgage, and let the military readiness decline. That way everybody knows we are a super power.
LOL, true. KGB... FSB... the name changed but the business is the same.
Takeout Putin.
Earth to Vlad: Cold War’s over. Reagan won.
it was over...
What’s going on with Putty-Poo these days? Just goes to show you that Russia is NOT our friend, just as China is NOT our friend. They will team up one day and come against us. Never trust either one of them.
We really are looking at a potential new cold war. I doubt it will ever approach the tension of the first one but Russia has taken huge steps in the past few years towards becoming a dictatorship and Putin has really become an aggressive saber-rattler who has worked hard to undermine US interest. The man is very dangerous and is the worst thing that could have happened to Russia.
Putin has really become an aggressive saber-rattler who has worked hard to undermine US interest.==
It wasn’t Putin who ended ABM treaty in 1992. It is not Putin who installing the new missiles in Europe. He REacts not acts.
Yes, Putin, being a hardline communist and former KGB, IS a true Democrat, as he states.
Everyone should take this as an object lesson -
whenever anyone wants to prevent you the means to resist violent oppression, they intend, at some point, to use violence to oppress you.
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