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Russia Never Wanted a War (sez Mikhail Gorbachev)
NY Times ^ | August 19, 2008 | MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

Posted on 08/19/2008 11:51:36 PM PDT by james500

THE acute phase of the crisis provoked by the Georgian forces’ assault on Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, is now behind us. But how can one erase from memory the horrifying scenes of the nighttime rocket attack on a peaceful town, the razing of entire city blocks, the deaths of people taking cover in basements, the destruction of ancient monuments and ancestral graves?

Russia did not want this crisis. The Russian leadership is in a strong enough position domestically; it did not need a little victorious war. Russia was dragged into the fray by the recklessness of the Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili. He would not have dared to attack without outside support. Once he did, Russia could not afford inaction.

The decision by the Russian president, Dmitri Medvedev, to now cease hostilities was the right move by a responsible leader. The Russian president acted calmly, confidently and firmly. Anyone who expected confusion in Moscow was disappointed.

...

A bipartisan commission led by Senator Chuck Hagel and former Senator Gary Hart has recently been established at Harvard to report on American-Russian relations to Congress and the next president. It includes serious people, and, judging by the commission’s early statements, its members understand the importance of Russia and the importance of constructive bilateral relations.

But the members of this commission should be careful. Their mandate is to present “policy recommendations for a new administration to advance America’s national interests in relations with Russia.” If that alone is the goal, then I doubt that much good will come out of it. If, however, the commission is ready to also consider the interests of the other side and of common security, it may actually help rebuild trust between Russia and the United States and allow them to start doing useful work together.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Editorial; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; Russia
KEYWORDS: chuckhagel; garyhart; geopolitics; georgia; gorbachev; gorbo; gorby; hagel; hart; southossetia
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To: F15Eagle

but why did Georgia move against Ossetia rather than just leaving the status quo be?


21 posted on 08/20/2008 9:00:43 AM PDT by fabian
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To: fabian
but why did Georgia move against Ossetia rather than just leaving the status quo be?

Russian backed South Ossetian rebels were attacking ethnic Georgian villages inside of South Ossetia.

22 posted on 08/20/2008 10:12:52 AM PDT by FreeReign
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To: james500

Russian garbage.


23 posted on 08/20/2008 11:09:37 AM PDT by TigersEye (Berlin '36, Moscow '80, Beijing '08 ... Olympic games for murdering regimes.)
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To: fabian

Russian “peace keepers” and S. Ossetian militia were shelling Georgian towns outside Ossetia on a daily basis, attacking Georgian troops with IEDs and killing citizens. It has been going on for years at Russia’s instigation.


24 posted on 08/20/2008 11:13:21 AM PDT by TigersEye (Berlin '36, Moscow '80, Beijing '08 ... Olympic games for murdering regimes.)
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To: james500
"A bipartisan commission led by Senator Chuck Hagel and former Senator Gary Hart has recently been established at Harvard to report on American-Russian relations to Congress and the next president. It includes serious people, and, judging by the commission’s early statements, its members understand the importance of Russia and the importance of constructive bilateral relations."

Oh, yeah, Chuck Hagel, every Democrat's favorite RINO.... this "commission" is something to watch, since whatever report it issues will be presented by the MSM as "bi-partisan" when in fact it will simply be two branches of the RAT-RINO party.

25 posted on 08/20/2008 3:32:46 PM PDT by Enchante (Obama-cons: Trying to fool America, one media dupe at a time!)
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To: james500

i love this sentence. it reads like a democrat msm pr:

>>>The decision by the Russian president, Dmitri Medvedev, to now cease hostilities was the right move by a responsible leader. The Russian president acted calmly, confidently and firmly. Anyone who expected confusion in Moscow was disappointed.<<<

right move
responsible leader
acted calmly, confidently and firmly
anyone who expected confusion, disappointed


26 posted on 08/20/2008 6:12:43 PM PDT by ken21 (people die and you never hear from them again.)
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To: TigersEye

I see...NATO needs to rally here and drive out Russia asap or there will be further hell to pay. This is a test given by the Russian beast and we better not fail it.


27 posted on 08/20/2008 9:33:28 PM PDT by fabian
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To: Rummyfan
Gorby wasn't bought by Putin- they are both "green" communists. Gorby's big on the global tax idea, just like all the other weasels in the axis....

JUNE 1992 : (RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL : MAURICE STRONG ORGANIZES THE 'EARTH SUMMIT' ; SIMULTANEOUSLY, BACK IN COSTA RICA, THE MINISTRY OF NATURAL RESOURCES WAS FILING CHARGES AGAINST HIM AND HIS PARTNER JULIO GARCIA IN THE COMPANY 'DESAROLLOS ECOLOGICOS S A' FOR BUILDING A MULTIMILLION DOLLAR HOTEL ON LAND BELONGING TO THE KEKOLDI INDIANS AND LAND BELONGING TO THE GANDOCA-MANZANILLO WILDLIFE REFUGE - WITHOUT PERMITS OF COURSE) Incredibly, while [Maurice] Strong was organizing the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in June of 1992, in the same month of the same year, Costa Rica’s Ministry of Natural Resources were filing charges against Strong and his partner in Desarollos Ecologicos S.A., Julio Garcia for building the $35 million Villas del Caribe condo hotel on land located in the Kekoldi Indian Reservation and Gandoca-Manzanillo Wildlife Refuge–without official permits. Strong’s son ran the luxury hotel.------- "Entity behind Kyoto conned public," by Judi McLeod & David Hawkins, CFP, canada free pressApril 21, 2005

1992 : (RIO CONFERENCE) The GEF, spawned by the 1992 Rio conference (which Strong chaired) is a joint effort of UNEP (which Strong founded) and the World Bank (where Strong was appointed in 1995 as a senior adviser to the president) and the UNDP (run from 1999-2005 by Strong’s former World Bank colleague, Mark Malloch Brown, and from 2005 to the present by another of Strong’s former World Bank colleagues, Kemal Dervis). --At the United Nations, the Curious Career of Maurice Strong , FOX NEWS

1993 : (PARLIAMENT OF WORLD RELIGIONS : "RELIGIOUS LEADERS" ADOPT THE DECLARATION "TOWARDS THE GLOBAL ETHIC" - See also CATHOLIC DISSIDENT HANS KUNG AND HIS "GLOBAL ETHICS PROJECT," FORMER SOVIET PRESIDENT MIKHAIL GORBACHEV, AND CANADIAN 'ENVIROMENTALIST' MAURICE STRONG (see OIL FOR FOOD SCANDALS)) [Catholic dissident Hans] Küng [the progenitor of the UN Earth Charter] first pushed his notion of a global ethic at the United Nations in 1991 and then at the Parliament of World Religions in 1993.  There the gathered religious leaders adopted the declaration "Towards a Global Ethic" which became a rallying cry both in UN documents and gatherings of international leaders culminating in the formation of the Earth Charter by former Russian [Soviet] President Mikhail Gorbachev and Canadian-born UN environmentalist guru Maurice Strong.  The founding documents of the Earth Charter credit Küng's global ethics with its underpinning.... the global ethics document [adopted at the Parliament of World Religions in 1993] is amorphous and open-ended...---------- "A Warning Against False World Religion Seen in Pope's Meeting with Hans Kung," by John-Henry Westen, LifeSite, September 28, 2005

28 posted on 08/20/2008 9:54:39 PM PDT by piasa (Attitude Adjustments Offered Here Free of Charge)
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To: piasa

MAY 8, 1997 : (GORBY QUOTE ) …”Do not do unto the environment of others what you do not want done to your own environment…My hope is that this (earth) charter will be a kind of Ten Commandments, a `Sermon on the Mount,’ that provides a guide for human behaviour toward the environment in the next century.” —Mikhail Gorbachev, the Los Angeles Times. May 8, 1997.

DECEMBER 2004 : (REPORT : EARTH CHARTER “ARK OF HOPE” STILL GETTING TOTED ABOUT) Day after day in New York City, a small and strange procession can be seen moving along the pavement. While taxicabs whiz by and passersby move out of the way on Big Apple sidewalks, a handful of acolytes transport a large, hand painted box crafted from the wood of a sycamore tree. Make that “a sustainably harvested in Germany” sycamore tree. Dressed not in long flowing robes, but in average business apparel, the acolytes are garden-variety United Nations employees. There’s no need to hire Brink’s for protection and nothing but propaganda and hype worth robbing. The precious cargo of the box walked by the acolytes are the so-called Earth Charter, printed on actual papyrus and 300 small, handmade “tenemos” books.
The box is pretentiously called the Ark of Hope, a not very good knockoff of the biblical Ark of the Covenant, which contained the tablets of the Ten Commandments given to Moses.
Like so many things UN, the Ark and its Charter are cloaked in confusion and lost in long-winded ideology, described in ambiguous wordage.
Not for nothing was the first UN Secretary General Alger Hiss a convicted Soviet spy.
Pomp and ceremony have been part of the Ark of Hope since its inception. Were it not for the fact that the Ark of Hope is being promoted full-steam, it would be easy to mistake it for something out of the movie, Lord of the Rings. The Earth Charter carried about in the Ark was designed by two grown men, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan senior adviser, Canadian Maurice Strong.
Written up with 16 recommendations, placed in the Ark and promoted as something sacrosanct, artists took over. . . . .
(Excerpt) Read more at canadafreepress.com ...-————Selling Ark of Hope through the classroom (UN Earth Charter)
CFP ^ | December 17, 2004 | Judi McLeod


29 posted on 08/20/2008 10:09:47 PM PDT by piasa (Attitude Adjustments Offered Here Free of Charge)
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To: james500
This sure explains Russia's bellicose threats against Poland just lately.

/s

30 posted on 08/20/2008 10:11:46 PM PDT by unspun (Mike Huckabee: Government's job is "protect us, not have to provide for us.")
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To: fabian

I think you’re exactly right.


31 posted on 08/20/2008 10:53:17 PM PDT by TigersEye (Berlin '36, Moscow '80, Beijing '08 ... Olympic games for murdering regimes.)
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To: Alouette; kronos77

I’m sure that Gorbachev actually believes this.


32 posted on 08/24/2008 12:14:53 PM PDT by Clintonfatigued (If Islam conquers the world, the Earth will be at peace because the human race will be killed off.)
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To: james500

Gorby did the exact same thing in Lithuania.


33 posted on 08/24/2008 12:15:54 PM PDT by dfwgator ( This tag blank until football season.)
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To: james500

[A bipartisan commission led by Senator Chuck Hagel and former Senator Gary Hart has recently been established at Harvard to report on American-Russian relations to Congress and the next president.]

When in doubt, bring in Dumb and Dumber.


34 posted on 08/24/2008 12:24:06 PM PDT by FastCoyote (I am intolerant of the intolerable.)
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