Posted on 09/29/2013 2:42:38 PM PDT by annalex
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| President Saakashvili addresses UN General Assembly, September 25, 2013. |
In his address to the UN General Assembly on September 25, Georgia’s outgoing President Mikheil Saakashvili lashed out at Russia for mounting “constant pressures and threats” on neighbors and said that “the last authoritarian empire in the world” will fail and its leader Vladimir Putin will vanish from the Russian politics in “few years from now.”
In his speech Saakashvili, whose second and final presidential term nears its end, also mentioned his tenure saying that “many good things” have been done under his leadership, but also added that “some of these things were done at a very high cost.”
“It makes me sick when KGB officer Vladimir Putin lectures the world about freedom, values and democracy,” Saakashvili said. “But this new project [the Eurasian Union] is much more dangerous than his lectures.”
“The Eurasian Union has been shaped as an alternative to the European Union and unveiled by Vladimir Putin as the main project of his new presidency – the new Russian empire,” Saakashvili said in his 30-minute speech.
Russian representatives were listening to Saakashvili’s address for first twenty minutes and then walked out of the General Assembly hall.
Russia’s UN envoy, Vitaly Churkin, slammed Saakashvili’s speech as “Russophobic” and said, according to the Russian state-run English-language channel Russia Today: “Luckily for Georgian people, this man – whose mental state needs a professional expertise – is in the twilight of his political career.”
Russia was of the main topics in Saakashvili’s all of the previous nine UN speeches since becoming the Georgian President in 2004. But while in his first two addresses to the UN General Assembly in 2004 and 2005 he was speaking mainly on the need of cooperation, rhetoric was toning up in following years as relations between the two countries were getting worse.
“I was never a great fan of what the French call la langue de bois [wooden language], but as my second term nears its end, I feel more than before the urge to speak my mind,” he said in the address on September 25, which was his lengthiest one than any of his previous UN speeches.
When speaking about the Eurasian Union, he also made an apparent reference to recent remarks by PM Ivanishvili, who said that EU and NATO integration is “cornerstone” of Georgia’s foreign policy and also added that the government was watching and “studying” the Eurasian Union initiative. “If in perspective we see that it is interesting for the strategy of our country, then why not,” Ivanishvili said.
Saakashvili said: Because European and Euro-Atlantic integration take a lot of time and… because there are moments when you might think you are pursuing a mirage… some people in our region might fall victim to fatigue and ask themselves: why not?”
He said that Kremlin’s “mouthpieces”, which he also described as “conscious or unconscious 5th column” identify the EU with “the destruction of family values, the erosion of national traditions and the promotion of gays and lesbians.”
“Strangely, in recent years and even more in recent months, we hear in Tbilisi, Kiev, or Chisinau the same ugly music that was first orchestrated in Moscow that our traditions are collapsing under the influence of the West, that Christian holidays will be replaced by gay pride events, and Churches by multicultural Disney Lands,” Saakashvili said.
Saakashvili also said that “the Russian project is doomed to fail.”
“Few years from now – you will recall my words – Vladimir Putin will have left the Kremlin and vanished from the Russian politics, even if he says that he will be there for another twenty years,” he said. “Russian citizens will remember him as a ghost from the old times – the times of corruption and oppression.”
Saakashvili said that the “hostility” of Putin towards his government “was not based on personal hatreds.”
“Do you think the Kremlin would agree to discuss the de-occupation of our regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, now that the government has changed in Tbilisi? Far from it,” he said. “Despite the friendly statements made by the new Georgian government in the recent weeks and months, the Russian military keep advancing positions, dividing communities with new barbwires.”
‘Cut Corners, Radical Methods and Mistakes’
In his speech, Saakashvili also spoke briefly about his presidential tenure and said that he takes pride in “many accomplishments” that Georgia achieved since 2004.
“We did many good things. When I became the President at that moment I was the youngest president in the world,” he said. “I realize that some of these things were done at a very high cost. In our rush to impose a new reality, against the background of internal and external threats, we have cut comers and certainly made mistakes.”
“We went sometimes too far and other times not far enough. I acknowledge fully my responsibility in all these shortcomings and I sincerely care for all those who have felt that they did not benefit enough from our work or even that they were victims of our radical methods.”
“I want to tell to all Georgian citizens – to those who supported our project, our policies and our party and to those who rejected them – I want to tell them how proud I am of their maturity and their bravery, how humble I feel looking at the sacrifices and the efforts they have made,” he said.
I hate neo-Stalinists as much as I hate the real thing.
That is a anti-Russian Chinese poster from 1960s and it say it all. Russians are weak liberals and bourgeois revanchist by Chinese books, a faux commies. The problem is Khruschev's policy of "peaceful coexistance" with the West. Stalin believed in a theory of "global revolution". A central idea was about a direct and proxy military confrontation against a capitalist nations until their destruction to establish a global communist government. Internal enemies of revolution had to be destroyed as well. Mao was a huge Stalin's fan and a follower. Khruschev's idea was that the nature has created all people equal and it is not one's fault if he was born a capitalist. Another point was that he may have problems with Kennedy's administration but it doesn't mean that an American "worker class" has to suffer. A peaceful competition in terms of science and technology declared to teach capitalists a "progressive" ways and make them socialists by example. A policy of "global revolution" via destruction of the West was abandoned as savage, similar policies was adopted on domestic issues. Gulag system was dismantled and anti-socialist dissent was moved from a category of capital crimes to a category of medical conditions. Chinese went ape and told Khruschev he is betraying a revolution. Khruschev, infamous for his poor diplomatic skills, stressed that he is not about to listen lectures from an "old shoe" mass murderer and Stalin's butt-buddy Mao, he may go screw himself and so on. It was a huge insult Chinese remember up to this day and it still dominates relations between two nations. For Russians Chinese are brutal Stalinist barbarians, who are thankless for helping their sorry gook butts out of Japanese occupation, for Chinese Russians are back-stabbing CINOs(Commies in name only) Nothing has changed ever since.
Only if you feel like claiming Britain forcibly occupied the sovereign nation of Falkland.
It sounds to me like you would benefit from reviewing your history of Ossetia.
Likewise, it looks to me that you would benefit from removing your nose from Vladi’s backside, and getting some fresh air.
You’re funny.
And you’re sad. Glad we cleared it up!
You ascribe to the Communists — and Putin’s Russia as well as China are still run by communists, albeit modified since mid-20th century, — a quality they don’t possess: consistency. Within the span of three years Stalin was a friend of Hitler and a mortal foe of Hitler; he was a foe of capitalist America and its best friend. When the cards fall right for them, the Russians and the Chinese will become best buddies again. Remember China and Russia very much complement each other in macroeconomic terms.
You guys need to learn history. Read a ‘Diplomacy’ by Kissinger to start with. Stalin was never a friend of Hitler. He was actually the first to fight Axis as early as mid-1930 in Spain backing Republicans against a German-backed national socialist element. It was pretty much as Korea 20 years later with a Nazy Germany instead of US. He has sent hordes of ‘advisors’ and shipped thousands of advanced aircraft including SB medium bombers (faster than any opposing German fighter at the time), Rata fighters - a Mig-15 of the earlier 1930s (a revolutionary all-metal monoplane, retractable gear, 1000+hp etc).
By late 1930s Stalin was taking directly on the Japanese in Mongolia and Northern China.
In fact Stalin was desperately seeking an alliance against Axis by 1938 but both France and UK told him to go pound sand.
Molotov-Ribbentropp pact was nothing but a way to get some time to rearm before inevitable war against Hitler. Finland, Poland, East Romania and Baltic States were occupied by Stalin as a buffer zones for that same reason.
BTW, to think modern Russia is run by commies is to ignore reality. Communist Party of Russia is mostly a laughing stock there, in a class of Illinois Nazis or something.
BTW, Saakashvili’s wife Sandra admitted in an interview that her husband is a fan of Stalin who were a “single greatest Georgian” following Saakashvili.
Nevertheless in 1939-41 the USSR took enormous advantage of Ribbentropp-Molotov pact and occupied swaths of Central and northern Europe. Would the USSR then turn on Germany itself is an open question, — possibly it would, but the history of the Second World War shows that USSR lacked any constancy in its foreign policy. There is no reason, given that history, to think that Putin or Chinese leadership today would not do what is in their mutual interest because of some disagreements over 60-year-old dogmas that both countries now discarded.
Modern Russia is run by the transformed communist ruling class. They are the same people who adapted their ideology to the fact that with the old ideology they lost the Cold War. They are transitional-era apparatchiks like Putin himself and their children, who are rebuilding and strengthening their rule. The nominal KPRF (Communist Party) is they only significant opposition in Duma as it is; but the true heir to the ruling class of the USSR is not them but Putin’s nashists: bureaucratic, chameleon-like, unprincipled and corrupt.
Has he really done that? An article in the 'Opinion' section of The NYT doesn't make one a moral authority.
Given the dramatic moment when while Obama was trying to fix for himself a war in Syria, Putin took on a role of an elder statesman, I think the article had a historic impact far beyond most of the pulp that NYT prints.
I don’t believe it. Please supply a link where that statement appears. On the other hand, your man Putin is acting like a dictator and he completely corrupt to boot. He’s America’s enemy, so why are you on his side?
This is not about Putin as a moral authority, rather about Obama as the opposite.
Ah, OK. I agree that Putin’s “moral authority” is a bit of a mystification.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/apr/01/georgia.oil
>>>This is not how the Georgians see things. In an interview with a Dutch magazine, Sandra Roelofs, the Dutch wife of the new Georgian president and hence the new first lady of Georgia, explained that her husband aspires to follow in the long tradition of strong Georgian leaders “like Stalin and Beria”. Saakashvili started his march on Tbilisi last November with a rally in front of the statue of Stalin in his birthplace, Gori. Unfazed, the western media continue to chatter about Saakashvili’s democratic credentials, even though his seizure of power was consolidated with more than 95% of the vote in a poll in January, and even though he said last week that he did not see the point of having any opposition deputies in the national parliament. In Sunday’s vote - for which final results are mysteriously still unavailable - the government appears to have won nearly every seat. Georgia is now effectively a one-party state, and Saakashvili has even adopted his party flag as the national flag. New world order enthusiasts have praised the nightly displays on Georgian television of people being arrested and bundled off to prison in handcuffs. The politics of envy and fear combine in an echo of 1930s Moscow, as Saakashvili’s anti-corruption campaign, egged on by the west, allows the biggest gangsters in this gangster state to eliminate their rivals.<<<
I’m not a Putin’s supporter but I think he has a legitimate interests as well. So does his nation.
>>>Nevertheless in 1939-41 the USSR took enormous advantage of Ribbentropp-Molotov pact and occupied swaths of Central and northern Europe. Would the USSR then turn on Germany itself is an open question, — possibly it would, but the history of the Second World War shows that USSR lacked any constancy in its foreign policy. There is no reason, given that history, to think that Putin or Chinese leadership today would not do what is in their mutual interest because of some disagreements over 60-year-old dogmas that both countries now discarded.<<<
Their policies makes perfect sense all the time. Remember what Churchill said about forecasting Russian intentions and actions. It was true a century ago and still true today.
>>>Modern Russia is run by the transformed communist ruling class. They are the same people who adapted their ideology to the fact that with the old ideology they lost the Cold War. They are transitional-era apparatchiks like Putin himself and their children, who are rebuilding and strengthening their rule. The nominal KPRF (Communist Party) is they only significant opposition in Duma as it is; but the true heir to the ruling class of the USSR is not them but Putin’s nashists: bureaucratic, chameleon-like, unprincipled and corrupt.<<<
You sound a little bit Muslim. For Al-Qaeda terrorists both Iranian Ahmadinejad and Bashar al-Assad are Jews. Actually everyone they don’t like considered Jews for one reason or another. For you it seems like commies are that same bogey and you label every unpleasant person as such. Putin and his clique might be corrupt apparatchics but they are as commie as former Iranian president is a Jew:-)
Troll away, guy.
Trolling since Jan., 1999 . . . and poking Russians with a stick ever since.
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