Sounds like progress to me. The fight against terrorism is bringing the civilized world closer together.

SOunds like a Yalta bend over and get screwed Roosevelt to me.

Watch it, you're letting your Russophobia show again. Almost as bad as the Islamic paranoia of Isreal. There are drugs for this.

Aren't you insulting the Russian cunning by saying this?

You are absolutely correct. The civilized folks are getting ready to run the savages off the plantation.

Cunning? Though we are cunning, for the most part Russia has tried time and again to reapproach the West. And all Russia has gotten for it is to have her economy gang raped. It's the US that perfected the bait and switch....there are other words to describe this "cunning" and they are much less pretty.

What exactly are we doing to hurt the Russian economy?

Right now nothing, but under Yelstin, Western corporations pillaged Russian industry and resources...that's why everyone loved Yelstin, he was a bought man and stayed that way.

Robertson said that Russia will not be able to veto NATO decisions on the new council.

Actually according to an editorial from the Dec 6 edition of the Washington Times, that is exactly what Russia will be able to do. Under the old Joint NATO-Russia Permanent Council, NATO members had to come to agreement before meeting with Russian reps on the Council. Under the Blair proposed system, Russia will vote alongside the other NATO members and will thus be able to divide and conquer the NATO members at will, resulting in a de-facto if not express, veto over NATO divisions. The agreed upon inclusion of Russia as an active participant in the decision's of NATO's highest decision making alliance spells the permanent end of NATO as an anti-Russian military alliance. From henceforth, it will transform into a mere political grouping with a focus on peacekeeping operations. This fact should temper Russian objections to NATO expansion. Most of the former Communist bloc states would just end up voting with Russia on most issues anyway further subverting NATO given the fact that all NATO decisions must be unanimous, a daunting task with 19 member nations let alone with Russia and additional Communist dominated former Eastern bloc states like Romania, Moldova, Albania, and Poland.

This unfortunate development represents yet another smashing foreign policy success for the great power known as Russia and yet another glaring foreign policy defeat for the Western powers led by the US. Following closely as it does on the heels of the US committment to unilaterally disarm itself of all but 1700 strategic nukes and its elimination of 1200 of its strategic nukes within the last three weeks alone in order to be in compliance with the dubious START I Treaty, you can almost feel the correlation of forces beginning to shift in favor of Russia and her CIS and Shanghai Cooperation Organization allies. The primary Russian objectives of the neutralization of NATO and the evisceration of the US as a nuclear superpower are well under way.

How fitting that this news of NATO agreement to include Russia as a full partner in all its decisions comes on the 60th anniversary of Pearl Harbor. Lest we forget, the price of freedom is eternal vigilence.

"The primary Russian objectives of the neutralization of NATO and the evisceration of the US as a nuclear superpower are well under way."

Son, do you have any idea what kind of destruction just 20 of our nuclear warheads would do when targeted in a well-spaced circular grid into a metropolitan area? Just 20 warheads would completely devastate any city and it's surrounding suburbs. So do the math: it only takes 400 warheads to destroy 20 cities in an attacking country. That's more than enough deterence. Even if two countries attacked us simultaneously, we'd still have a thousand warheads left over. The greater danger is the theft of excess warheads by terrorists. So too many warheads, which we have now, is a much greater danger than having the right number. As GWB says, he wants "the right number of nuclear weapons, kept under the tighest possible control." Don't worry about our nuclear capabilites. We'll have plenty of nukes, and ours are more accurate and survivable than those of our potential attackers.

Don't bother with Rightwing2...he's part of the tin foil brigade and no amount of logic will help him. His hatred of Russia is not much different then the Nazi hatred of Jews...just as misplaced and unrealistic of a fantasy.

"...military-to-military cooperation and civil emergencies." I find this troubling.

You are exactly right. Unfortunately, Clinton took office just when Russia was reaching out....we all know what Clinton did. But there's a new man in the Whitehouse and a new man heading Russia. This will be different. Hopefully, there will be 8 years in which to build a relationship that could last.

How long can Putin stay in office?

Actually, I have a profound admiration for Russia, which is why I continue to warn of its increasing power. I have always wanted to visit Russia and hopefully I shall someday soon. Of course, I understand why you misunderstand my posts--being Russian and all. As I have stated I sincerely wish we could ally with Russia, but our differences are just too great. We would have to divide the world into spheres of influence to find a workable peace with them.

What exactly are the differences between Russia and America that are so great? What are the differences between America and Japan, Germany, France and China that the US government works like crazy to bridge?

Oh Please....not more NWO paranoia. This site has the world's highest rate of NWO paranoia per gigabyte.

Russia, historically is an Eastern Christian nation, dedicated to centralized absolutism. Consequently, there has long been mutual antagonism based upon ethno-cultural and political reasons between the Anglo-American Alliance and Russia.

Funny, to begin with, the West, based on Catholic Absolutism and Authoritarianism has little in common with freedoms, or is Papal Infallibility something that the founding fathers of America, who were paranoid of the Jesuits, amongst other things, and rightly so, had in common with France and Spain. England was a competitor. The relationship of the US and subservant England is based on power politics of Europe. Without strong American backing, England will be resigned to a role of 2nd rank power in Europe or at best to that of lowerest 1st rank. As for France, the french revolution, which ended with a total Autocratic ruler, had little to do with American.

As for America itself, it has hardly practiced a defense strategy, from the declaration of the War of 1812 and the failed attempt at annexation of Canada, to the two Mexican wars and the forced annexation of California, to the Indian Wars, the Spanish American War, the forced openning of Tokyo to trade by the blowing up of half of Tokyo Harbor to the colonization of the Phillipines and parts of China to the very aggretion of the North against an independent South and the many different attacks against various Latin American countries...stemming from the Monroe Doctrine, nothing less then the declaration that all of the Western Hemisphere is America's Manifest Destiny (ever heard of that term) proves that your explanation is hot air.

Further more, many of the tenants of various Protestant faiths have also proven nothing short of tyranical and extremely anti freedom based.

As for US/Russian antagonism, this is also a farse of hot feical gas. During the American Civil War, for example, Russia pushed very hard on Britian and France, with the direct threat of war by stationing Russian ships in NYC and San Francisco, to prevent support for the South. Also, Russia was allied with Britian against Catholic Authoritarianism and French Absolutism as well as the British and the French were allied with the Turkish Orientals against Christian Russia.

To put it mildly, besides the obvious hatred of the Orthodox Church that you have, you need to study history a bit better.