Russia threatening new cold war over missile defence
President Bush's plans to build a controversial new missile defence system in Europe are about to set off a cold war-style arms race which Russia says will change "the world's strategic stability".
This is yet another example of the reckless unilateralism at the heart of the neo-con agenda which, whilst sounding strong - expounding a rhetoric that appeals to those Republican supporters who actually actively crave Empire - is, at it's heart, a foolish move that undermines international co-operation and makes the world a more dangerous place whilst promising the opposite. It is also a move that will force the Russians to take counter steps which will include upgrading their nuclear arsenal to make them harder to shoot down and moving their nuclear submarines to the North Pole where they will be virtually undetectable.
What's impossible to hide here is that, at a time when Russia are co-operating in the War on Terror, Bush is driving a wedge between both states and undermining any progress that has been made since the collapse of the Berlin wall.
It really is hard to know what to say when the Bush regime pulls off this crap, but it is sufficient to note that the reasons they give for making such an incendiary move - they claim the system is to protect the US from rogue nuclear missiles from Iran or North Korea - are so blatantly false given the positioning of the missiles that even allies like Germany have objected saying that the US is setting off "an arms race on European soil".In an interview with the Guardian, the Kremlin's chief spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said Moscow felt betrayed by the Pentagon's move. "We were extremely concerned and disappointed. We were never informed in advance about these plans. It brings tremendous change to the strategic balance in Europe, and to the world's strategic stability."
He added: "We feel ourselves deceived. Potentially we will have to create alternatives to this but with low cost and higher efficiency." Any response would be within "existing technologies", he said.
Defence experts say there is little doubt that the real target of the shield is Russia. "The geography of the deployment doesn't give any doubt the main targets are Russian and Chinese nuclear forces," General Vladimir Belous, Russia's leading expert on anti-ballistic weaponry, told the Guardian. "The US bases represent a real threat to our strategic nuclear forces."Putin has already stated what many in Europe feel, that America under George Bush is seeking to create a "world of one master, one sovereign".
If that sounds like the opposite of what the US is supposed to represent then we can take that as a further indication of how far George Bush and the neo-con extremists who surround him are from the ideals of America's founding fathers.
There is a reason why America is loathed throughout the planet just now, and it's not just about the Iraq war. It's more to do with the fact that Bush has decided that all international agreements can be ignored and that the US will do whatever it pleases, irrespective of how anyone else feels about it.
This attitude is the antithesis of diplomacy, the actual embodiment in international circles of the mindset of the school bully. It sums up, more than anything else, the belief system of the entire neo-con movement. It is infantile, short-sighted and dangerous.
Come to think of it, those three words could be the perfect description of Bush himself.
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