Nato head rebukes Russia ****
Posted on 19 August 2008 by Jack
There can be no “business as usual” with Russia, the head of Nato said today as he declared strong support for Georgia after its brief war with Russia over the Georgian breakaway province of South Ossetia.
Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, Nato’s secretary general, told reporters after Nato’s emergency meeting in Brussels that as long as Russian forces remained in Georgia, he could not see a convening of the Nato-Russia council, set up six years ago as a forum for dialogue between the two former enemies.
After emergency talks in Brussels the 26 members of Nato said in a joint statement: “We have determined that we cannot continue with business as usual.”
The rebuke to Russia was coupled with a strong message of support for Georgia. De Hoop Scheffer said Nato would set up a Nato-Georgia commission to deepen ties between the alliance and Georgia, which aspires to join Nato. He restated previous comments that Georgia should eventually become a member of Nato, despite fierce Russian opposition.
The point was forcefully made by Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, who said there would not be a new line in Europe between “those who want to be within and those outside the Atlantic structure”.
Related: Russian Forces Detain Georgian Soldiers at Port
Update: Russia dismisses Nato’s ‘empty words’ as it stands firm in Georgia
Flashback: MacKenzie: What happened to ‘one for all, all for one’?
Update: The Pain Game
Popularity: 14% [?]
August 19th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Does Russia even care about “business as usual”? The U.S. is on the ropes both fiscally and militarily. Unfortunately as goes the U.S. so goes N.A.T.O.
August 19th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
On the ropes, militarily? I doubt it and you best qualify that statement as “in conventional warfare terms”, only.
If the US would get out of PC mode, the Iraq & Afstan & Pakistan problem, aided by Russia and China, communist, totalitarian states, would dissappear in a “flash”. You can shed tears afterwards. God help these little dictatorships if the US “takes the gloves off” as they did during WWII.
The rest of the world can collectively whine about “disproportionate” responses, but in the end they would privately be happier than pigs in sh*t that the USA did the world a favour without these whiners even lifting a finger in their own defence. Bunch of ingrates!
You like bully states, fine chum up with them, buy your organ transplants from China and import Russian “business” practises and call me in the morning after these thugs take over your life. Freedom is not maintained by PC, touchy-feely “diplomacy” unless you back it up with good, old fashioned military might. That goes for anyone, especially proponents of “soft power”. It gets you nothing on the world stage.
I am amazed by the number of posters who think that an un-powerful, active on the world stage, USA would “be a good thing”. You’re delusional.
Maybe you’d think that the Euroweenies are a better horse to back? They can’t collectivly agree to disagree on any subject where it concerns their own collective defence from bully-states like Russia. Oh, you think that wascal GW Bush is a bully? you see Russia or China jumping into the fray when there is a world class sized disaster? Didn’t think so.
Ask the Burmese if they like being clients of the Chinese thugaucracy when it came time for aid after the last typhoon. Seen any Russian “aid” any where in the world lately? Nope, too busy building up their world class military for re-taking their peripheral states.
Bunch of sore losers, politically speaking and they don’t like it when you don’t accept their offers of pwotection from some baddies. They are the baddies and the world actually knows that, but is too chicken to name their enemies. Until they do, this stuff will continue to happen, same as with the “World Caliphtes R-us” bunch.
August 19th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Russia is much more NATO’s problem than a US problem. The whole point of forming NATO after the Second World War was to counter the threat that the Soviet Union posed, it is Europe’s oil and natural gas supply that Russia is threatening, and it is NATO that borders on Georgia, not the USA, which is thousands of miles away with Canada in between itself and Russia. The US should not be expected to take the lead in all of NATO’s battles, and if NATO does not ante up at this time then the US should rightly walk away from it and try to form an alliance of the willing.
The US is far from on the ropes because as poorly as it has been managed, most of the rest of the world, including Russia, have managed their affairs even worse. The US could go into a decades long recession and still have a better standard of living than most of the rest of the world including Russia, where the average life expectancy of males is 58 years and plummeting, poverty is still deep seated and rampant, and the population is in steep decline. Economically Putin’s Russia is a one trick pony dependent on commodities prices which are also in decline. Russia has a massive infrastructure deficit and is still dependent on western expertise and investment because as expensive as oil has been, its price has not been high enough to raise the Russian GDP much past that of Canada’s, which is in no way a super power on the level that the US is. So how could Russia be? Russia picked a fight with the tiniest most isolated foe it could find for a reason.
August 19th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
jt, you ARE a fan of ex-ambassador John Bolton and so am I and every other freedom loving human being who has a backbone instead of a wishbone. Russia doesn’t give a shit what anybody else in the world thinks, and will only ‘negotiate’ when it has to, not because it is the honourable and just thing to do. Justice to a Russian? How about like when they captured Berlin in 1945. Any women who ran away were shot, the ones that remained were raped. The only thing that dictatorships and rogue regimes like Iran understand and fear is power and any nation willing to us it against them. Since WWII western nations have been increasing governed by liberal peaceniks, appeasers and socialists. I truly fear that before this decade is over we here in the west are going to pay a far heavier price that ever before in history for such naivety.
“If you want peace, prepare for war.” Thus counseled Roman general Flavius Vegetius Renatus over 1,600 years ago. Nine centuries before that, Sun Tzu offered essentially the same advice, and it’s to him that Vegetius’s line is attributed at the beginning of a film that I saw recently at Oslo’s Nobel Peace Center. Yet the film cites this ancient wisdom only to reject it. After serving up a perverse potted history of the cold war, the thrust of which is that the peace movement brought down the Berlin Wall, the movie ends with words that turn Vegetius’s insight on its head: “If you want peace, prepare for peace.”
“This purports to be wise counsel, a motto for the millennium. In reality, it’s wishful thinking that doesn’t follow logically from the history of the cold war, or of any war. For the cold war’s real lesson is the same one that Sun Tzu and Vegetius taught: conflict happens; power matters. It’s better to be strong than to be weak; you’re safer if others know that you’re ready to stand up for yourself than if you’re proudly outspoken about your defenselessness or your unwillingness to fight. There’s nothing mysterious about this truth. Yet it’s denied not only by the Peace Center film but also by the fast-growing, troubling movement that the center symbolizes and promotes.”
August 19th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
A little treat for ya Don.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDfJjvice3w
August 19th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
Yes BTDT, I am a fan of John Bolton and “men” like Fred Thompson, men with a more realistic view of the world. We have no equivalent in this “soft power” country. We produce pussies for men here, just look around you.
Canadians better read the writing on the wall with the “new management” team in Russia. They are laying claim to the Arctic and don’t be surprised if suddenly we find out that they have established themselves right in our back yard, the Arctic Islands, on some trumped up excuse that these islands are “part” of Russia. Possesion is nine tenths of the law, ask the Georgians and ask all those Warsaw Pact countries that used to be and soon will be client states of Russia. Trust me on this.
The Rangers, our pitiful defenders armed with WWII 303 bolt action rifles, would be no match for them, should push come to shove with a Russian presence in “our” Arctic. Do you actually think that we could induce our pathetic youth to defend Canada, if it coast them a warm bed and video games? We’ve dumbed down most of the gen X, Y’s and echos with our touchy-feely socialist, don’t-need-to-work, Mommy will take care of anything society. If I become terminal and am still physically able sign me up, I still haven’t forgotten how to field strip a weapon, in the dark. I haven’t forgotten all my field craft either.
August 20th, 2008 at 1:02 am
A Newsweek article, BTDT, that complements your amazing link showing U.S. superior military capability. Dr. Dean Ornish describes what motivates and sustains military personnel. It reinforces Jack’s “snakeoil” reference whereby burying realities gets us exactly nowhere which is the main thrust of Leftist ideology. Link below:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/152570
August 20th, 2008 at 1:39 am
People will remember a relatively recent report (few months back) where Putin assured PMSH that Canadian sovereign territory would not be breached. History will remind us that Hitler assured Poland, Austria and Netherlands their territorial sovereignty would not be assaulted. He broke with those statements and these countries were invaded within months of his assurances.
However, other reports indicated that the U.S. MRAPS (terrain tanks) were delivered by Russian heavy airlift contingent due to time constraints U.S. suffered due to lack of delivery capability. Report indicated high degree of cooperation between U.S. and Russia for the Afghan war. We can only surmise the planning involved here amidst reports of rising tensions.
Political signals necessarily have to be mixed such as Bush attends Beijing Olympics while PMSH declines due to China’s blatant human rights infractions on so many fronts. Contaminated products flooding N. American and other markets which cost lives and health as posed by the apple juice concentrate from China held up by PM Harper in one press conference was reason alone not to attend. Along with arsenic laced rice exports, anti-freeze laced toothpastes flooding even S. American countries adds to the necessary condemnation of several years of Chinese exports.
Perhaps Chretien and company were pre-warned and avoided purchases of exports which his law firm allegedly covers the legal transactions between the two countries.
An aside. I’m thinking an expose show like W-5 could possibly cover whether or not the elite have switched to the new mercury energy saving lightbulbs. How prevalent are they in use as they are now in especially apartment/condo complexes. In the event of tornadoes/hurricanes and other natural disasters, these mercury laced bulbs are going to spread the DNA altering chemical in vast amounts throughout communities. Cancer and DNA interferences can potentially cause disaster on their own terms.
This means “politics unusual forever” if these plans aren’t revised. Along with ineffective electric cars (Japan’s the leader), already questionable windmill technology, and all the supposed energy saving “snakeoil solutions” that if not abandoned in short order due to proven failures on a grand scale, impedes to our clear detriment.
The race is on for solutions, but once proposed solutions prove futile, dropping them asap and moving on in other directions should be adopted by all gov’ts making agreements to do so.
Israel leads in water technology as recent reports indicated China sought the state-of-the-art water tech when the earthquake hit.
The aboriginal communities in Alberta need that looked at right now applying world-class Israeli technology with an eye to the tarsands operations continuing to meet world demand, but not at the expense of the health of the surrounding communities.
I don’t know gals and guys, everything makes more sense when we read the nightly bedtime story, huh? I’m catching up on the entries, but what’s evident we’ll have to own up to the fact the issues are multiplying with conflicting reports showing the drawbacks and questionable progress. The race is on for the science to answer many of the apparently unfixables — water, number one, contaminate-free foodstuffs and products. What’s really problematic is that most recent report on genetically altered grains and crops are probably causing food shortages when they were projected to increase food supplies.
Lots to work on and with. Great teamwork is developing on this site. It begins and ends there.
I think one link today advised some foreigners are eating elephants. Have a great children’s story on the idea of the known loyalty quotient of the elephant herd. A real read for adults as well. Perhaps I’ll put up the pertinent passages so people get the lift it provides.