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Speech of Putin in Munich Conference on Security Policy.
Text here
What do you think about it?

[herbalviagra]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/st...011743,00.html

Unilateral force has nothing to do with global democracy



The US has overstepped its borders in every way. We must build a new world order to ensure security and prosperity for all

Vladimir Putin
Tuesday February 13, 2007
The Guardian

The universal, indivisible character of security can be expressed as the basic principle that "security for one is security for all". As Franklin D Roosevelt said at the onset of the second world war: "When peace has been broken anywhere, the peace of all countries is in danger."These words remain relevant today. Only two decades ago the world was ideologically and economically divided and it was the huge strategic potential of two superpowers that ensured global security. This global standoff pushed the sharpest economic and social problems to the margins of the world's agenda. And, just like any war, the cold war left behind live ammunition, figuratively speaking. It left ideological stereotypes, double standards and other remnants of cold war thinking.

Article continues

What then is a unipolar world? However one might embellish this term, at the end of the day it describes a scenario in which there is one centre of authority, one centre of force, one centre of decision-making. It is a world in which there is one master, one sovereign. And this is pernicious, not only for all those within this system, but also for the sovereign itself because it destroys itself from within. And this, certainly, has nothing in common with democracy. Because democracy is the power of the majority in the light of the interests and opinions of the minority.We, Russia, are constantly being taught about democracy. But for some reason those who teach us do not want to learn themselves. I believe that unipolarity is not only unacceptable but also impossible in today's world. The model itself is flawed: at its root it provides no moral foundations for modern civilisation. But witnessed in today's world is a tendency to introduce precisely this concept into international affairs, the concept of a unipolar world. And with which results?
Unilateral and frequently illegitimate actions have not resolved any problems. Moreover, they have caused new human tragedies and created new centres of tension. Judge for yourselves: wars as well as local and regional conflicts have not diminished. And even more are dying than before. Many more.
Today we are witnessing an almost unrestrained hyper-use of force - military force - in international relations, a force that is plunging the world into an abyss of permanent conflicts. As a result we do not have sufficient strength to find a comprehensive solution to any one of these conflicts. Finding a political settlement also becomes impossible. We are seeing a greater and greater disdain for the basic principles of international law. One country, the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way. This is visible in the economic, political, cultural and educational policies it imposes on other nations.
This force's dominance inevitably encourages a number of countries to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Moreover, threats such as terrorism have now taken on a global character. I am convinced that we have reached that decisive moment when we must seriously think about the architecture of global security. And we must proceed by searching for a reasonable balance between the interests of all participants in the international dialogue. Especially since the international landscape is so varied and is changing so quickly.
The need for principles such as openness, transparency and predictability in politics is uncontested and the use of force should be a truly exceptional measure, comparable to using the death penalty in the judicial systems of certain states. However, today we are witnessing the opposite tendency, namely a situation in which countries that forbid the death penalty even for murderers and other dangerous criminals are airily participating in military operations that are difficult to consider legitimate. And yet the fact is that these conflicts are killing people - civilians - in their hundreds and thousands.
At the same time we face the question of whether we should remain unmoved by various internal conflicts inside countries, authoritarian regimes, tyrants, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Can we be indifferent observers? Of course not. But I am convinced that the only mechanism that can make decisions about using military force as a last resort is the charter of the United Nations. The use of force can only be considered legitimate if the decision is sanctioned by the UN.
Another important theme that directly affects global security is the struggle against poverty. On the one hand, financial resources are allocated for programmes to help the world's poorest countries - sometimes substantial financial resources (which tend to be linked with the development of that same donor country's companies). And on the other hand, developed countries simultaneously retain their agricultural subsidies while limiting some countries' access to hi-tech products.
And let's say things as they are - one hand distributes charitable help and the other hand not only preserves economic backwardness, but also reaps the profits thereof. The increasing social tension in depressed regions inevitably results in the growth of radicalism, extremism, feeds terrorism and local conflicts. And if all this happens in, say, a region such as the Middle East, where there is increasingly the sense that the world at large is unfair, then there is the risk of global destabilisation.
It is obvious that the world's leading countries should see this threat. And that they should therefore build a more democratic, fairer system of global economic relations, a system that would give everyone the chance and the possibility to develop.
Russia is a country with a history that spans more than a thousand years and has practically always exercised its prerogative to carry out an independent foreign policy. We are not going to change this tradition today. At the same time, we are well aware of how the world has changed and we have a realistic sense of our own opportunities and potential. And of course we would like to interact with responsible and independent partners with whom we could work together in constructing a fair and democratic world order that would ensure security and prosperity not only for a select few, but for all.
· This is an edited extract from a speech delivered on Saturday by the Russian president at the 43rd Munich conference on security policy securityconference.de

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http://www.antiwar.com/pat/?articleid=10511

February 13, 2007

Does Putin Not Have a Point?

by Patrick J. Buchanan


"A soft answer turneth away wrath," teaches Proverbs 1:15.
Our new secretary of defense, Robert Gates, seems familiar with the verse. For his handling of Saturday's wintry blast from Vladimir Putin at the Munich security conference was masterful.

"As an old Cold Warrior, one of yesterday's speeches almost filled me with nostalgia for a less complex time," said Gates, adding, "Almost." A former director of the CIA, Gates went on to identify with Putin: "I have, like your second speaker yesterday … a career in the spy business. And I guess old spies have a habit of blunt speaking.

"However, I have been to reeducation camp, spending the last four-and-a-half years as a university president and dealing with faculty. And as more than a few university presidents have learned in recent years, when it comes to faculty it is either 'be nice' or 'be gone.'"

Gates added he would be going to Moscow to talk with the old KGB hand, who will be retiring as Russia's president around the time President Bush goes home to Crawford. Excellent.

For one of the historic blunders of this administration has been to antagonize and alienate Russia, the winning of whose friendship was a signal achievement of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. And one of the foreign policy imperatives of this nation is for statesmanship to repair the damage.

What did we do to antagonize Russia?

When the Cold War ended, we seized upon our "unipolar moment" as the lone superpower to seek geopolitical advantage at Russia's expense.
Though the Red Army had picked up and gone home from Eastern Europe voluntarily, and Moscow felt it had an understanding we would not move NATO eastward, we exploited our moment. Not only did we bring Poland into NATO, we brought in Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, and virtually the whole Warsaw Pact, planting NATO right on Mother Russia's front porch. Now, there is a scheme afoot to bring in Ukraine and Georgia in the Caucasus, the birthplace of Stalin.

Second, America backed a pipeline to deliver Caspian Sea oil from Azerbaijan through Georgia to Turkey, to bypass Russia.

Third, though Putin gave us a green light to use bases in the old Soviet republics for the liberation of Afghanistan, we now seem hell-bent on making those bases in Central Asia permanent.

Fourth, though Bush sold missile defense as directed at rogue states like North Korea, we now learn we are going to put anti-missile systems into Eastern Europe. And against whom are they directed?

Fifth, through the National Endowment for Democracy, its GOP and Democratic auxiliaries, and tax-exempt think tanks, foundations, and "human rights" institutes such as Freedom House, headed by ex-CIA director James Woolsey, we have been fomenting regime change in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet republics, and Russia herself.

U.S.-backed revolutions have succeeded in Serbia, Ukraine, and Georgia, but failed in Belarus. Moscow has now legislated restrictions on the foreign agencies that it sees, not without justification, as subversive of pro-Moscow regimes.

Sixth, America conducted 78 days of bombing of Serbia for the crime of fighting to hold on to her rebellious province, Kosovo, and for refusing to grant NATO marching rights through her territory to take over that province. Mother Russia has always had a maternal interest in the Orthodox states of the Balkans.

These are Putin's grievances. Does he not have a small point?

Joe Lieberman denounced Putin's "Cold War rhetoric." But have we not been taking what cannot unfairly be labeled Cold War actions?

How would we react if China today brought Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela into a military alliance, convinced Mexico to sell oil to Beijing and bypass the United States, and began meddling in the affairs of Central America and Caribbean countries to effect the electoral defeat of regimes friendly to the United States? How would we react to a Russian move to put anti-missile missiles on Greenland?

Gates says we have been through one Cold War and do not want another. But it is not Moscow moving a military alliance right up to our borders or building bases and planting anti-missile systems in our front and back yards.
Why are we doing this? This country is not going to go to war with Russia over Estonia. With our Army "breaking" from two insurgencies, how would we fight? By bombing Moscow and St. Petersburg?

Just as we deluded ourselves into believing this war would be a "cakewalk," that democracy would break out across the Middle East, that we would be beloved in Baghdad, so America today has undertaken commitments, dating to the Cold War and since, we do not remotely have the resources or will to fulfill. We are living in a world of self-delusion.

Somewhere in this presidential campaign, someone has to bring us back to earth. The halcyon days of American Empire are over.

COPYRIGHT CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

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The Dawn of the Next Cold War


In Munich, Putin sent a clear message: the new Russia hopes for friendship with America, but it has also learned to say no.


By Ian Bremmer
Newsweek International

Feb. 26, 2007 issue - The 32-minute blast Vladimir Putin delivered at a recent security conference in Munich will go down as a classic. America's "uncontained" militarism, the Russian president declared, has created a world where "no one feels safe anymore," and where other nations feel almost forced to develop nuclear weapons in their own defense. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates tried to laugh it off, joking that "as an old cold warrior" the speech had "almost filled me with nostalgia for a less complex time"—and went on to tout Washington's preference for partnership and good relations.

Make no mistake, though. Putin delivered a message, and the White House heard it loud and clear. It goes something like this: in the 1990s, America pushed us around. On NATO expansion, we asked you to consider our national interests. You answered with an advance into former Soviet territory in Eastern Europe. You spoke of energy partnership yet built new pipelines to bypass our territory. Western companies took advantage of our economic troubles to buy access to our natural resources at cut-rate prices.

We asked you to respect the antiballistic-missile treaty; you destroyed it. You expect us to sit quietly while you make trouble in Ukraine, Georgia, Belarus and Central Asia—lands that existed within the Russian sphere before America was a nation. You ask our help in the war on terror but condemn our fight against the Chechen terrorists. Now you want to deploy missile-defense systems in Central Europe. Yes, we hope for friendship with America. But ours is a new Russia. If you treat us without respect, you will discover that we can say no.


All this built-up resentment was clear in Putin's speech. A decade or so ago, the United States didn't really have to take Russia into account. The cash-strapped Kremlin was preoccupied with rebellious provincial governors, grasping oligarchs, embittered communists and Chechen separatists. The erratic and alcoholic Boris Yeltsin inspired little confidence, the Russian economy even less so. Today, all that has changed. Putin has cowed the oligarchs and tamed all political rivals, including the once independent Duma. Oil prices tripled between 2002 and 2006, filling Russia's coffers with cash and powering growth of 7 percent annually. Putin's approval ratings hover around 75 percent.



Russia's willingness to demonstrate its newfound strength has prompted some to speculate that we're looking at a new cold war. Certainly, U.S.-Russian relations have deteriorated. But a new cold war? The picture is more complicated. Yes, the Soviet Union and its nuclear arsenal occupy a special place in the dark corners of the American imagination. But this time around, Russia enjoys competitive advantages the Soviet Union lacked. It has shed its sclerotic Soviet political and economic system. It has no burdensome empire to manage. And Putin, unlike Soviet leaders, has a popular mandate, not just at home but, increasingly, abroad. The Russian leader is now welcomed warmly in many places where public attitudes toward America have soured, if not turned hostile.

During his speech in Germany, Putin offered this on the cold war: "It was a fragile peace, a scary peace, but it was fairly reliable. Today, it is less reliable." In a growing number of ways, he's right—and increasingly widely recognized as right. Putin didn't bang his shoe on the podium; he didn't seek to counter America's move to set up anti-missile defenses in Eastern Europe with empty threats to install missiles in Cuba. But if the Bush administration hopes, for example, to successfully pressure Iran to renounce its nuclear ambitions, it will need Russian help. And in this, Putin signaled, the Kremlin has probably gone as far as it's going to.

In Munich, Putin alluded to an "asymmetric" response to American hyperpower. Iran offers one clue to what that means. The logic is no longer chiefly commercial, as it once might have been. Nowadays, the Kremlin wants to carve off some of America's regional influence. It's also telling that Putin went from Munich to the gulf. To Saudi Arabia, he offered help with development of a civilian nuclear program; in Qatar he spoke about the formation of a natural-gas cartel. In Jordan he pressed for development of new political and economic ties. Days later, he dispatched Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to meet his Indian and Chinese counterparts to discuss ways of counterbalancing U.S. power in, as Putin sees it, a newly multipolar world.


Russia is entering an election cycle, and it's unclear who will replace Putin at the end of next year. But note: within the Kremlin, Putin counts among the most pro-Western Russian leaders. Others around him are viscerally anti-American.


No, this isn't a new cold war. It's far more complex—and that might be worse.


Bremmer is president of EurAsia Group and author of "The J-Curve: A New Way to Understand Why Nations Rise and Fall."

© 2007 Newsweek, Inc.

Original here:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17202833/site/newsweek

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Bush has squandered America's international goodwill. Of all his negative achievements, this the most damaging to the nation. Will we ever recover --even with Secretary Clinton mending fences?

A dream administration: President Obama, Secretary of State Bill Clinton.

[SweetCaroline]

... American hyperpower ... A fitting and eye-opening description by others of what Bush hath wrought.

[GrileVege]

A fitting and eye-opening description by others of what Bush hath wrought.

Compared to Putin, Bush is a dove.

[Acalsenunse]

Bush however appears to be not as smart.

[cialesxtr]

Bush however appears to be not as smart.

As Putin?

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Russia? Right Russia is weak now?

[Sillaycheg]

As Putin?

Putin is a crazy pedophile who doesn't know what is going on in his country. He gives his security forces a free hand to do what they want and he cant stand criticism which is why Russia is most dangerous country for journalists after Iraq.



Putin is the devil; he is worse then Yeltsin because Yeltsin tried to keep the country together and liked journalists because he had character and charisma and instituted many liberal reforms which is why Russia is doing so well right now and he didn't have the benefit of high oil prices. But then again Yeltsin subverted democracy in the end and this is why Putin came to power. Americans went along with it because to them anything is better then communism which is what you would have had if Yeltsin was impeached in 1996 like the parliament had wanted to do.

[fudelholf]

Putin is a crazy pedophile

Putin is the devil

Do you really expect people to take your opinion seriously?

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Do you really expect people to take your opinion seriously?

Yes, because I lived in Russia for 14 years and I KNOW what Putin did and is doing to Russia. You may not care or know about it but trust me, he is at least as bad as Stalin and Lenin. He is the kingpin of Russia's criminal capitalism and his policies will lead to all but disaster.

[gagagaridze]

You may not care or know about it but trust me, he is at least as bad as Stalin and Lenin.

That's by far the bleakest assessment I've heard of Putin.
Do you really think he'll end up sending millions to their deaths?

[DeedPatmeda]

Putin is a crazy pedophile who doesn't know what is going on in his country. He gives his security forces a free hand to do what they want and he cant stand criticism which is why Russia is most dangerous country for journalists after Iraq.



Putin is the devil; he is worse then Yeltsin because Yeltsin tried to keep the country together and liked journalists because he had character and charisma and instituted many liberal reforms which is why Russia is doing so well right now and he didn't have the benefit of high oil prices. But then again Yeltsin subverted democracy in the end and this is why Putin came to power. Americans went along with it because to them anything is better then communism which is what you would have had if Yeltsin was impeached in 1996 like the parliament had wanted to do.

I hope it was a joke...
Very funny!!!

My girl is a journalist in Russia... oh my God!.. I must help her... he-he-heh...

Where are you read that funny tales?

P.S. This board not about Putin. It is about speech of Putin. It "is he right or not".
Do not try to entangle this discussion. Heh.