Putin: "Can You Hear Me Now?"
Scott Ritter has a great piece over at Truthdig about Putin's speech, especially the part about the Russian government's repeated efforts to engage the United States in negotiations over nuclear weapons agreements since we withdrew from the ABM Treaty. Ritter likens the efforts to Verizon's commercials in which a caller asks repeatedly, "Can you hear me now?"
At this point, Ritter explains, we had better be listening. We have been neo-conning our fannies around the profitable business of proliferation since George Herbert Walker Bush declared a 20% survival rate of the American people would make nuclear war winnable. We have renounced No First Use. We have been partying with death.
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/are-you-listening-america/
Are You Listening, America?… “Back in 2000,” (Putin) said, “the U.S. announced its withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Russia was categorically against this. We saw the Soviet-U.S. ABM Treaty signed in 1972 as the cornerstone of the international security system. … Together with the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty [START], the ABM Treaty not only created an atmosphere of trust but also prevented either party from recklessly using nuclear weapons, which would have endangered humankind. … We did our best to dissuade the Americans from withdrawing from the treaty. All in vain.”
“The U.S. pulled out of the treaty in 2002,” Putin observed. “Even after that, we tried to develop constructive dialogue with the Americans. We proposed working together in this area to ease concerns and maintain the atmosphere of trust. At one point, I thought that a compromise was possible, but this was not to be. All our proposals, absolutely all of them, were rejected…"
Ritter continues,
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/are-you-listening-america/
… The practitioners of what constitutes arms control and disarmament policy in America today, unschooled in the ultimate futility of nuclear conflict, actually believe America can fight, and win, a nuclear war. “If deterrence fails,” the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review notes, “the United States will strive to end any conflict at the lowest level of damage possible and on the best achievable terms for the United States, allies, and partners. U.S. nuclear policy for decades has consistently included this objective of limiting damage if deterrence fails..."
I highly recommend this article by Scott Ritter, mostly because it includes excerpts of Putin's speech, which we should all read, I think. Gilbert Doctorow, at Consortium News, has a good outline of the speech as well.
https://consortiumnews.com/2018/03/05/putins-electoral-manifesto/
And the full text of Putin's speech is here:
Comments
Time For A Nuclear Freeze
The Obama/Trump trillion dollar modernization of America's nuclear triad is a pathetic and useless waste of money.
Why does Russia have such an intelligent and perceptive President? In every imaginable category of Putin v. Trump, Putin wins hands down. I would love to see someone explain how and why Russia's political system manages to produce superior results to American democracy.
"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn
I can make it pretty simple
As a culture we are incredibly shallow... sex, guns and rock & roll pretty much sums us up. Or we could discuss the fact that anyone in America watches reality TV. We fawn over beauty and wealth rather than character and substance. Both Trump and Obama are perfect presidents for a culture like that.
A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard
Sixty years ago.
"In a long and rambling interview with an American reporter, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev claims that the Soviet Union has missile superiority over the United States and challenges America to a missile “shooting match” to prove his assertion. The interview further fueled fears in the United States that the nation was falling perilously behind the Soviets in the arms race.The interview elicited the usual mixture of boastful belligerence and calls for “peaceful coexistence” with the West that was characteristic of Khrushchev’s public statements during the late 1950s. He bragged about Soviet missile superiority, claiming that the United States did not have intercontinental ballistic rockets; “If she had,” the Russian leader sneered, “she would have launched her own sputnik.” He then issued a challenge: “Let’s have a peaceful rocket contest just like a rifle-shooting match, and they’ll see for themselves.” Speaking about the future of East-West relations, Khrushchev stated that the American and Soviet people both wanted peace."
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/nikita-khrushchev-challenges-...
good find
It's like they keep rerunning the same stupid TV show. Time to change the channel.
i don't think there are any russians
and there ain't no yanks
just corporate criminals
playing with tanks
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qfz9rJcSk7A]
This has been a long time coming
President Putin has had to constantly answer questions within Russia, specifically aren't you afraid? Afraid of what? The US having pulled out of the ABM treaty and NATO on Russia's doorstep, with the US positioning missiles in Eastern European countries, once part of the Warsaw Pact. His answer always was that he was not afraid, with a confidence and a glimmer in his eyes. Now we know why. The US had decided that it was tired of being under the umbrella of a Russian counter-strike and decided to eliminate this possibility, creating the viable threat of a US first strike. That was unacceptable to President Putin and so he embarked on the strategic weapons upgrade path.
This was really the only path that he could have taken, since the US is totally non-responsive and clearly dead set on a path of military dominance. This will take a while for the administration, the Pentagon and the Deep State to digest. These weapons are apparently real, in production and early deployment. I don't think that there is any course of action that the US can take quickly other than nuclear suicide. My guess is that negotiation is out for now as the hedgemon has to first come to terms with reality. This is the second geopolitical "trumping" of the US, first by the DPRK and now by Russia. The only reasonable course of action for the US is to negotiate in good faith on both of these issues. This will be very difficult because the US is taken with itself as the most powerful empire in history and this means admitting that it has to adjust to two nations which it considers vastly inferior. This is, by the way, why Trump wants to tear up the treaty with Iran. He feels that Obama prostrated the Great US to a vastly inferior country, and he's going to fix it. So, we really are in a pickle.
Capitalism has always been the rule of the people by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate them or restrict their power.
The next "trumping" will come within ten years as China
will replace the US as the world's largest economy in GDP nominal (they have already become #1 in GDP-PPP) as well as domestic consumers. All the pundits back in 2010 said this wouldn't happen until 2050, IF it should ever happen. We are going to see some major cracks occurring in the next two years.
No they can't hear him
Actually that's not right. They did hear him, but they are taking what he said in a different sense. They're telling us that he threatened to wipe out Florida.
I still hope that they will listen to his speech again and see it for what it is. I took it for saying that "you have been creating more NATO alliances with countries that surround us and you have been talking about regime change in Russia long enough. It's time for you to know that if you try doing that things will not go as you planned."
What else is he supposed to do? Take this action lying down? We even have ships in the Black Sea. Imagine if Russia had theirs in the Gulf of Mexico. How would we react to that?
Thanks, Linda. Good article.
Well, that's what their propaganda says...
Although maybe they are delusional enough not to hear what Putin actually said/meant. Either - and probably both at once - are possible. The Psychopaths That Be are, however, impossible, which makes it scary; they believe that they can make their own reality, which pretty much defines them as hopelessly insane as well as psychopathic.
Must add my thanks to Linda for this, and my hopes that the deterrence works.
America needs regime change, so that democracy can, at long last, be brought to America! Vote Prog only! Pleeeeease!
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
Check the saker
for more analysis.
Stop These Fucking Wars
peace
Ya got to be a Spirit, cain't be no Ghost. . .
Explain Bldg #7. . . still waiting. . .
If you’ve ever wondered whether you would have complied in 1930’s Germany,
Now you know. . .
sign at protest march
Thanks for the reminder, Just did,
indicated that the new weapon system eliminates the military option against Russia.
I don't know, I don't see the U.S. military industrial complex giving up.