Demonizing Putin: The Summit in Kennebunkport

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2007/07/demonizing-putin-the-summit-in-kennebunkport/

Presidents Bush and Putin concluded their brief summit in Kennebunkport, Maine without resolving any of the main issues. Bush seeks Putin’s help to pressure Iran into giving up its nuclear enrichment program and Putin wants Bush to abandon his plans to deploy the US Missile Defense System in Czechoslovakia and Poland. No progress was made on either topic.

Russia and the United States are now more politically divided than any time since the breakup of the Soviet Union. In fact, following the meeting in Maine, first deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, blasted Washington in the blistering rhetoric of the Cold War era:

“They are trying to push us into knocking heads with Europe… in order to create a new dividing line, a New Berlin Wall,” bawled Ivanov. “It is obvious that continuing with the plans and carrying them out by placing rockets in Poland and radar in the Czech Republic will present an obvious threat to Russia.”

Ivanov is right. Missile Defense poses a clear danger to Russia’s national security. It integrates the United States entire nuclear capability (including space-based operations) with systems that are inside Russia’s traditional sphere of influence. Putin summed it up like this in a press conference at the G-8 meetings:

“For the first time in history, there are elements of the US nuclear capability on the European continent. It simply changes the whole configuration of international security … Of course, we have to respond to that.”

The Bush administration is trying to achieve what nuclear weapons specialist Francis A. Boyle calls the “longstanding US policy of nuclear first-strike against Russia.” By placing weapons systems and radar on Russia’s borders the US will have a critical advantage that will disrupt the essential balance of power.This is forcing Putin to restart the arms race.

The media has tried to downplay the gravity of the situation by focusing on the personal aspects of the Putin-Bush relationship. But this is intentionally misleading. Putin did not go to Kennebunkport to win back Bush’s affections or for sensitivity therapy. He went to see if he could change Bush’s mind on an issue that could quickly escalate into a nuclear standoff.

Putin has made a number of offers designed to satisfy Bush’s concerns for “enhanced security.” For example, Putin proposed a “global integrated missile shield that would protect all of Europe” and would include both the United States and European countries, including neutral ones such as Austria, Finland and Sweden. All of the participating countries in the program would have equal access to the system’s control.”

“We are proposing to create a single missile defense system for all participants with equal access to the system’s control,” Ivanov said on the state-run Russian TV.

The Russian proposal would “create missile defense data exchange centers in Moscow and Brussels, headquarters of NATO and the European Union. Ivanov also did not rule out the sharing by Russia of some of its “highly sensitive” technologies with the West as part of creating the new integrated system, in order to generate trust in thwarting rouge missile threats.” (There’s been no coverage of this offer in the western media)

Putin also reiterated his earlier offer to allow the US to use existing “early warning” radar located in Azerbaijan that can observe the launching and flight of any long-range ballistic missiles from Iran. Bush politely rejected that offer, too.

These are reasonable offers made in good faith to allay Bush’s so-called concerns about security.

But Bush is not serious about defense or security. His real intention is to force Moscow to do whatever Washington wants by putting a loaded gun to their head. Putin can’t allow this to happen.

Bush’s doggedness has already triggered a strong reaction from the Kremlin. When Putin was rebuffed by Bush at the G-8 meetings a month ago, he promptly retaliated at the International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg less than 24 hours later. In his address to the conference, he called for “a new architecture of economic relations requiring a completely new approach (with an) alternative global financial center that will make the ruble the reserve currency for central banks.” He said that the World Trade Organization, the World Bank and the IMF are “archaic, undemocratic and inflexible” and do not “reflect the new balance of power.”

Putin’s speech is seen as a direct challenge to Washington’s global leadership and the institutions which preserve its position as the world’s only “superpower”. He rejects US hegemony” and the prevailing doctrine of “unipolar” world order.

The Kremlin reacted just as quickly after the “Lobster Summit” at Kennebunkport. Less than 10 hours after Putin’s departure from the US, deputy Prime Minister Ivanov warned that if Bush deployed Missile Defense in Eastern Europe, Russia “would place medium-range nuclear missiles in Kallingrad,” a small finger of Russian-owned territory sandwiched between Lithuania and Poland. This would put Russian-controlled nuclear weapons just a few hundred miles from the heart of Europe.

Ivanov added, “If our proposals are accepted, however, Russia would no longer need to deploy new missile systems in our European territory, including Kaliningrad.”

Putin and Ivanov apparently rehearsed this “good cop, bad cop” routine before Putin even arrived in the USA. But their point is still well taken. Putin is forcing Bush to decide whether he wants to work for regional stability or “turn Europe into a powder keg”. It’s up to Bush.

Putin knows that the Bush administration is full of Cold War militarists who deliberately sabotaged the ABM Treaty so they could expand their nuclear arsenal while surrounding Russia with American bases. He also knows that these same arm-chair warriors embrace a belligerent National Security Strategy that advocates “preemptive” first-strike attacks on rivals and which may include the use of low-yield, bunker-busting nuclear weapons. Putin”who has watched the destruction of Iraq and Afghanistan from the sidelines”knows that the threat of American aggression cannot be taken lightly. He must carefully consider the “stated goals” of the administration for global domination and prepare for the worst. He cannot allow the Missile Defense System to be deployed even if that means “unilaterally” taking it out.

But why would Bush choose to confront Russia now when American troops and resources are already stretched to the limit? What is Bush thinking?

The Bush administration and their counterparts in the far-right think tanks still believe that America can be a big player in the fight to control resources in the Caspian Basin and Central Asia. The war on terror was basically designed to conceal US geopolitical ambitions in Eurasia not Iraq. The neocons managed to expand the conflict to Iraq, but ruling elites have had serious misgivings about the invasion-occupation from the very beginning. Now the failures in Iraq are weakening the military, constraining US involvement in Central Asia and Latin America, and triggering anxiety among “old order” conservatives who think that the greater project may collapse altogether if Iraq does not wind down quickly so the US can refocus on its original goals. This may explain why the defections in the senate are beginning to snowball and why the establishment media is suddenly calling for a draw-down of troops. The situation has gotten so bad that it’s impossible for Washington to execute its broader imperial strategy.

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Tensions rise after Putin dumps Tensions rise after Putin dumps key arms treatykey arms treaty

http://www.independent.ie/world-news/tensions-rise-after-putin-dumps-key-arms-treaty-1037918.html

RUSSIA engaged the West in a new round of brinkmanship yesterday when Vladimir Putin effectively tore up a vital treaty designed to end the threat of war in Europe.

In a chilling message to his adversaries, the Russian president signed a decree suspending Moscow's participation in the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty, a move that will let Russia mass tanks on Europe's border for the first time in 15 years.

Coming amidst the worst crisis in East-West relations since the Cold War, the announcement - though expected - prompted immediate consternation at Nato headquarters.

"Nato regrets this decision by the Russian Federation," said spokesman James Appathurai. "It is a step in the wrong direction. The allies consider this treaty to be an important cornerstone of Euro stability."

Russia's withdrawal from the treaty represents a significant element of Mr Putin's so-called "asymmetrical response" to American plans to erect a missile defence shield in central Europe.

The president has already threatened to retrain Russia's nuclear arsenal on Europe if the project, due to be completed in 2012, is completed as proposed.

Moscow has rejected Washington's argument that the shield is meant to protect against a rogue missile strike from the Middle East, claiming that the true intention is to undermine Russia's nuclear deterrent.

The ending of the treaty is a gesture replete in symbolism. Adopted in 1990, it played a crucial role in ending the Cold War by guaranteeing peace between the Warsaw Pact and Nato in Europe.

Limiting the number of troops that could be stationed on Cold War frontlines by both sides, the treaty required Russia to move the bulk of its military hardware east of the Ural Mountains, the geographical divide between Europe and Asia. With the treaty's demise, Mr Putin seems to be declaring a return to adversarial Cold War politics.

While most commentators do not believe Mr Putin is preparing to mobilize large numbers of troops in western Russia, fears are mounting that the president could now pull out of a second treaty barring Moscow from building nuclear weapons capable of striking Europe.

Mr Putin appears to believe that the West is attempting to encircle Russia - a conviction stemming from the "coloured revolutions" in Georgia and Ukraine that saw pro-Moscow leaders ejected in favour of westernisers. The proposed missile shield has reinforced that conviction.

Meanwhile, it has emerged that the Russian assassin of former spy Alexander Litvinenko sprayed poison into the teapot from which he drank at a London bar.

In the first eyewitness account of the moment the former Russian spy was consigned to death, Norberto Andrade describes how, as he tried to serve drinks to Mr Litvinenko and the former KGB agents Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun, he was deliberately distracted in order, he claims, to allow the killer to add radioactive polonium to a pot of green tea.

Mr Andrade, 67, the head barman of the Pine Bar at the Millennium Hotel in London, says investigators later found polonium contamination on a picture above where Mr Litvinenko was sitting, supporting the notion that the poison had been administered by a spray.

Recounting the extraordinary events of November 1 last year, Mr Andrade said: "When I was delivering gin and tonic to the table, I was obstructed. I couldn't see what was happening. It was a deliberate attempt to create a distraction. "It was the only moment when the situation seemed unfriendly and something went on at that point. I think the polonium was sprayed into the teapot."

'Russian Diary' paints chilling picture of Putin

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,685193179,00.html

It is seldom discussed that since Vladimir Putin came to power in Russia in 2000, 13 journalists have been killed there. Anna Politkovskaya was one of them, gunned down in a contract killing in Moscow on Oct. 7, 2006. Fortunately, she had already finished "A Russian Diary" when she died.

Recently, I reviewed a book about the life and murder of another Russian, Alexander Litvenenko, a former KGB agent who defected to Great Britain and started protesting the tactics employed by Putin. Litvenenko was killed in England, the first Russian dissident to be murdered outside Russia. He was the victim of polonium poisoning, and he died a slow and miserable death in less than a month. He had been investigating the Politkovskaya murder at the time his own life was snuffed out.

Both victims considered Putin to be a total dictator whose aim from the time he took power was to assemble all aspects of Russian society directly under his thumb. Those, therefore, who have thought Putin favored democracy as Boris Yeltsin did before him are kidding themselves.

The belief that Putin's tenure as president will end in 2008 because Russian law says he cannot serve any longer than eight years is almost certainly incorrect. Those who have been writing about the regime are sure that Putin will either change the law or replace himself temporarily with a pawn he can control.

His determination to assassinate those who protest his leadership and write articles or books about it serves as evidence that Putin controls Russia to the same level enjoyed by Josef Stalin. Politkovskaya wrote, "It is an old story: the Kremlin fosters a baby dragon, which it then has to keep feeding to stop him from setting everything on fire."

Politkovskaya wrote for the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta and also wrote three other books critical of Russian leadership. In numerous articles, she traced Putin's step-by-step gathering of personal power and denounced the rise of corruption under his regime. She asserted that he jails his opponents, muzzles the press and continually lies to the public.

She was also extremely critical of Putin's lackadaisical approach to the terrorist take-over of the Beslan school, in which 1,200 hostages were taken, then numerous lives lost when Russian authorities stormed the school.

The hard-hitting journalist wrote about the fear anyone in Russia has of "making waves." She added, "These are the effects of Putin's War (in Chechnya), and it is a way of thinking that is rapidly spreading to the rest of Russia. You find a similar blind panic gripping the families of those abducted throughout the North Caucasus, in all those towns and villages where Chechnya-style mass 'cleansings' have been taking place."

Politkovskaya also wrote, "Such is daily life in Russia today. Crimes, a lack of honest investigation, and even a lack of any attempt at it. The result is the endless replication of tragedies and terrorism."

Shortly after her written attacks, Russian soldiers, police, criminal gangs and high-ranking politicians threatened her life. It's a scary, sobering story as Putin's legal tenure in Russia starts running out.

London barman describes tea thought to have killed Litvinenko

http://uk.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUKL1514501620070715

LONDON (Reuters) - A London hotel barman has described throwing away the remains of the tea believed to have killed former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko, who died last year from radioactive polonium poisoning, a newspaper said on Sunday.

"When I poured the remains of the teapot into the sink, the tea looked more yellow than usual and was thicker -- it looked gooey," the Sunday Telegraph quoted barman Norberto Andrade as saying in what it called the first account by someone present.

"I scooped it out of the sink and threw it into the bin. I was so lucky I didn't put my fingers into my mouth or scratch my eye as I could have got the poison inside me."

Britain accuses former Russian state security agent Andre Lugovoy of poisoning Litvinenko with polonium at the Millennium Hotel last November and has threatened punitive steps following Moscow's refusal to extradite him.

Media have reported Litvinenko was poisoned with tea. Andrade said he thought the polonium had been sprayed into the teapot.

"There was contamination found on the picture above where Mr Litvinenko was sitting and all over the table, chair and floor so it must have been a spray," the paper quoted him as saying.

Police were not immediately available to comment on the report.

Britain and Russia appear set for confrontation over Litvinenko's murder with London saying it is reviewing cooperation across a range of issues after Moscow's "unacceptable" refusal to extradite Lugovoy. It could even expel diplomats, a move that could prompt swift retaliation.

Lugovoy denies the accusation and counters he thinks British secret services may be involved in the murder.

Interviewed by BBC Television on Sunday, Britain's new Foreign Secretary David Miliband refused to be drawn on what moves London might now be planning.

"A very serious crime was committed on the streets of London, " he said.

"We have a judicial process that must be seen through and I don't want to say anything more about that at the moment other than that we are considering seriously all of our options."

Alex Goldfarb, who co-authored a book about the case with Litvinenko's widow, said the appearance of the interview was significant because British authorities had earlier told witnesses to keep quiet.

"I think this (the interview) has been given the okay by the police and the crown prosecution service because they had been telling witnesses to keep their mouths shut," he told Reuters.

"This is significant because it means the police and prosecutors have given up hope of having a trial. This witness has information that would have been useful at a trial."

(Additional reporting by Christian Lowe in Moscow)