Greater Middle East War: Pentagon Leads Black, Caspian Sea Basins Military Symposium In Georgia
Ministry of Defence of Georgia
May 24, 2013
Security Symposium of Black Sea and Caspian Sea Basins
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The attendees of the Symposium are discussing a number of issues like regional stability…and the possible shift of Middle East crises to the Caucasus region.
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In the Hotel Sheraton, Batumi, the Security Symposium of Black Sea and Caspian Sea basins has opened.
Representatives of the United States European Command Intelligence, high-ranking intelligence officials of Black Sea and Caspian Sea basins countries – Georgia, Bulgaria, Rumania, Moldova, Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan – military attaches and experts take part in the Conference held by the organization of Military Intelligence Department of Ministry of Defence. The Head of Military Intelligence Department of JS of GAF [Joint Staff of the Georgian Armed Forces] Col. Roman Jokhadze unveiled the Conference.
The attendees of the Symposium are discussing a number of issues like regional stability, security of the Sochi Olympiad and associated threats and the possible shift of Middle East crises to the Caucasus region.
The Symposium is the project of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency which is held once a year and aims at rapprochement of military intelligence services of Black Sea and Caspian Sea basins` countries and consolidation around regional security issues. The Symposium was founded in 2006 and first was held in Washington. DIA National Intelligence University and J-2 Intelligence of the United States European Command provide organizational support for the Workshop.
DIA carries out the projects of similar format with intelligence agencies of Asia-Pacific Ocean and South-American countries.
Jules Romains: Destruction of war itself, its deletion from the pages of history
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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts
Jules Romains: Fraternization versus fratricide, the forbidden subject of peace
Jules Romains: War means a golden age for the munitions makers
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Jules Romains
From Verdun: The Prelude (1938)
Translated by Gerard Hopkins
The “duration” began to be reckoned in ever increasing lengths of time; foundation stones were laid for buildings intended for war production; orders for munitions plants were given abroad – at first the machinery had to be made outside the country – much as trade agreements are signed for long-term deliveries; financial transactions were set on foot with the slow deliberation usual of the building up of political alliances or the plotting of international treacheries, the benefit of which will not be felt for several years, or in the methodical dissemination of ideas among distant peoples, which can lead to action only after much patient waiting. In this way, slowly and piecemeal, the whole world was gradually caught up in the chaos of war.
***
The average soldier had, at first, been to a certain extent deceived, but not entirely. God knows he had had no love for war, but he had, to some extent, believed in it. Now he could no longer be in two minds about it. He could see that war was something positively evil, an enterprise of sheer stupidity. Its benefits were as nothing compared to its cost. Nothing in the world could be worth a war, unless it was the destruction of war itself, its suppression for ever, its deletion from the pages of history.
***
The new method was tried in January in the Champagne. On a short length of the German trenches the High Command poured a hundred thousand shells in forty-eight hours. Meanwhile assembly trenches were dug close to the enemy front line. At the last moment, just as the assault troops were preparing to swarm over the parapet, a completely new device was employed – that of rolling, or drum, fire, a sudden acceleration of every battery engaged, on the point to be attacked. The object of this was to give to the few men remaining alive in the opposite trenches, the handful who had survived the rain of a hundred thousand shells, the impression that this time the very heavens were falling on their heads, that the world was collapsing upon them in a torment of flame, that a vast hand of earth and steel armed with a million clutching fingers was about to crush them finally, and that it would be sheer childish folly to try to escape this ultimate hurricane of death. The final convincing touch was given to the picture by the detonation of a number of mines which turned communication trenches, front line and parapet into one huge crater and hurled into the air fragments of dismembered men.
***
These small-scale massacres set the men brooding. The more they thought the thing out, the more bitter did their reflections become: “The truth is they want to leave us lying out there; they want to get rid of us. That’s what’s really behind it.”
They could not help guessing too that the motive for much of this minor slaughter lay in the personal ambition of some local commander. It might be that a brigadier was impatient for a third star. In such a case he would not hesitate to argue that the capture of a strong-point would advance him with his friends at headquarters. Since he was not naturally cruel, he carefully avoided considering the fact that his promotion would be obtained at the cost of a hundred killed, eighty “missing,” and three hundred wounded. A divisional general’s expectations were pitched higher; a corps commander’s higher still. A strong-point would not be enough. The enterprise must be planned on a bigger scale – and so, too, the losses (but it didn’t do to think about that). Such a line of argument very soon came to envisage hundreds of yards of trenches and thousands of casualties.
But quite often these small-scale attacks owed their inspiration to General Headquarters itself, whence they filtered down the various degrees of the military hierarchy. Now, if General Headquarters wanted, quite naturally, to put a feather in its own cap, small local operations certainly would not do the trick. Nothing really was of any use short of a major offensive with a casualty list running into tens of thousands killed.
Azerbaijan: NATO’s Outpost On Caspian, Iranian Border
AzerNews
May 24, 2013
Azerbaijan’s security minister meets senior NATO official
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The minister informed the NATO official about…the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and its consequences, and stressed that this factor is also a serious threat for the security of the whole of Europe.
Then Mahmudov touched upon the issues of security of oil and gas pipelines…
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Azeri president and NATO chieftain at NATO headquarters last year
Azerbaijan’s Minister of National Security Eldar Mahmudov has met the Deputy Secretary General of NATO Iklodi Gabor, who is on an official visit to Baku, the ministry reported on May 23.
Mahmudov noted the successful implementation of the Individual Partnership Action Plan with NATO and the development of bilateral relations, stressing that in this case the important role is played by the directions given by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and his decisions to intensify cooperation with NATO and accelerate integration into the Euro-Atlantic space.
The minister said…that Azerbaijan attaches great importance to strengthening ties in international security with the relevant structures within the Euro-Atlantic partner countries.
The minister informed the NATO official about the measures undertaken by Azerbaijan on security issues, as well as the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and its consequences, and stressed that this factor is also a serious threat for the security of the whole of Europe.
Then Mahmudov touched upon the issues of security of oil and gas pipelines and other projects of international importance, stressed the importance of close cooperation and mutually coordinated activities in this direction.
Iklodi noted that NATO is satisfied with the work carried out by the relevant government agencies, including the Ministry of National Security on the implementation of the Individual Partnership Action Plan.
The sides also discussed the issues related to subsequent development of relations between Azerbaijan and NATO as well as issues of mutual interest.
U.S. Nominates Ex-General, Afghan Hand As New NATO Ambassador
Stars and Stripes
May 24, 2013
White House adviser on Afghanistan nominated as new US envoy to NATO
By John Vandiver
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Daalder’s departure after a four-year stint as ambassador comes just weeks after the parting of Adm. James Stavridis, the soon-to-retire former NATO supreme allied commander. The two men and Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who took over as commander of the international force in Afghanistan, were appointed at roughly the same time by the incoming Obama administration to conduct the NATO-led war.
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Douglas Lute
STUTTGART, Germany: Retired Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, who for the past six years has served as a White House adviser on Afghanistan, was nominated by President Barack Obama on Thursday to serve as the next U.S. ambassador to NATO.
If confirmed, Lute will replace current ambassador Ivo Daalder at the Brussels post, where the focus in the coming year will likely be on crafting drawdown plans in Afghanistan.
Daalder’s departure after a four-year stint as ambassador comes just weeks after the parting of Adm. James Stavridis, the soon-to-retire former NATO supreme allied commander. The two men and Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who took over as commander of the international force in Afghanistan, were appointed at roughly the same time by the incoming Obama administration to conduct the NATO-led war.
During Daalder and Stavridis’ tenure, the U.S. surged into Afghanistan as part of an effort by the Obama administration to refocus efforts on the neglected “good war,” which critics say was under-resourced as a result of the military campaign in Iraq. While the U.S. boosted its troop presence in Afghanistan, U.S. officials also urged its European allies in NATO to bump up their troop contributions, getting mixed results in the process.
Now, as NATO shifts from a combat mission to one focused on training Afghan forces to provide for their own security, the question will be whether NATO’s security gains can hold in the years ahead. For Lute, and new SACEUR Gen. Philip Breedlove, the focus will be on pushing ahead with security transition plans while still maintaining enough of a troop presence to keep the training mission on course.
If confirmed, Lute also will serve at a time of instability in other areas of strategic concern for NATO. Chief among them is the ongoing civil war in Syria [which] threatens to destabilize the region.
Lute, who retired from the Army in 2010, brings more than 30 years of military experience to his new diplomatic post. Last year, Lute was even rumored to be under consideration by Obama for the position of SACEUR, which would have required the unusual step of a return to active duty.
Meanwhile, Daalder will take up a new position later this summer as president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, a nonpartisan group focused on international affairs.
Louis Aragon: The military: parasite and defender of parasitism
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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts
Louis Aragon: The peace that forces murder down to its knees for confession
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Louis Aragon
From The Bells of Basel (1934)
Translated by Haakon Chevalier
“If I lend money not to Pierre de Sabran but to the Turks to massacre the Greeks, or to the English to make hash of the Hindus, or to the French – let’s not forget the French! – to enable them to treat themselves to morocco leather vests? Then I’m no longer a usurer, I ‘live on my income,’ I go and clip my coupons, I am respected by my concierge. I can do even better if I chuck enough cash into some racket or other in which the government is interested. I’ll be given the Legion of Honor on the 14th of July, and I’ll have the right to be buried at the state’s expense with a lot of poor idiots in the procession who’ve been grabbed for two years to be taught to defend the Gauloise bicycle, Job cigarette paper, and Meunier chocolates!”
“An anti-militarist to boot!” General Dorsch managed to stammer.
“You’ve got me wrong, General! The Army is an institution that is much too useful to usurers for me to be an anti-militarist. I see no objection to maintaining armed bands who year in and year out do nothing but pretend to work, present arms, do right and left turns and indulge in other pastimes that combine the useful and the agreeable, provided these bands with their chiefs and subordinates are ready to protect me, my complicated operations and my usurer’s's rates, as in case of need they will protect Monsieur Peugeot, and the Isola brothers, and the owner of the Dufayel Establishments and the Chabanais brothel. Labor leaders, agitators, strikers, and other rabble rousers have hit on the idea of lumping all of us together as parasites – you as well as me, General, Monsieur Lebaudy as well as the nearest grocer – and they’re right. Why not admit it? I don’t see anything shocking about it. I’d like to know why it’s any better to be the animal afflicted with parasites than the parasite on the animal’s back. On the contrary, I personally think this is what is called civilization. We have reached a period of culture and refinement which necessitates a great division of labor. Why, just look – commerce used to be despised, it was closed to the nobility. All that has completely changed. Parasitism is a superior form of sociability, and the future belongs to parasitism – the whole problem is continually to invent new forms! I drink to parasitism, and you’ll agree that I’m right!”
General Dorsch was trying to find some gesture by which he could get out of this gracefully. He accordingly took the glass of fine Napoléon (which Brunel was handing him, remarking that there was a fellow – Napoleon – who had been a parasite of the first water) and, raising it, with a certain majesty, he finally found a formula:
“I drink,” he said, “to patriotism!”
“There! exclaimed Georges, “just what I said!”
***
“Get this my friend: right now all our resources are none too great to help carry out the armirable work which France is undertaking in Morocco…
“Old man, you’ve got to understand that it’s not that I believe in all the twaddle, all the big words that are used to stir up the crowds…When I say France, it’s a very simple manner of speak, which means we – a certain group of common interests…It’s at least a little more exciting to lend money for an enterprise of this kind than to play your little skin game at 100 per cent interest with boobs like Sabran, who spoils the whole show by blowing out his brains. In my game, hundreds of Sabrans are pawns in a game that is incomparably more interesting, and if any of them break their necks at it, well, at least it’s not for nothing! Killed in action on the field of honor – that’s much more swanky than suicide! And after the smoke has cleared away you still have left a real honest-to-goodness colony, mines, cultivated land, towns, ports, roads, railways…”
U.S. Military Base In Uzbekistan Would Destabilize Region
Daily Times
May 22, 2013
Uzbek quest for US weapons could dent Central Asia
Farooq Yousaf
Uzbek President Islam Karimov and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen
2014 is approaching, and so is the deadline for the withdrawal of US-led coalition forces from Afghanistan. Leon Panetta, the then-US Defense Secretary, in 2012 announced that by the end of 2014 coalition forces would cease any combat operations and would be limited to normal military duties in the country. Moreover, [Afghan President] Hamid Karzai, in a recent interview, gave approval to allowing nine US military bases even after the pullout.
With the United States wary of transporting heavy weaponry out of Afghanistan, offers have been made by the Central Asian states, such as Uzbekistan, in return for some of the latest arms and equipment that they lack. According to a report by The New York Times, policy makers in Washington took Uzbekistan’s offer so seriously that the United States has partially lifted a set of arms sales restrictions that has been in place for about a decade.
Last year, in June, reports started to surface that Uzbekistan that faces international arms embargoes due to widespread human rights violations, started negotiations for a possible arms-transit and military base deal with the USA, that would help the coalition forces take its equipment out of Afghanistan, whereas Tashkent would benefit by acquiring the state-of-the-art weaponry. Kazakhstan’s newspaper Liter, on August 15 last year, predicted that a possible deal for a US base in Uzbekistan could be reached when US Assistant Secretary of State Robert Blake visited Tashkent.
Uzbekistan, for long has been indicating shifting its alliances and partners. One of such indications was its withdrawal from the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a military cooperation initiative between Russia and Central Asian states [as well as Armenia and Belarus]. It would have been difficult for Tashkent to enter into military negotiations with the United States if it were a member of the CSTO, but abandoning the CSTO freed it from coming under any pressure.
In terms of geostrategic importance, the most feasible gateway for cargo withdrawal is Pakistan, yet it seems that the coalition forces want as many alternatives as possible, such as Uzbekistan, in case Islamabad decides to go against its deals with NATO and close the NATO supply line, or even ask for more money.
…
Such a move by Uzbekistan would mean it wants to turn its back on Russia, a neighbour that supports much of the Uzbek workforce. Russia, even after the Soviet disintegration, has maintained a substantial influence over some of the Central Asian states, but this influence has mostly been in the form of mutual cooperation and better relations.
In another move, NATO’s representative for Central Asia James Appathurai held meetings with Uzbek ministers in March this year, in what seemed to be a move to gain Uzbek support against Russia.
James Appathurai, Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs and Security Policy and NATO Secretary General’s Special Representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia, in Uzbekistan on March 27, 2013
If the United States is successful in establishing a military base in Uzbekistan, it would entail bad political consequences, and hence play a role in destabilising not only Central Asia, but also South Asia, as the anti-US sentiment and motivation for radical Islamists could fuel a wave of militancy that could also spill over into Russia, one of the most important states in the region. Such concerns were raised by a Russian military expert, Lt Gen Leonid Sazhin¸ saying, “Although Americans claims that they are fighting against the Taliban in Afghanistan today, it will be them who, by deploying their facility in Uzbekistan, will lead Taliban members there.”
A base in Uzbekistan, that neighbours Afghanistan, could also be used for surgical strikes, and even drone attacks, into neighbouring Afghanistan, that could also raise major human rights concerns and sour relations with Kabul.
If the United States is successful in establishing a fully operational base in Uzbekistan, this would also worry China, another regional power, as it has already shown concerns over the bases surrounding it, known as the ‘ring of fire’. In any case, Uzbekistan needs to decide whether such a venture would be beneficial for the country and the region or will bring chaos in the long run.
The writer is a Programme consultant and Content Editor at the Centre for Research and Security Studies, Islamabad, belonging to Frontier Region of Pakistan. He is currently pursuing his higher Studies in Public Policy and Conflict Management in Germany. He tweets as @faruqyusaf and can be reached at farooq@crss.pk
Interview: From Kosovo to Missiles, U.S. Works Against Russian Interests
Voice of Russia
May 22, 2013
NATO has never offered to cooperate with Russia – Rozoff
Western support for KLA terrorists and support for the self-declared independence of Kosovo are part of a pan-Albanian plan for the region, NATO is reaching its tentacles into space and there has never been any real offer of cooperation by NATO to Russia, all of these issues were recently discussed with regular Voice of Russia contributor Rick Rozoff, the owner and manager of the Stop NATO website and mailing list.
You’re listening to an interview in progress with Rick Rozoff, the owner and manager of the Stop NATO website and mailing list. You can find part 1 of this interview on our website at english.ruvr.ru.
Robles: So they needed a base somewhere in that area, geographically, and Kosovo fit the bill, right?
Rozoff: Fairly much that. Again, I think we have to understand that there’s no supervision, there’s no oversight in terms of what’s going on in Kosovo. Certainly there’s no real government in Pristina. I mean the Thaçis and Haradinajs and these other terrorist cutthroats from the former Kosovo Liberation Army are neither able to question the US, nor would they have any desire to. I mean they are simply puppets.
Robles: Right. That was a terrorist organization and it always was. It never was anything else.
Rozoff: An American official in 1998, Robert Gelbard, actually at the time, and he reversed himself subsequently, but at the time stated that the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army was a terrorist organization in his estimate. In fact it was and is. I mean it’s formally disbanded, but in effect I’m sure there are late night meetings where they get together and reminisce over dragging people on barbed wire and murdering them to harvest their organs and dealing in narcotics and women and weapons and body parts and so forth. This is the nature of the monsters that the U.S. and its NATO allies have waged war on behalf of.
Hashim Thaci and former secretary of state, current presidential aspirant Hillary Clinton
Robles: That would explain, I think, to a lot of people who might not understand why the U.S. would have supported, what I could describe as Muslim terrorists against Christian victims.
Rozoff: I would de-emphasize the religious aspect, I truly would, in this sense: Kosovo was an amazingly rich and diverse mosaic of ethnic and religious cultures prior to the U.S. and NATO intervening. That is, in addition to ethnic Albanians who comprise the majority and ethnic Serbs…
Robles: I just mentioned that because even at the time a lot of Americans themselves couldn’t understand why the US was supporting Muslims against Christians.
Rozoff: We have to recall that other ethnic minorities – Roma (so-called Gypsies), Egyptians, Ashkalis, Bosnians, Gorans, Turks and others who are predominantly Muslim have also been harassed and killed and driven out of the province by Thaçi and his former KLA officials. So, it seems to be more racial, in terms of pan-Albanian than it is religious.
Robles: Do you really think there’s that angle there? Or is it just whoever cut a better deal with the United States?
Rozoff: There is an Albanian American Civic League, former U.S. Congressman Joseph DioGuardi is the godfather of that. And he’s been amazingly successful at lobbying, and I use that term loosely and perhaps charitably, but influencing American politicians: everyone from Robert Dole to the current Vice President Joseph Biden, who is someone who has appeared at the Albanian American Civic League functions and fundraisers, with hefty honoraria I am sure. And I’m sure Mr. Biden walked away with a lot of money.
I’ve heard them, I’ve seen the videos on YouTube, and some amazingly provocative statements, openly calling for the use of military force against the government of Yugoslavia and Serbia at that time but clearly on behalf of a pan-Albanian agenda. And I think that’s very important to realize. That the five stars on the Kosovo flag supposedly represent five different ethnic groups within the province, but I think the more seasoned observer realizes that that means five different nations in which ethnic Albanians reside and which are envisioned by the likes of Hashim Thaçi to be united in one greater Albania.
Those would of course be not only Kosovo and Albania itself, but parts of Montenegro, other parts of Serbia and Macedonia and Greece. So, you have an irredentist, expansionist mindset there and you have NATO go to war for 78 days on behalf of that project.
Robles: I see, Rick, we have to move on because I want to ask you a little bit about the US Strategic Command. Now it appears that NATO and the US are planning to not only take over the world, but take over the universe.
Rozoff: Very good. That’s it. Do you want me to comment on that?
Robles: Sure, can you give our listeners some details about what is going on with NATO and space, if you would?
Rozoff: That’s true, nott content with expanding its tentacles around the earth, now the heavens are going to be an area for NATO expansion. And I’m thinking particularly about a story that came out yesterday. It was issued by the press wire service of the U.S. Armed Forces, what’s called American Forces Press Service from the Pentagon. And a deputy commander of the US Strategic Command, and it is one of nine unified combatant commands the Pentagon has, and most of them tend to be regional in nature: Northern Command, Southern Command, Africa Command and so forth. But this one is strategic and as you are indicate covers not only the entire world, but reaches into space.
Strategic Command was actually…replaced the former Strategic Air Command during the Cold War period. In 1992 it was renamed Strategic Command and then in 2002 it merged with US Space Command. So, it is a command that takes in all nuclear weapons, you know, strategic forces, the so-called missile defense, which we’ve talked about many a time before, that is encircling the planet with interceptor missile systems. But also takes in the heavens, takes in space.
And the statement was made by the deputy commander of the Strategic Command or at least the the report on it was two days ago – he is actually the Deputy Director of Global Operation – and he talked about building an alliance in space, partnerships in space comparable to what the U.S. has on earth. So, I think we’d be safe in understanding that being some approximation or a parallel to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and other military alliances the US has.
And again, when you read the Pentagon’s own accounts of these things, oftentimes the statements are amazingly candid; I mean they would be cleaned up appreciably by the time they got to the mainstream media. But this fellow in question, the Deputy Commander of Global Operations, actually this is a paraphrase, but he said that space is vital to military operations providing an array of capabilities that give space-faring nations’ forces a military advantage. In other words, if you control space you could win a war on earth, I think it is essentially what he was saying.
And you know, he again drew the parallel that just as on, paraphrasing again on this of the same account, he said, recognizing the value of multinational coalitions for operations in the land, maritime and air domains, the officials of U.S. Strategic Command here hope to forge a coalition that shares assets and capabilities in space. That’s the opening sentence of the article.
Robles: Listen, one more question, I just recalled this, now, the U.S. made a statement a couple of weeks ago, I don’t know if you recall this, that they were thinking of declassifying some missile parameters to assuage Russia’s concerns regarding the ABM shield. Have you heard anything about that? Can you comment on that? Do you think that’s sincere and…any ideas?
Rozoff: I’m vaguely familiar with that. Is it sincere? No it’s not. I mean they’ll try to assuage Russian concerns by giving them a sense of false confidence, perhaps, but there’s no indication that the United States intends to fully incorporate Russia as a partner even in regional missile defense systems, such as that in Europe, much less into a global missile system, which Russia would be kept quite clearly outside of.
So, assuaging Russian concerns, that sounds like more talk to me and we’ve had several years of that talk without any results.
Missile Defense Agency photograph
Robles: I see. This was after the recent Russia-NATO Council meeting. And that was supposed to be one of the results from it, but you think that’s just hot air, right?
Rozoff: It is. It is window dressing, it’s cosmetic and it is meant to make the U.S. and NATO look like they are trying to reach some understanding with a “paranoid” or “recalcitrant” Russia that “refuses to work with them”. We know how these propaganda tricks work and this is simply another indication of it.
So that U.S. and NATO officials can go back and say: “We’ve made repeated offers to our Russian partner which, unfortunately, misinterprets what the intent of the global interceptor missile system is.”
Even though, every now and again Ronald Reagan is invoked or evoked as the inspiration for this program, which means Strategic Defense Initiative, which means Star Wars.
Robles: I’ve read a news item last week titled something like: “Russia refuses NATO offer of cooperation.” Do you know of any NATO offers of cooperation that Russia has refused?
Rozoff: None whatsoever. There are no such offers. Again, when Russia has asked to, if you will, compartmentalize the missile defense of Europe, to engage into what is called sectoral or regional components where Russia takes responsibility for a certain area, what we hear time and again is: “NATO will not outsource its security to a non-NATO member”, meaning Russia. So, that Russia will have no role whatsoever in any joint or collaborative efforts to create a genuine missile shield, but instead it will be consulted, as you were alluding to at the beginning of the discussion on this subject. Russia will be consulted or, in other words, the U.S. and NATO will tell Russia damn well what they want to tell them and nothing else.
Robles: What exactly would you say to someone who says: “NATO has offered to cooperate with Russia?”
Rozoff: John, we are next-door neighbors and I’m building a shield over my house as I’m arming myself to the teeth. And I’m telling you: “Don’t worry about it because I’m not your enemy”. And your weapons very shortly will not be able to retaliate against me if I should open fire on you first, but “Don’t worry about it because we are friends and partners.” I mean nobody falls for something like that.
Robles: Okay…
Rozoff: I mean, if you make yourself impregnable, if you make yourself invulnerable as you are moving – Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov again, just three or four days ago, said NATO military hardware is moving up to the Russian border, as indeed it is. And this includes the fact that just a couple of days ago the U.S. moved the first squadron of F-16 strategic fighter jets into Poland for permanent deployment, in a country that borders Russian territory, the Kaliningrad district. And already, as of three years ago, the U.S. moved interceptor missiles into Poland, maybe 35-40 miles from the Russian border.
Robles: I wanted to underline that fact for some people who may not really follow NATO and maybe don’t really know what they are really doing. And people might actually believe that for some reason Russia refused to cooperate. That’s why I just wanted to get that point very well across.
Rozoff: Russia has been begging for genuine cooperation and has been rebuffed at every turn, as, again, the U.S. and NATO are saying “This is our operation and we’ll tell you what we want to about it, but you are not going to influence it in any way or form.”
Robles: Okay. I know that. You know that. I just want to make sure our listeners know that as well.
Rozoff: Good.
Robles: Rick, thank you very much. Unfortunately, we are out of time.
Rozoff: I understand. But thanks again John, I appreciate it.
You were listening to an interview with You’re listening to an interview in progress with Rick Rozoff, the owner and manager of the Stop NATO website and international mailing list. You can find the part 1 of this interview on our website at english.ruvr.ru.
Read more: http://english.ruvr.ru/2013_05_23/NATO-has-never-offered-to-cooperate-with-Russia-Rozoff-088/
