SPACE PRESERVATION NOTE: Biden Says U.S. Will Pursue Missile Plan Russia Opposes
SPACE PRESERVATION NOTE: U.S. Missile Defense is the trojan horse of the weaponization of space. It is a $trillion-dollar weapons system to continue the research & development for space-based weapons, and the defense contract mandate for the weaponization of space. The Obama administration has now formally committed to continue the space weaponization strategy first undertaken by the GW Bush administration when it unilaterally announced the cancellation of the ABM Treaty on Dec. 13, 2002, in order to pursue U.S. Missile Defense, and hence the long-term weaponization of space. The Obama's so-called plan to ban space-weapons is hereby unmasked as a 2008 U.S. Presidential campaign propaganda ploy, or at best a disingenuous political tactic by the Obama administration.
For an authentic strategy which will result in the ban of all space-based weapons, including space-based weapons of mass-destruction, please support the Space Preservation Treaty. Text and supporting research articles and expert media interviews at:
Thank you.
Alfred Lambremont Webre, JD, MEd
Institute for Cooperation in Space (ICIS)
Vancouver, B.C.
Biden Says U.S. Will Pursue Missile Plan Russia Opposes
MUNICH — The United States will pursue a missile defense plan that has angered the Kremlin, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. said Saturday, in a signal that the post-cold-war tensions that have flared recently between Washington and Moscow could continue into the new Obama administration.
But Mr. Biden did not say whether the administration would move forward with a plan to place the system in Eastern Europe, which had been the core of recent tensions. He also offered conciliatory words, saying, "It is time to press the reset button, and to revisit the many areas where we can and should be working together with Russia."
The highly anticipated speech, seen as the first major outline of the new administration's relations with the world, came just days after Kyrgyzstan's president announced a decision to close a United States base there that is crucial to the war in Afghanistan, which Mr. Obama has made his biggest foreign policy priority. The announcement was made in Moscow, and many American officials concluded that the Russians had pressured Kyrgyzstan as part of their campaign to reassert control over former Soviet republics.
It was unclear on Saturday if Mr. Biden's statements on missile defense were meant to suggest that the Obama administration had decided to continue some of the Bush administration's tougher stands on Russia or were part of a bargaining strategy. Russian cooperation is considered important to American attempts to stop both Iran and North Korea from continuing with their nuclear programs.
In recent weeks, Russia's leaders have also sent mixed messages: offering kind words about President Obama, then suggesting that the United States would need to do more to win Russia's support — including addressing complaints about American plans to expand NATO and ending plans for the missile defense system that the Bush administration had been pursuing.
President Bush had said that the system, which would include sites in Eastern Europe, was needed to defend against countries like Iran, but Russia has always seen it as a way of countering its own arsenal.
Mr. Biden also rejected the notion of a Russian sphere of influence and said that Mr. Obama would continue to press NATO to seek "deeper cooperation" with like-minded countries. "We will continue to develop missile defenses to counter a growing Iranian capability, provided the technology is proven and it is cost-effective," Mr. Biden said.
His wording virtually echoed the stance on missile defense that Mr. Obama took during the presidential campaign, but was notable because Mr. Biden did not announce a strategic review of the issue, which administration officials had considered as a way to defuse tensions between Washington and Moscow.
Although his language was tempered, Mr. Biden also said, "We will not agree with Russia on everything."
"For example, the United States will not recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states. We will not — will not — recognize any nation having a sphere of influence. It will remain our view that sovereign states have the right to make their own decisions and choose their own alliances."
Mr. Biden's speech came a day after Deputy Prime Minister Sergei B. Ivanov told the same group that Moscow would not deploy its own missiles on the Polish border if the United States reviewed its missile defense plan.
But any chance for a rapprochement between the United States and Russia at this conference all but evaporated, foreign policy experts said, after the announcement on the Kyrgyz base. Mr. Obama plans to send as many as 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan over the next two years; shaky overland supply routes through Pakistan would make it difficult for the United States to adjust to the loss of the base, in Manas, Kyrgyzstan.
Mr. Biden also talked about Iran, suggesting that the administration was both willing to be more conciliatory than Mr. Bush's, but also was willing to continue his tough policies if necessary. "We are willing to talk to Iran," Mr. Biden said, in a departure from the Bush administration. But Mr. Biden quickly tacked back to a refrain common during the last years of the Bush presidency, and spoke of offering Iran's leader a choice: "Continue down your current course and there will be pressure and isolation; abandon the illicit nuclear program and your support for terrorism and there will be meaningful incentives."
In an interview at the conference, Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the international affairs committee in the Russian Parliament, said he welcomed Mr. Biden's comments about "a need to listen to partners," as opposed to President Bush's approach "that everything is already predecided, everything is clear and should be done the way the American administration thinks about it," which would make it easier to reach agreement on many issues "including the antimissile dispute."
Mr. Biden's speech was the highlight of a security conference that attracted a host of global leaders and diplomats, most of whom seemed primed to hear how the United States and its new leadership viewed the world. They erupted into applause when Mr. Biden walked onto the stage.
But for all the talk of a new era in relations between the United States and the world, old sores remained, and with no sign of healing soon. "Let's be frank about it, there's more and more distrust between the European Union and Russia," President Nicolas Sarkozy of France said.
It was at this security conference two years ago when the new tension between the United States and Russia leapt to the fore when Vladimir V. Putin, then Russia's president, lashed out against the United States over its use of force. On Saturday, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany struck a conciliatory note. "It is in our interest to incorporate Russia in this new security architecture," she said.
On Friday, Ali Larijani, the speaker of Iran's Parliament, said that Mr. Obama's decision to send George J. Mitchell,
his new envoy, to the Middle East to listen and not to dictate was "a
positive signal," but also said that, in terms of Iran, "the old carrot
and stick cliché"— the very strategy that Mr. Biden outlined— "must be
discarded." http://www.nytimes.com/2009/
VIEW/COMMENT:
HOT SUMMER-------------
North Korea --------->South Korea
+ Japan...bases
USA Retaliates------->Iran+N. Korea
Interim----China offers help...but...absorbs South Korea
Intervention Needed---Non-Human
Ideas???????
Posted by: Kev | 11 March 2009 at 18:14