U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney told the European Union whose example it should follow in relations with Russia.
Photo: AP
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Dick Cheney Demands Action vs. Russia
U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney made a speech in Italy on Saturday on relations between the West and Russia. Using harsh terms, Cheney called Russia will become a world outsider if it continues with its current policy. He main audience was the EU and NATO as he called Russia’s actions an insult to Europe and urged more decisiveness in the West’s dealings with Russia and immediate NATO membership for Georgia and Ukraine. The EU effectively refused him.
U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, who is considered the gray cardinal of the White House, rarely makes such programmatic speeches on foreign affairs. But when he does, they frequently signify the beginning of a new phase of U.S. policy. In May 2005, Cheney delivered his infamous Vilnius speech, in which he first issued Russia the ultimatum: return to democracy or become a pariah state. That address was even compared to Winston Churchill’s Fulton speech. Cheney’s Saturday speech in Cernobbio, Italy, was a logical extension of his speech three years ago.
The main points made by the U.S. vice president essentially repeated those from Vilnius, but in significantly stronger terms. In Vilnius, on the eve of the St. Petersburg G8 summit, Cheney was addressing the Russian authorities, but now he intended audience was exclusively European. Although Russia was the main topic of his speech, Cheney seemed convinced that Russia could not be swayed in any way and it was time to convince Europe to take more decisive measures.
As he did three years ago, Cheney began his speech with a historical review, mentioning the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union. The liberation of Europe, he said, was accompanied by popular uprisings in Central and Eastern Europe and, later, the “color revolutions” in Georgia and Ukraine. “Yet this is not the ending of history,” Cheney observed. “Our principles are being tested anew. We must meet those tests with candor and resolve, and, above all, with unity.”
He then described the recent events in Georgia, saying that “Russia has violated the sovereignty of a democracy; made and then breached a solemn agreement, in a direct affront to the European Union [and] severely damaged its credibility and global standing.” Cheney noted emphatically that not all the countries of Europe followed the U.S. example and condemned Russia. “Differing views on the status of these two areas, within the sovereign borders of the Georgian democracy, cannot justify a sudden and violent incursion by Russia. This much, at a minimum, should be understood by all people of good will in the year 2008,” he told his audience.
The U.S. vice president then listed Russia’s other “aggressive moves”: energy blackmail, supplying arms to Syria and Iran, hampering NATO expansion in the East and threatening to point its missiles at Poland and the Czech Republic. He also recalled Russian Prime Minister and former president Vladimir Putin’s words that the collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century, even while, in the vice president’s opinion, it was “the greatest forward step for human liberty in the last 60 years.”
Then Cheney came to the ultimatum. “Do those leaders believe that bullying others will turn out well for their country's future? Does Russia really want to separate itself from the community of values that has fueled so much of its own economic progress? Does the Russian government really wish to operate in the modern world as an outsider, alienating free countries and trying to rally the world's dictatorships? What we do know right now is that Russia's leaders cannot have things both ways. They cannot presume to gather up all the benefits of commerce, consultation, and global prestige, while engaging in brute force, threats, or other forms of intimidation against sovereign, democratic countries,” he said. That was clearly not a warning to Moscow, but a forceful recommendation to the European Union. To top it all off, Cheney recalled the agreement reached at the NATO Bucharest summit that Georgia and Ukraine should become members of the alliance, even though they did not receive membership action plans. Now, Cheney said, the time has come for them to receive them.
Cheney call to decisive action was heeded in Europe. At a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Avignon that took place almost simultaneously with the American vice president’s speech, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said, “Vice President Cheney was in the region. I’m happy for him, but what did that change?” He also stated that “the crisis is being solved through political means, not by warships” and stated that it is the EU, not the United States, that played a decisive role in settling the Russian-Georgian conflict. “The European Union played its role, and thank God, since I don’t know who would have played that role if the EU had not.” Kouchner added that Europe has acquired political and economic weight and needs a new concept for transatlantic relations. Thus European diplomats, seemingly unaffronted, do not yet agree with Russian-Georgian conflict has led to a significant schism in the West. That is probably what Russian authorities were hoping for, and that means they will continue to deep the split.
&Russian Warships Heading toward America
Russia and Venezuela have agreed to conduct joint naval exercises. A detachment of Russian Navy ships and ships from the Venezuelan Navy will take part in full-scale naval military exercises in Venezuelan waters in the Caribbean Sea from November 10 to 14. Four Russian ships and over 1000 members of the military are expected to participate. “This is the first time an event of this kind has taken place off the American coast with the participation of Russian military ships ad it has enormous meaning,” commented Rear Adm. Salvatore Cammarata Bastidas, commander of the chief staff of the Venezuelan Navy.
&NATO Ships in Black Sea Don’t Violate Intl. Treaties
The Russian Foreign Ministry expressed its concern on Friday over the growing presence of NATO military ships in the Black Sea and the possibility that the Montreux Convention on the passage of ships through Bosporus and Dardanelle Straits has been violated, RIA Novosti reports.
Two more NATO ships entered the Black Sea last week. On September 2, the U.S. oceanographic ship the TAGS-60 Pathfinder passed through the Bosporus and the LCC-20 Mount Whitney, the flagship of the U.S. 6th Fleet (the largest ship in the NATO Black Sea group, with deadweight of 16,100 tons followed the next day and the NATO research vessel the Alliance came on September 4. The Coast Guard vessel the WHEC-716 Dallas and the permanent naval group (four frigates permitted to stay until September 11) been there since late August. The American destroyer FFG-74 McFaul (6700 tons deadweight) left the Black Sea on September 1, however.
Thus, NATO has set eight ships to the Back Sea, half of which are not military ships. The total tonnage of the group, about 40,000 tons, is less than the 45,000-ton limit set by article 18 of the Montreux Convention.
Mikhail Zygar
All the Article in Russian as of Sep. 08, 2008
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