Something interesting has unfolded recently that the mainstream media seems oblivious to.
President Bush had a summit meeting with Vladamir Putin on July 1-2 up at Bush's fathers residence in Maine.
Not much was said of the outcome of that meeting and now it may be clearer why.
Over the weekend the Kremlin announced that Mr. Putin had signed a decree to cease the country's fulfilment of the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty, which was signed at the end of the Cold War and limits the deployment of military forces in Europe. Hmmm, very interesting.
He cited U.S. plans to install elements of an anti-missile shield in central Europe and NATO members' failure to ratify an updated version of the treaty as justifications for the suspension.
Former Soviet premier Gorbachev said, "It would have been completely incomprehensible if Russia was to continue fulfilling the treaty when the other sides had not even ratified it,"
I can only imagine a take-it-or-leave-it ultimatum from his highness King George at the meeting in Maine prompted this.
Then today we hear that Russia rejected the latest U.N. draft resolution on Kosovo's future Monday, calling it a hidden attempt to achieve independence for the Serbian province despite vehement opposition from its Serb minority.
Moscow, which has strong cultural ties to Serbia and Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin all but said Moscow would veto the resolution if the sponsors call for a vote, saying the chances of its adoption "are zero."
The sponsors of the bill were the US and the EU. If Bush and Putin were really chummy I'm sure they could have worked this out behind the scenes.
All indications seem to point to Bush's cowboy personna alienating another world figure. He has a knack for it.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment