Talk is cheap, Medvedev - a show of Force is required - International Peace/War

Talk is cheap, Medvedev - a show of Force is required
by Gleb Bryanski via ben - Reuters Friday, May 18 2012, 11:12pm
international / peace/war / other press

Military action on Syria or Iran could lead to nuclear war, squeaks Russian mouse

(Reuters) - Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev warned on Thursday that military action against sovereign states could lead to a regional nuclear war, starkly voicing Moscow's opposition to Western intervention ahead of a G8 summit at which Syria and Iran will be discussed.

"Hasty military operations in foreign states usually bring radicals to power," Medvedev, president for four years until Vladimir Putin's inauguration on May 7, told a conference in St. Petersburg in remarks posted on the government's website.

"At some point such actions which undermine state sovereignty may lead to a full-scale regional war, even, although I do not want to frighten anyone, with the use of nuclear weapons," Medvedev said. "Everyone should bear this in mind."

Medvedev gave no further explanation. Nuclear-armed Russia has said publicly that it is under no obligation to protect Syria if it is attacked, and analysts and diplomats say Russia would not get involved in military action if Iran were attacked.

Russia has adamantly urged Western nations not to attack Iran to neutralize its nuclear program or intervene against the Syrian government over bloodshed in which the United Nations says its forces have killed more than 9,000 people.

Medvedev will represent Russia at the Group of Eight summit in place of Putin, whose decision to stay away from the meeting in the United States was seen as muscle-flexing in the face of the West.

Putin said previously that threats will only encourage Iran to develop nuclear weapons. Analysts have said that Medvedev also meant that regional nuclear powers such as Israel, Pakistan and India could get involved into a conflict.

As president, Medvedev instructed Russia to abstain in a U.N. Security Council vote on a resolution that authorized NATO intervention in Libya, a decision Putin implicitly criticized when he likened the resolution to "medieval calls for crusades".

Medvedev rebuked Putin for the remark, and some Kremlin insiders have said the confrontation over Libya was a factor in Putin's decision to return to the presidency this year instead of letting his junior partner seek a second term.

Russia has since accused NATO of overstepping its mandate under the resolution to help rebels oust long-time leader Muammar Gaddafi, and has warned it will not let anything similar happen in Syria.

Since Putin announced plans last September to seek a third presidential term and make Medvedev prime minister, Russia has vetoed two Security Council resolutions condemning Assad's government, one of which would have called on him to cede power.

Russia's G8 liaison Arkady Dvorkovich said Russia will try to influence the final version of the G8 statement at a summit in Camp David this weekend to avoid a "one-sided" approach that would favor the Syrian opposition.

"In the G8 final statement we would like to avoid the recommendations similar to those which were forced upon during the preparations of the U.N. Security Council resolutions," Dvorkovich said. "A one-sided signal is not acceptable for us."

Russia successfully managed to water down the part of the statement on Syria at a G8 summit in France in May 2011, removing the calls for action against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

"We believe that the United Nations is the main venue to discussing such issues," Dvorkovich said.

LAST APPEARANCE

The G8 summit is likely to be the last appearance among all the leaders of industrialized nations for Medvedev, who embraced U.S. President Barack Obama's "reset", improving strained ties between the nations.

Dvorkovich said Putin's absence from the summit, the first time a Russian president has skipped one, would not affect the outcome: "All the leaders, I saw their reaction, are ready to comprehensively work with the chairman of the government (Medvedev)."

Dvorkovich said that at a bilateral meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama, Medvedev will raise opposition to attempts by some U.S. lawmakers to introduce legislation which will address human rights violations in Russia.

Such legislation could take a form of the so-called Sergei Magnitsky bill, named after the Russian lawyer who died in prison in 2009. The Kremlin human rights council says he was probably beaten to death.

The bill would require the United States to deny visas and freeze the assets of Russians or others with links to his detention and death as well as those who commit other human rights violations.

"New legislation which will address new political issues as imagined by some U.S. congressmen or senators is unacceptable," Dvorkovich said, promising a retaliation.

© 2012 Thomson Reuters

[Russia and China were not only obliged to support their ally, Yugoslavia, in the 90's, they are still able, under the rule of International LAW, to restore Serbian sovereign territories and rid the Balkans of all US military installations.

However, the most glaring public FAILURE/indictment of Russia and China was their inaction during the CLEARLY criminal campaign against LIBYA. Saturation NATO bombings (10,000 bombing missions over MONTHS!) of civilian targets and OVERT assassination ("we came, we saw, he died!") attempts on Gaddafi and his sons were challenged with 'hot air' by Putin --but did he lift a finger to INTERVENE and END the horrid bloodshed, NO, the dirty deal for the spoils of war had been done.

The GLOBAL population will soon see you ALL HANG for your heinous crimes against humanity, you reprehensible scumbags!]

A New Politics That Rejects Austerity and War

There’s something sick about a politics that tells children to give up their lunch money so that billionaire speculators can avoid paying taxes. And that sickness will only be cured by a new politics.

That new politics begins this week in Chicago.

When National Nurses United and the union’s allies rally on May 18 in Chicago on behalf of a Robin Hood Tax on Wall Street speculation, the lie of austerity will be exposed.

The proponents of austerity—from Madison to Washington to Berlin to Athens—would have us believe that nations, states and communities must sacrifice public education, public services and healthcare in order to balance budgets. Yet the same politicians who preach that there is no money for vaccinations and school lunches can always find the money for corporate tax breaks, payouts to defense contractors and wars of whim.

Politicians in both parties tell austerity lies.

But the people are pushing back.

There’s an uprising brewing, not just in Europe but in American states such as Wisconsin and Ohio. There’s a dawning recognition that it is neither morally nor fiscally prudent to sacrifice human needs in order to pay for wars—or to redistribute more of the wealth upward. We do not need “shared sacrifice” and the lie of austerity. We need new priorities.

That’s the message behind the May 18 “Heal the World” rally in Chicago, where I’ll join National Nurses United executive director Rose Ann DeMoro, musician Tom Morello and others in advocating for a Robin Hood Tax on Wall Street speculation.

NNU is rallying in Chicago because that’s where the G-8 Summit was supposed to be held, before the leaders of the planet’s wealthiest nations decided to avoid the “street heat” that was being generated in support of a financial transactions tax. Now, they’ll gather at Camp David—where security will be tighter. But the Robin Hood Tax, which takes a small chunk of change on each transaction by rich speculators and gives to programs that serve the great mass of people, will stll be mentioned at Camp David. Newly elected French President François Hollande is likely to bring it the increasingly popular proposal, as may German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

In Chicago, the battle cry against austerity will be raised his weekend, along with criticisms of the broken priorities that have turned the North Atlantic Treaty Organization into a vehicle for maintaining the occupation of Afghanistan.

Many of the activists who will rally with the NNU will also rally Sunday in protest of NATO policies. The causes are related, as they both address the question of budget priorities. Indeed, one of the key backers of the protests, Progressive Democrats of America, has mounted a “Health Care Not Warfare” campaign that brings the messages together.

There is a new politics afoot in America, a politics that challenges the lie of austerity and the lie that says unlimited military spending is necessary. As Americans and their allies from around the world rally, march and vote to put human needs ahead of corporate greed and the military-industrial complex about which President Eisenhower warned, it is no surprise that activist unions such as NNU and their allies in groups such as PDA will be in the thick of it.

These are groups that understand that the next politics requires an inside-outside strategy that challenges the lie of austerity and the lies that lead to wars of whim. Those challenges must play out inside existing political parties, and outside them; in the corridors of power and in the streets. That next politics will be on display in Chicago on May 18. But it won’t stop there.

The uprising has begun, and it’s spreading.

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