Obama plays the perfect guest
US President chooses coded criticism over harsh words at Putin's dacha
Digg
del.icio.us
Facebook
Reddit
Google
Stumble Upon
Fark
Newsvine
YahooBuzz
Bebo
Twitter
Independent Minds
enlarge
Barack Obama pulled his punches in Moscow yesterday, preaching democracy and democratic values but carefully refraining from direct criticism of Russia and its leaders. In a carefully calibrated speech to graduating students of a liberal economic institute, he continued his policy of "pressing the reset button" with Russia, steering clear from harsh rhetoric about its democratic and human rights credentials.
Reading between the lines, however, there was plenty of veiled criticism. "In 2009, a great power does not show strength by dominating or demonising other countries," Mr Obama told a packed hall of students and lecturers from the New Economic School in central Moscow. The days when empires could treat sovereign states as pieces on a chess board are over."
He said 19th-century thinking about great powers having spheres of influence was outdated, a clear reference to Russia's attempts to assert a special zone of influence in states such as Georgia and Ukraine.
He also gave an impassioned defence of the American system, which many will also interpret as a message to Moscow. "Freedom of speech and assembly has allowed women, minorities, and workers to protest for full and equal rights at a time when we were denied the rule of law," he said. "And equal administration of justice has busted monopolies, shut down political machines, and ended abuses of power."
Reinforcing the message Mr Obama later met with the leaders of opposition parties, including the Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov, and the radical oppositionist and former chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov.
He also appeared to suggest that, if Russia cooperated on reining in Iran and its nuclear ambitions, the US would abandon its controversial plans for a missile defence shield in Central and Eastern Europe, which Moscow strongly opposes.
"If the threat from Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programmes is eliminated, the driving force for missile defence in Europe will be eliminated and that is in our mutual interest," he said.
Mr Obama started his day with a breakfast meeting with prime minister Vladimir Putin, still the most powerful man in the country, at Putin's dacha outside Moscow. In their first encounter, Mr Obama praised "the extraordinary work" that Mr Putin had done for the Russian people, an apparent attempt to erase the memory of his harsh comments last week, when he said Mr Putin had one foot in the Cold War past.
Mr Putin returned the compliment, telling the American president: "We link your name with hopes for the development of our relationship."
It was unclear who came out on top of the discussions, though neither leader looked fully at ease during the filmed part of the talks. In a further attempt to brush over Mr Obama's previous comments about Mr Putin, a White House official said the US President had been "convinced that the prime minister is a man of today".
View all comments that have been posted about this article.
Offensive or abusive comments will be removed and your IP logged and may be used to prevent further submission. In submitting a comment to the site, you agree to be bound by the Independent Minds Terms of Service.
- Print Article
- Email Article
-
Click here for copyright permissions
Copyright 2009 Independent News and Media Limited
Comments
What a ridiculous remark! The irony is that for the most people of the world (including Russians) this passage of Obama's speech is first and foremost applicable to the U.S. - the country with hundreds of military bases scattered around the world, whose troops are currently waging wars many miles away from its own national territory. Shaun Walker is willing to hear only what he wants to hear according to his narrow-minded West-centric perspective.
As for Russia, it has never declared neither Georgia nor Ukraine "a special zone of influence". These are the neighbouring countries for Russia (unlike the U.S.), with shared history and culture (especially in the case of Ukraine) and it's only natural that Russia wants to see them as friendly nations.
Barack Obama pulled his punches in Moscow yesterday, preaching democracy and democratic values but carefully refraining from direct criticism of Russia and its leaders.
Why was Obama supposed to criticise Russia in the first place? Wasn't he just faithful to his own conviction that "in 2009, a great power does not show strength by demonising other countries"?
Obama actually spent most of his time putting Russia down, its no wonder (although unreported in the western press) that the trip from the point of view of detente was a complete failure.
I fully expected that result. Yet we see such glaring indictments from the independents journalists, advising us how successful the less than 48 hour visit was?
We even have Shaun Walker telling us the way to tame a Russian bear and turn it into a purring pussycat is a few verses from Pushkin. This is as an absurd notion if ever there was one, truly infantile. In the Russian language there is no such thing as purring, in Russia, it murring, thus the common name for a Russian cat Murka. Is that all Hitler & Napoleon had to do?, just recite of few verses from Pushkin and all would have been fine? Imagine Obama telling Putin "That Natalia slut(Pushkin's wife) should not have danced with DAnthes and he would have lived a lot longer lol lol.
What an arse. What incredible hypocrisy to go to someone else's country and criticise them for imaginary faults. This from a society which has been hellbent on global hegemony for decades.
I have one simple question for Obama. What if the Russians decided to resurrect the Warsaw Pact, and made efforts to get Canada and Mexico onside. Would the Amerikans go along with, and be happy with, that? The hell they would.
Clean up your own mess Mr Obama. Your country is being flushed down the toilet of history and you would do well to use more humility when dealing with leaders of nations that will be much more important than the USA in the future.
Unfortunately we have a band of lickers of American backside, and they follow the tropes set out for them. Complete waste of time even trying to change their minds.
I had occasion several years ago to lay out for an American forum exactly what the PATRIOT act imvolved. Nobody would believe it, even when given the HR reference number for the legislation. In due course oneof them recanted - but the next day he was off again.
Fortunately they won't be around too much longer. The country is functionally insolvent and unlike after WWII they will not be able to pull themselves out of this one.
Every country who holds their rubbish T-bills is desperately trying to get rid of them without losing all of their value. Once that's done, it's goodbye. And good riddance.
You talk such garbage! American racial purity? How could Obama subscribe to that, being mixed race as he is and is proud to be? What a total goon you are. Here is a man willing to reach out and look for peace. Ofcourse he has an agenda, you couldn't be President of a nation and not have one. But at least it is moderated and measured. Even Mr Putin, with his own agenda, acknowledged this. So what would you rather? Everyone bite the hand held out in peace? Yeah, that would suit you wouldn't it, so you could continue to rant. Grow up and get a real job. The world doesn't need your type of rubbish.
I don't know if you can comprehend this meaning ? It was coined by Alexis de Tocqueville in Democracy in America. You might believe they are exceptional country, I don't. Peace you say? Is having war games in Georgia Peaceful? Is creating colored revolutions a peaceful move? Dasha I think your incredibly naive and painfully stupid.
A shared history? Yes of course, one in which Russia or rather the Soviet Union, colonised and forced its people, values and 'culture' of Imperialism onto the unwilling indigenous peoples. If that's how you define 'sharing', then fine. But please, don't foist your ridiculous views on others.
By the way - how long did it take you to get there by bus? Or did you row?
Afghan Lessons from Empires Past
By H.D.S. Greenway
Before he turned his hand to writing novels, John Masters was a British officer fighting wily and resourceful tribesmen - the grandfathers and great-grandfathers of today's Taliban.
"The core of our problem," Masters wrote, "was to force battle on an elusive and mobile enemy.., (who) tried to avoid battle, and instead fight us with pinpricking hit-and-run tactics." When the Pashtun "tried to defend something, whether a gun or a village, we trapped him and pulverized him. When he flitted and sniped, rushed and ran away, we felt as if we were using a crowbar to swat wasps."
British troops were frustrated, "robbed of a soldier's greatest weapon - aggression." For they knew that "there would be no tranquility among these proud and fierce people, however quickly we forced them into mere surrender, if we fought our campaign on unnecessarily ruthless lines. In normal warfare armies bomb cities and destroy the enemy food supply without compunction, but we had to be careful not to harm women and children if we could help it, and we could not shoot on suspicion, only on certainty, and we could not damage fruit trees or destroy water channels."
After nearly eight years of war in Afghanistan, Americans are still wrestling with these problems - especially given our dependence on airpower, which is considerably more than it was in the 1930s.
Then as now, the Pashtuns "mined and booby trapped the roads with dud shells and stolen grenades. "
Freedom to get your head bashed in
Freedom to be tasered & ziplocked
Freedom to be ignored
Freedom to BS us to death. In fact by the time Obomber is kicked out of the White House back to his slumlord-gifted Chicago mansion, BS will stand for Barackshit.