Gorbachev criticizes U.S. on nuclear arsenal, hypocrisy -- Reuters

[Bozita]

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/050421/325/fgrxh.html

Thursday April 21, 04:23 AM


Gorbachev criticizes U.S. on nuclear arsenal, hypocrisy



UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev warned the United States on Wednesday "to cure itself" of hypocrisy over nuclear arms and be prepared to cut its atomic arsenal and take it off "hair-trigger" alert.

Addressing a news conference with Ted Turner, the founder of CNN, Gorbachev said the United States should not suggest other nations disarm and make no move to do so itself.

"I think the United States is sick. It suffers from the sickness, the disease of being the victor and it needs to cure itself from this disease," Gorbachev said.

"I think Russia is ready to cooperate. Now the question is, is the United States -- which is the only remaining superpower -- is the United States ready to do this? I think not," he added.

There are an estimated 34,000 nuclear warheads in silos in Russia and the United States. About 5,000 are on hair-trigger alert, in which they could be fired on 15 minutes' notice.

more...

[Selteri]

1. Wow, I think I found where the WMDs are

They're here, in the US, with George Bush's finger on the trigger...

if the thought of that man overing over the trigger doesn't scare you, you havne't been paying much attention to the wars he's already started.

[montana_hazeleyes]

16. "Hair trigger alert"

with bush** at the trigger makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up on hair trigger alert.:scared: :nuke: O8)

[Hekate]

2. I wondered when someone would finally say the obvious n/t

[420inTN]

3. Wow... he's still alive? n/t

[burrowowl]

5. Move on

nothing to see here.:nuke: :nuke:

[leftchick]

6. yes and he is looking pretty well too...

[Meeker Morgan]

8. Still alive ...

... and a naturalized American citizen.

His main job these days is running an environmentalist think tank.

[patcox2]

14. Thats insane! He's not a US citizen.

That rumor doesn't even qualify as a rumor, only the clinically insane believe that gorbachev is an american citizen now. However, if you google gorbachev and naturalized american citizen, the only place where you see it alleged is in a bunch of free republic posts. Interesting, huh?

[Meeker Morgan]

17. OK smart guy. What country is he citizen of? eot

[xxqqqzme]

4. Mikhail & Ted - now

that's a pair.

..."We need leadership through partnership, not by dominating and being a policeman."

Gorbachev, credited with helping end the Cold War, led the Soviet Union for six years until its 1991 collapse.

He was at the United Nations to present Turner the Alan Cranston peace award, named after the late U.S. senator who advocated nuclear disarmament. The award was sponsored by the Global Security Institute, a San Francisco-based group that focuses on disarmament.

Turner said the United States had not lived up to its obligations to reduce its arsenal substantially."...

Go Gorby!!!

[leftchick]

7. another treaty the US won't sign

The US likes being a bully Gorby! Times have changed.

:(


The United Nations in May is holding a five-year review of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the cornerstone of atomic disarmament, which came into force in 1977. So far, a preparatory committee has failed to agree on an agenda because of divisions between the nuclear powers and those without atomic weapons.

"They (United States) say other people don't need (nuclear weapons), but what kind of law is this that they are advocating?" Gorbachev asked. "It's the law of the jungle."

"We don't need to kiss each other, we don't need to flirt with each other," he said. "We need leadership through partnership, not by dominating and being a policeman."

[cornermouse]

9. He's right.

We are sick.

[James T. Kirk]

10. Gorby is full of it.

There has been much recent progress in nuclear disarmament.

link:
http://64.177.207.201/pages/16_95.html

Also, when Gorbachev was in charge of one of the world's biggest nuclear arsenal, I don't recall him taking it offline.

[Frances]

11. You missed the point

It's about more and more countries getting nuclear weapons. The U.S. argument is that we can have as many nuclear weapons as we want and we will be the policeman of the world.

Understandably, with the U.S. proving that it will wage war preemptively by invading Iraq, other countries want a deterrent against the U.S. invading them. The only real deterrent is to threaten nuclear retaliation.

What these other countries don't realize is that the threat of nuclear retailiation may not deter the U.S. because more and more people who are in power in the U.S. don't care if the whole world is blown to smithereens. They think this destruction will mean that the Rapture is here.

[James T. Kirk]

20. No, you missed the point!

There has been a recent arms treaty between Putin and Bush. Gorby could have given up the Soviet arms at any time, but he was so obsessed with his massive missile tubes, he kept them ready to launch at a moment's notice. Then, he mislead the USSR into oblivion and wound up losing his precious, precious nukes to Russia, Ukraine and other states. Also, he kept such poor track of his weapons, there is a danger they could fall into the hands of terrorists. Trusting the Gorbinator with nukes was like entrusting them to a monkey.

[Toots]

12. So you know nothing of Start I or Start II

Sometimes the ignorance displayed here amazes me.

[James T. Kirk]

22. Bzzzzzt! Please START over.

Hey, Toots!

Start I was Reagan's idea:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Start_I

Start II was signed between the elder Bush and Gorby's arch-nemesis Boris Yeltsin after the G-man got himself kicked out of office and threw the Soviet Union into chaos:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/START_II

Why are you bringing up the achievements of Gorby's foes?

[cornermouse]

13. James T. Kirk?

That's sort of odd.

Sometimes when I look at Bush, I get the feeling that he imagines that he's James T. Kirk on the Enterprise, sitting at the helm and saying "make it so".

[patcox2]

15. Why do you think he calls his foreign policy advisors "Vulcans?"

The press tried to play it as a reference to roman mythology, as if that idiot ever made a reference to roman mythology, he was comparing them to spock.

However, James T. Kirk never, ever said "make it so."

[James T. Kirk]

18. "Make it so" is Picard. I'm much cooler.

[femme.democratique]

19. Its like we're reading a history book

"I think the United States is sick. It suffers from the sickness, the disease of being the victor and it needs to cure itself from this disease," Gorbachev said.

We should have seen in the 90s that this was going to happen. We're drunk with our own success, and that very success breeds evil. and that evil (*) will destroy us.

[byronius]

21. I love Gorby. He'd make a great US President. Maybe set us free.

[Moderator]

23. kick to combine

[NNN0LHI]

24. Gorbachev hits out at US over nuclear weapon arsenals

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1329928,00050003.htm

The United States has come in for strong criticism from former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev for advising other countries against acquiring nuclear weapons while refusing to destroy its own arsenal.

In his first public appearance at the UN since his historic "glasnost" address to the General Assembly in 1988, Gorbachev said the United States was "hypocritical" over nuclear armaments and not prepared to eliminate its own such arms. snip

"I think the United States is sick. It suffers from sickness, disease of being the victor and it needs to cure itself," he said.

He advised Washington against suggesting that other countries have no need for nuclear weapons while it retains a large arsenal itself.

"They say other people don't need it, but what kind of law is this that they are advocating? It's the law of the jungle," he said.

more

[meganmonkey]

25. Tell it like it is, Mr G

Wow. And this guy knows what happens when nuclear weapons get built up...

[chlamor]

26. Who has Nuclear Capability?

[MidRoadDem]

27. Interestingly

The US has been assisting Russia decommission its arsenal and MASSIVE stockpiles of unused weapons grade plutonium.

We do this by buying the material and blending it down for use in other reactors.

The US and Russia both maintain the capability to kill us all several times over.


(like the spell check)

[leesa]

29. And we spew it all over the Middle East and poison their land, water

and genes.

[leesa]

28. I really like Gorbachev. He sings it out!

[UCLA Dem]

30. He's not the greatest guy, but he's right.