Russian Treachery?
Dean
For some time now I've been of the belief that most of Saddam's WMDs were probably moved to either Syria or Russia. I wanted to think Syria, because while we know the Russians were getting huge sums of money under the table from Saddam (hence their opposition to taking out his butcher-regime), I didn't want to think the Russians had gone so far as to directly cover for Saddam and then lie about it for two years. Although I've never thought all that well of Vladimir Putin, I wanted to believe he and his government weren't that treacherous.
Today, the Washington Times is reporting that evidence indicates that Russian special forces moved large quantities of Saddam's weapons into Syria and shredded documents showing contractual arrangements between Saddam and the Soviet government in the weeks leading up to the American invasion.
There is a problem with the story that I'm seeing, namely, that we need corroboration for the Times' story. The main source seems to be undersecretary John Shaw. Still, it's an entirely believable story; many experts have long suspected something like this, and it would certainly explain why most of the world's intelligence agencies were certain Saddam possessed WMDs and yet we haven't been able to find them.
INDC Journal also notes several stories from the historical record involving strange Russian activities during the Iraq invasion.
Ah, and as I write this, I see that Michelle Malkin and Wizbang have a bunch more links on this. You'll want to read their materials. So rather than be a fifth wheel, I'll just tell you to go read them.
Putin is worse than treacherous - he's a fool; aligning himself with Islamo-fascists on one hand and Chinese imperialists on the other he's placing his country (and it's declining population) between a rock and a hard place while alienating the United States - the one nation in the world which can assure a free and independent Russia.
Putin needs to get over the concept of Russian being a Great Power - adjust itself to second-tier power status and align resolutely with the United States.
Told you so!
Never trust Russia. Ever. They will never in a million years help you with the War on Terror. They may talk the talk after things like Besland, but to think that any Russian leader will ever do anything to help another country, or even his own people, is wishful thinking.
What the heck is Russia trying to do?
They helped Iraq and Iran far more than even the French did, and then Putin endorses Bush.
With France, I can at least understand why they act the way they do.
Well, the French are proud and therefore stupid, it appears. The Russians, by contrast, appear to be cunning.
Certainly, in what little dealings I've had with Russians I've learned that one should never underestimate their capacity for cynicism or pessimism, and while all the russians I've known were good, decent people, I could see how those cultural traits in someone not as good as they could turn out really bad.
Remember as you read this that I qualified my comment with "what they think" are their national interests. Because they have certainly been misled in notable instances by their own cupidity or the blindness of their national leadership. Evan a sagacious and cold-blooded plotter like Josef Stalin got taken in by Adolf Hitler. He must have thought that because he had joined Hitler in dividing Poland in 1939, that he could buy himself more time two years later. Thus, he was only half-prepared for Hitler's massive sneak attack that opened Operation Barbarossa on June 22, 1941.
The post-Soviet Russian leaderships have followed past Russian patterns in distributing armaments and munitions around to buy themselves national influence. I suspect they surreptitiously moved their Iraqi munitions stockpiles to countries such as Syria for the simple reason that the stuff was worth good money, that it would be equally useful for their long-term purposes elsewhere, and that they didn't want to lose control of it to another power such as the United States.
So if it in fact wound up in Syria, just remember that Russia has a history of comfortable relations with baathist dictatorships. More or less similar to historical relationships of the United States with crooked oil monarchies.
And about the military industries that I cited in the first paragraph. A country like Russia, in order to maintain armed forces with first class equipment of their own manufacture, in other words, military equipment that no foreign country can embargo Russia from obtaining for its own use, must be able to sell copious quantities of these materials abroad. All the leading arms-manufacturing countries do the same thing, including the US, the west Europeans and Israel.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Russia comes up on top either way. They get to make certain the right documents are shredded. They get to make certain the correct materials are vanished. They get to save/repo some of the stuff they are owed money on. They get paid to do this.
And some Ivans get a suntan - what could be better?
It would be better if we could keep all this ordnance out of the hands of gangs of holy murderers. Or maybe booby-trap some of it to kill anyone of them that lays hands on it.
But yes, everybody's got to make a living. Including Russians. And they make some first-class ordnance.
The point is we have to conduct our foreign and defense policies with the understanding that most coalitions and other international understandings fall apart on the basis of perceived self-interest.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
He had the russians hide saddam's WMD so that the democratic candidate would criticize the war because there were no WMD, then as an october surprise, poof! WMD. John Kerry might not even get his wife's vote.
Man that Karl Rove is a genius.
;-)
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
I'd prefer that the all the holy murderers could lay their hands on were their hands, as it were. Unfortunately, Iraq is awash in arms. I'm surprised the place didn't sink under the weight of them. I'll lay my money down anyday that the combat engineers are doing the best they can to round up all of Saddam's playthings and neutralize them, and I don't bet.
Coalitions fall apart? Yep, I agree. That's why all this nonsense about the US disrespecting its great allies is just nonsense. We have our allies. They're the one's with us now. It's not what you say, its what you do.