Russia Says US Stonewalling Nuke Reduction Talks

By Cernig

How dumb is it to court the breakdown of decades of nuclear arms treaties and meaningful warhead reductions between the US and Russia?

Republican dumb.

"Negotiations between us and Washington to make sure that after START I treaty expires in December 2009 we have some meaningful strategic arms control regime, these negotiations are not so far heading anywhere," said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START I, between the United States and Soviet Union came was signed in 1991 and eventually resulted in an estimated reduction of around 80 percent of all nuclear weapons in existence at the time.

Speaking on the sidelines of the annual open debate of the U.N. General Assembly, which ends later on Monday, Lavrov said the reason the talks had stalled was that "our American colleagues do not want to keep limits on the delivery vehicles (missile) and on nuclear warheads in storage."

"They only want to keep some limits on the operationally deployed nuclear warheads," he told reporters.

That's the real reason, but the excuse is to prop up McCain's insane chum Saakashvili, a man on borrowed political time anyway. Rather than just come right out and say that they hate treaties of all kinds, the ultra-hawks and neocons still in charge of Bush's main foreign policy direction - and very definitely in charge of McCain's - are using the recent Caucusus conflict to restart the Cold War and unilaterally defeat international agreements (including START and treaties against the weaponization of space)that way.

If the financial meltdown doesn't get us, maybe the nuclear one will.