Alexander Mercouris has a typically excellent writeup at Russia Insider.
I have to say that it is quite a masterpiece of redpill trolling. Here are some of my own highlights of the speech and brief commentary:
In 1945, the countries that defeated Nazism joined their efforts to lay a solid foundation for the postwar world order. Let me remind you that key decisions on the principles defining interaction between states, as well as the decision to establish the UN, were made in our country, at the Yalta Conference of the leaders of the anti-Hitler coalition.
Good start. In fact, at that time, Crimea was literally part of the RSFSR. Always good to work in a reminder of that.
However, I’d like to point out that there have always been differences in the UN throughout the 70 years of its history, and that the veto right has been regularly used by the United States, the United Kingdom, France, China and the Soviet Union, and later Russia.
Now that the bulk of vetoes has moved on from protecting Israel from verbal microaggressions to protecting various countries the neocons dislike from military aggressions, there is – how predictably – growing pressure to “reform” the UN by abolishing single country vetoes. Especially since France is for all intents and purposes Washington’s bulldog – arguably more so even than the UK, nowadays – this stands to reason.
We should all remember the lessons of the past. For example, we remember examples from our Soviet past, when the Soviet Union exported social experiments, pushing for changes in other countries for ideological reasons, and this often led to tragic consequences and caused degradation instead of progress.
Favorite Putin theme that reliably triggers crusty American Cold Warriors. They don’t like to be reminded that it is their country that is now the world’s leading exporter of ideology and revolution…
It seems, however, that instead of learning from other people’s mistakes, some prefer to repeat them and continue to export revolutions, only now these are “democratic” revolutions. Just look at the situation in the Middle East and Northern Africa already mentioned by the previous speaker. Of course, political and social problems have been piling up for a long time in this region, and people there wanted change. But what was the actual outcome?
… that tends to end in tragedy for all concerned…
I’m urged to ask those who created this situation: do you at least realize now what you’ve done? But I’m afraid that this question will remain unanswered, because they have never abandoned their policy, which is based on arrogance, exceptionalism and impunity.
… for all their American exceptionalism rhetoric.
And now radical groups are joined by members of the so-called “moderate” Syrian opposition backed by the West.
They get weapons and training, and then they defect and join the so-called Islamic State.In fact, the Islamic State itself did not come out of nowhere. It was initially developed as a weapon against undesirable secular regimes. Having established control over parts of Syria and Iraq, Islamic State now aggressively expands into other regions. It seeks dominance in the Muslim world and beyond. Their plans go further. …
It is equally irresponsible to manipulate extremist groups and use them to achieve your political goals, hoping that later you’ll find a way to get rid of them or somehow eliminate them.
I’d like to tell those who engage in this: Gentlemen, the people you are dealing with are cruel but they are not dumb. They are as smart as you are. So, it’s a big question: who’s playing who here? The recent incident where the most “moderate” opposition group handed over their weapons to terrorists is a vivid example of that.
Can anyone disagree?
In the days to come, Russia, as the current President of the UN Security Council, will convene a ministerial meeting to carry out a comprehensive analysis of the threats in the Middle East. First of all, we propose exploring opportunities for adopting a resolution that would serve to coordinate the efforts of all parties that oppose Islamic State and other terrorist groups. Once again, such coordination should be based upon the principles of the UN Charter.
Just don’t call it UNATCO. 😉
We hope that the international community will be able to develop a comprehensive strategy of political stabilization, as well as social and economic recovery in the Middle East. Then, dear friends, there would be no need for setting up more refugee camps. Today, the flow of people forced to leave their native land has literally engulfed, first, the neighbouring countries, and then Europe. There are hundreds of thousands of them now, and before long, there might be millions.
Regardless of your opinion on what is to be done about the European immigration crisis, it should always be remembered that the immigrants themselves bear no responsibility – regardless if they’re genuine refugees or economic migrants. It is the neocons who made it all possible.
Sadly, some of our counterparts are still dominated by their Cold War-era bloc mentality and the ambition to conquer new geopolitical areas. First, they continued their policy of expanding NATO – one should wonder why, considering that the Warsaw Pact had ceased to exist and the Soviet Union had disintegrated.
Nevertheless, NATO has kept on expanding, together with its military infrastructure. Next, the post-Soviet states were forced to face a false choice between joining the West and carrying on with the East. Sooner or later, this logic of confrontation was bound to spark off a major geopolitical crisis. And that is exactly what happened in Ukraine, where the people’s widespread frustration with the government was used for instigating a coup d’état from abroad. This has triggered a civil war. We are convinced that the only way out of this dead end lies through comprehensive and diligent implementation of the Minsk agreements of February 12th, 2015
This has been Russia’s standard position for a long time. Doesn’t hurt to reiterate.
I would like to note one more sign of rising economic selfishness. A number of nations have chosen to create exclusive economic associations, with their establishment being negotiated behind closed doors, secretly from those very nations’ own public and business communities, as well as from the rest of the world. Other states, whose interests may be affected, have not been informed of anything, either. It seems that someone would like to impose upon us some new game rules, deliberately tailored to accommodate the interests of a privileged few, with the WTO having no say in it. This is fraught with utterly unbalancing global trade and splitting up the global economic space.
He is of course talking about the TPP here. Incidentally, “enlightened” people who reflexively wave off conspiracy theories as the stuff of tinfoiled lunatics would do well to study the negotiations behind the TPP. Quite revealing.
Ladies and gentlemen, one more issue that shall affect the future of the entire humankind is climate change. It is in our interest to ensure that the coming UN Climate Change Conference that will take place in Paris in December this year should deliver some feasible results. As part of our national contribution, we plan to limit greenhouse gas emissions to 70–75 percent of the 1990 levels by the year 2030.
No reason not to make the environmentalists happy. Especially since doing so is trivially cheap (Russia is already at 1990 CO2 emissions levels due to the collapse of a large chunk of Soviet heavy industry).
Russia is confident of the United Nations’ enormous potential, which should help us avoid a new confrontation and embrace a strategy of cooperation. Hand in hand with other nations, we will consistently work to strengthen the UN’s central, coordinating role. I am convinced that by working together, we will make the world stable and safe, and provide an enabling environment for the development of all nations and peoples. Thank you.
And the US wasn’t mentioned once in his speech, but it was clear to everyone that it was the main target. No wonder Obama was so unhappy.
[France is for all intents and purposes Washington’s bulldog – arguably more so even than the UK, nowadays]
And it’s no accident that this transformation of France happened at exactly the same time that worship of Jews, Arabs, blacks, wymyn, homos, trannies, etc. became the state religion there.
AK:
I wanted to thank you for your blogging. I am very happy that you are here on Unz.com, and read your posts with pleasure.
De Gaulle spoke openly of France as being a country of the “white race.” Today “white” and “race” are dirty words in France. Wonder how that happened.
http://galliawatch.blogspot.com/2015/09/nadine-morano-speaks-of-race.html
http://nwioqeqkdf.blogspot.com/2015/09/france-land-without-race.html#more
“it should always be remembered that the immigrants themselves bear no responsibility – regardless if they’re genuine refugees or economic migrants. It is the neocons who made it all possible.”
Don’t find that convincing at all…sure, US policy in the Mideast is often criminally misguided, but it’s not as if people in the region totally lack agency and responsibility for developments. Recently I read that Syria’s population apparently increased by more than ten million since the early 1990s…this fact alone and the resulting youth bulge is probably vastly more important for understanding the current situation than the machinations of neoconservatives.
And when the African demographic tsunami hits Europe (as eventually it will), it will get somewhat difficult to say it’s all the fault of people like Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz…sure, the Libyan war was a mistake, but it wasn’t the work of the neoconservatives, but of “humanitarian interventionists” like Samantha Power…and in any case, this is merely incidental, the real problem is demographic growth in Africa and parts of the Islamic world.
The translation doesn’t capture the nuance of the phrase in Russian. The word натворили is not merely “done”, but better “made a mess of.” You can get an idea from the first few photos in Google Images: https://www.google.com/search?q=%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%B2%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%BB%D0%B8&safe=off&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAkQ_AUoA2oVChMIy7aL5oOfyAIVy3A-Ch38DA76&biw=1527&bih=832
http://www.euronews.com/2015/09/30/syria-russian-air-strikes-have-started-according-to-us-official/ “France claims Russian jets have struck rebel, not IS forces in Homs
30/09 14:05 CET”
Putin’s airstrikes are not on ISIS. The are on the Syrian groups vetted by the CIA. Precisely what I predicted. Putin and his puppet are trying to make it a choice between his regime and ISIS. They think the West is going to be fooled?
Such groups should be prioritized as targets.
There’s no difference between ISIS and the “rebels”. They are all terrorists attacking Syria. Is Obama really going to start a war with Russia to protect these dupe-groups? Doubtful.
Er, if ISIS is the same as the other rebels, then why only hit non ISIS and lie about who they were hitting, eh? I said that was what they were going to do.
The US joint chiefs are keen to fight someone they can cope with, and the Russians would be easy. They may be surprised at what US comanders would do, and James Blunt isn’t there to save them this time https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOll3v55Dmo
Putin pointing out that the USSR was wrong in trying to export its social policies once again tells us that he rejects Bolshevism, despite the wailing of Twitter Kremlinologists/media pundits who continue to be as clueless as ever.
As for Russia not hitting ISIS on the first day: we’re only one day in. They certainly have a strategy and Putin would not continue to talk about hitting ISIS if that isn’t in the cards.
What stuck out for me today is France’s FM Fabius insisting that Russia must hit ISIS and ISIS only. Why is France defending al-Nusra/al-Qaida and is this also the stance of the USA and the UK?
https://twitter.com/Abduhark/status/649208911774502912
The most critical front lines (closest to threatening population centers) are all currently with JaN/FSA, as such it makes perfect sense to prioritize them from a military perspective.
Airstrikes without follup aren’t much use. Any such against IS now would just be for show (admittedly, the biggest concern for the Western media, but what can one do) and militarily meaningless.
[The US joint chiefs are keen to fight someone they can cope with]
They, and you, should be careful what they wish for.
Yes, Russia is attacking our ‘moderate, secular, democracy-loving’ terrorists–all five of them!
The US joint chiefs are keen to fight someone they can cope with, and the Russians would be easy.
This in-depth analysis of the military capabilities of the United States against Russia has convinced me, Sean. Let’s invade! It’ll be fun. Moscow by November!
I had to stop reading. The hypocrisy of Putin on issues such as foreign occupation and expansion of territory fill me with disgust… Mostly for all of you that condemn NATO for the same thing while not only granting Putin a pass, but actually fawning over him with admiration for it.