Mikhail Gorbachev: Squandering the peace we made

For those who live in the Wisconsin area, Gorby's Wisconsin speech from a few days ago is going to be televised on cable. See article after editorial.

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From a speech by the former Soviet leader at the International Community Partnerships conference in Appleton, Wisconsin

In ending the Cold War, we were able to break the logic of conflict. We were able to develop trust and co-operation. Today we need to rebuild the ideas of new thinking. We have to seek responses to the challenges of the world today, while fully understanding the complexity of the political and cultural diversity of the world. The use of force, the attempt to dominate and to solve problems by military means, is not a way to find answers in the 21st century. The world must again embrace the principles of co-operation and discussion made possible by the end of the Cold War.

But instead of preventing conflict, we have seen the practice of pre-emptive force. The military action in Iraq actually reflects outdated approaches to international affairs. The price for this division will be paid by the Iraqi people, who are not to blame. Permanent members of the UN Security Council must help to rebuild Iraq, despite their differences when the United States launched the war without a UN mandate.

I wanted to speak at this International Community Partnerships conference because of your goals: not only ridding the world of weapons of mass destruction, but also addressing the social and economic needs of the communities that once created those weapons and now house them.

http://argument.independent.co.uk/podium/story.jsp?story=449324

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Time Warner Cable will air the public address of former Soviet president and Noble Peace Prize laureate Mikhail Gorbachev next week.

Gorbachev kicked off an international three-day conference last Wednesday sponsored by Fox Cities-Kurgan Sister Cities.

The speech will air at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday and 3 p.m. Thursday on local access station Channel 4 in the Fox Cities and Channel 4 in Neenah and Menasha.

http://www.wisinfo.com/postcrescent/news/archive/local_12587985.shtml

He spoke at American University in D.C. on Tuesday night. It was quite good.

He got a thunderous standing ovation for saying the U.S. should not snuff the U.N. The question and answer period was the most interesting.

Here's the full text of the speech.

http://www.american.edu/media/speeches/gorbachev.htm

and our credibility, our ideals, our word, our good name, our friends and alliances, our Constitution, our treaties, our good-standing in the world community, our Bill of Rights, our honor, our reputation, our dignity, our system of checks and balances among the three branches of government, our independent media, our freedom and liberty, our humanity, our devine spark, our sense of justice and fair play, our environment, our battle against poverty, our store of good will bestowed upon us by the international community in the wake of 9-11, and our willingness to help build a better world for those less fortunate than we. All these and much more have been sacrificed so that a hard, rigid, far-right ideology/PNAC vision can be implemented and large Corporations and other patrons rewarded. <sarcasm on: But all this is such a small price to pay for the privelege of having all the levers of power of government being in the hands of the far-right. <sarcasm off>