At a summit with European Union leaders in Portugal, Vladimir Putin the President of Russia had given a warning about the plans for the United States missile shield system to be placed in Eastern Europe.
To the leaders of the European Union at the summit, President Vladimir Putin has called the plans for the United States
missile shield program something that would be similar to what had started the Cuban Missile Crisis of the 1960s. The summit in Portugal is focused towards strengthening ties over human rights and foreign policy. It was already known that Russia as been a long and outstanding opponent of the plans to build missile bases in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Putin has brought up the Cuban Missile Crisis as a result. Back then, Cuba was part of the Soviet Union. The catalyst of that confrontation was when United States spy planes found Soviet missile bases in Cuba. They would be capable of striking the American mainland. The Soviet Union gave Cuba the missiles due to the United States building up its weapons in Europe.
But it was solved when the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev said he would dismantle the bases. In return, the United States would not invade Communist Cuba. On a side-note, that does affect the voting bases of both the Democratic and Republican Parties. At that time, John F. Kennedy the President at that time and Democrat was planning to liberate Cuba.
However, he couldn’t because of the impending Cuban Missile Crisis. Many of the Cubans that immigrated to the United States from Florida tend to vote Republican. The Cubans in Little Havana, Miami tend to vote Republican instead of Democrat. The Cuban Missile Crisis is evidence of that.
While Russia opposes the missile shield, United States President George W. Bush said there is a critical need for a missile shield in the continent. He added that Russia wasn’t the enemy and worried about the Middle East.
In the case of the summit itself, both Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have urged the EU to speak with one voice about the human rights records of the Kremlin.
So far, Russia had opposed the EU’s stance on Kosovo and Iran. It has further opposed the independence of Serbia. Moves for sanctions on Iran has strongly been criticized by Russia’s government as well.
