YouSaid · the spoken record

McGovern

lines on the record
14
first
2023-02-21
most recent
2023-02-21
sittings or episodes
1
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un-security-council

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  1. “He had a song, part of the refrain of which went, “We are going to keep on moving forward, never turning back”. What I would suggest is that we need to keep on moving forward, and I would recommend the second stanza of the song to all members. If they listened, I would really appreciate it very much: “We’re going to keep on moving forward. We’re going to keep on loving our enemy. We’re going to keep on loving our enemies. We’re going to keep our loving our enemies, never turning back. Never turning back.” In conclusion, I will just refer to those children whom I noticed, more than I usually notice children, in the airports today. As members of the Council have the power to do so given to them after previous major World War, I ask them to do what is necessary so that no one kills the children anymore.”

    2023-02-21 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9266 (2023) · source

  2. “Putin’s shoes and that we ought to realize the far-right influence in the Government of Kyiv. He was convicted in a German court. He is appealing, but he will not pay the €2,000 fine. It is therefore likely that he will end up in jail for several months. That is freedom of speech. We enjoy that here in the United States. I really am concerned about what will happen to my friend. Just suffice it to say that, with regard to verhandeln — to extend your hand — let us be human here. Let us not dust each other off. Let us extend our hands. Verhandeln statt schießen. it was very bleak in our country during the suppression of blacks. I had the privilege of working with Vincent Harding, who was the author of Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech on Viet Nam.”

    2023-02-21 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9266 (2023) · source

  3. “Putin, as well as membership in NATO for Ukraine, is the emplacement of those holes already operational in Romania and Poland, right on the periphery of the United States. They are disguised as anti-ballistic missile systems, but they can easily accommodate cruise missiles, and, as I said earlier, hypersonic missiles. There was a slogan that emerged from the recent German demonstrations, which was verhandeln statt schießen. Verhandeln means to negotiate, to talk. You reach out a hand, die Hand, to the other person and try to understand them. Schießen means to shoot. Now that makes good sense. But I have to tell members that that is not welcome in Germany. A good friend of mine, Heinrich Bücker, was convicted of saying that we ought to put ourselves in Mr.”

    2023-02-21 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9266 (2023) · source

  4. “How do I end this? I would like to do a little human business here. In terms of the verstehen, let me just point out that when I was previously in Germany, there was a button that one put on their lapel, which read, “Putin verstehe”. Those who know German know that means someone who understands Putin. I thought to myself: “Woah, somebody is interested in understanding Mr. Putin?” And my friend said, “No, hey, for God’s sake, do not wear that button. That is pejorative. That means that you are Putin’s pocket”. Verstehen comes from the word stehen, which means “to stand”. If you cannot understand where people stand, then you cannot understand what bothers them. And what bothers Mr.”

    2023-02-21 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9266 (2023) · source

  5. “We all know the history of how NATO more than doubled in size with all countries to the East — more than one inch to the East. I do not want to belabour that point. It is simply that it is more than just NATO enlargement. When Crimea was annexed by Russia, Mr. Putin got up a month later and said: “We had to annex Crimea because of the coup in Kyiv in February of 2014”. And even more important than NATO membership for Ukraine was the prospect that medium-range ballistic missiles would be put on the periphery of the United States, which indeed they are capable of doing because there are capsules, or holes, in Romania and Poland that accommodate Tomahawk cruise missiles and will eventually accommodate hypersonic missiles. That is very serious. Mr. Putin made this point in December 2021 in talking to his chief military leadership.”

    2023-02-21 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9266 (2023) · source

  6. “It was indeed the transcript of that debriefing. I would just like to say a word about those who are smearing Sy Hersh. They do not have a good record of being credible. Let me move on. I would like to talk a little bit about “unprovoked”. We have heard more than 100 times that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was unprovoked. That goes back to the widening of NATO, despite the promise not to do so. I had a personal experience with one of Gorbachev’s chief advisers. His name is Viktor Borisovich Kuvaldin. Approximately eight years ago, I saw him in Moscow and said, “Mr. Kuvaldin, why is it that that agreement was not written down?” He said, “Mr. McGovern, I will tell you: the usual reasons. The Germans had not bought into it yet and the Warsaw Pact still existed, but really and truly Mr. McGovern, here is what it was: we trusted you”.”

    2023-02-21 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9266 (2023) · source

  7. “had direct knowledge of what he claimed: for 10 years, he ran Iraq’s nuclear, chemi- cal, biological and missile programs.” In classic understatement, in Newsweek, the author John Barry said that “the defector’s tale raises questions about whether the WMD stockpiles attributed to Iraq still exist.” Well — I guess. What happened? Newsweek published that in a little blurb, first on its website. Then the members of the media went to a fellow named Bill Harlow, who was the CIA spokesperson, who said, “Look, this report is incorrect. It is bogus. It is wrong and untrue”. Those were the words he used — incorrect, bogus, wrong and untrue. And what did the members of the press do? They breathed a sigh of relief and said, “I am sure glad you told us that, because we were going to publish on that. It looked quite authoritative”.”

    2023-02-21 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9266 (2023) · source

  8. “He was asked, “How do you know? Did you check?” He said, “Yes, I checked. Are you trying to get me to say they were not destroyed”? That was in 1995. Someone leaked that transcript to Newsweek. On 2 March 2003, almost exactly 20 years ago, Newsweek published a report that “Hussein Kamel, the highest-ranking Iraqi official ever to defect from Saddam Hussein’s inner circle, told CIA and British intelligence officers and U.N. inspectors in the summer of 1995 that after the gulf war, Iraq destroyed all its chemical and biological weapons stocks a and the missiles to deliver them. “Kamel ...”

    2023-02-21 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9266 (2023) · source

  9. “No one wants to go back 20 years to Colin Powell’s speech before the Security Council (see S/PV.4701). We all know about that. What I would like to do is simply talk about what happened before that speech. Before that speech, some conscientious whistleblower gave the text of a United Nations debriefing of Hussein Kamel Al-Majid, one of Saddam Hussein’s sons-in-law. Who was he? He supervised the radiological biological, chemical and nuclear programme, such as it was, in Baghdad. He said to his interviewers — United Nations, United States and United Kingdom interviewers — “all nuclear, chemical, biological and missile programmes had been destroyed”. The interrogators asked him, “How do you know?” Al-Majid said, “I was in charge of them. I do not know how it works in your country but when I order something destroyed, it is destroyed”.”

    2023-02-21 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9266 (2023) · source

  10. “It was an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Some of us took that oath seriously. And when we see this kind of thing going on, we go to somebody who might be able to protect us and get the word out. That was two weeks ago. Has The New York Times mentioned Sy Hersh’s article? Has it even reported the denials? No, not yet. That is what the Germans would say is merkwürdig — very remarkable. Let me go on and talk about how to evaluate those who are smearing Seymour Hersh’s name. As Jeffrey Sachs already said, the CIA spokesperson said that “the claim is completely and utterly false”. I must confess, being an alumnus of the CIA, that our public relations people do not have a very good record.”

    2023-02-21 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9266 (2023) · source

  11. “You reach out a hand and get to know and understand what is bothering the other party. I do not want to get ahead of myself here. I do not want to talk about Seymour Hersh’s article. I must say up front, in full disclosure, that I am a friend of Seymour Hersh. I will not therefore opine myself. I will cite a distinguished former United States Ambassador who was also Assistant Secretary of Defence. These are the words he said about Seymour Hersh. “Hersh attracts whistleblowers because he has a perfect record of protecting their identities and accurately publishing what they reveal after due diligence, despite Government denials and slander- ous attacks that invariably follow. His reputation is such that people of conscience seek him out.” I repeat, people of conscience. As a United States Army officer and a CIA employee, I took an oath.”

    2023-02-21 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9266 (2023) · source

  12. “Trump left the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which I thought would never be concluded because it involved the destruction of a whole class of nuclear-tipped intermediate-range ballistic missiles in Europe and Siberia. Then we had the Open Skies Treaty, which the United States left, and now we are being warned that the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty is also in danger. I must say that, after the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty was signed, I was feeling euphoric. I need not worry about whether or not they were constructing a building just to be demolished by the next nuclear weapon. It is very sad for me to watch what is going on now — the fact that people cannot get together and deal. Verhandeln is the German word for negotiate or deal. If we look at it, it comes from the word “hand”.”

    2023-02-21 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9266 (2023) · source

  13. “I was one of those who hid under their desk because of the threat of the Russian atomic bomb, as though that would protect me. Fast forward to when I became a professional analyst and chief of the Soviet foreign policy branch at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) — I was able to tell the President and Henry Kissinger that the Russians were really interested in putting a cap on the arms race. Suffice it to say, I was instrumental in the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM), signed in May 1972. I was there. Thirty years of strategic stability — count them, three decades — when Mr. Bush Jr., decided that he would leave the ABM Treaty, without any real explanation. And then Mr.”

    2023-02-21 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9266 (2023) · source

  14. “Mr. McGovern: I associate myself completely with the comments of Professor Sachs. I do not have a prepared text, and so I was not able to give that to the people who asked me to give it to them. I was asked to do this less than a day ago. No one suggested what I might say and, of course, no one even asked me what I would say. These are my personal remarks based on my experience for 27 years as an intelligence analyst and as an observer. I notice that I am called a political activist. This is my way of paying back for the education I got as an intelligence analyst in the United States intelligence community. On my way here, at two airports this morning, I noticed a bunch of little children and school-aged children. It made me think back to my days as a school- aged child.”

    2023-02-21 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9266 (2023) · source