UK Guardian interviews Mikhail Gorbachev

[T_i_B]

I've posted the bits of this article that may be most of interest on here but you are all welcome to click on the link and have a good butchers. Make of this what you will.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1432787,00.html

Like the grey-haired cold-war veterans nibbling on stale biscuits in between their speeches, Gorbachev has a sense of disappointment that instead of the end of the cold war leading to global peace, new conflicts have quickly emerged and people's minds are still being "militarised".

"There are some people who are mentally hard-wired for violence," he insists, launching into a long tirade. "Unfortunately there are too many political leaders who don't like dialogue. Who cannot do dialogue. Who cannot do diplomacy. Some people just like to shoot a little bit. Maybe the military need to shoot from time to time. They have all those weapons and shells and missiles. And the defense industry has to keep producing them. So maybe that is the logic ... But that approach has never really solved problems."

While Gorbachev believes "democracy will in the end fit the needs of every nation", he is not getting too excited about recent signs of change in the Middle East.

"It will take time. It will not take tanks it will take time," is his response to the recent elections in Iraq. "If democracy is imposed from the outside on a part of the world where there is Buddhism or Islam ... If attempts are made to impose in a mandatory way all the requirements of western democracy, let's say American democracy, on these parts of the world, well, I don't think that will work."

[cire4]

1. Great read.....smart man

And people still think Ray-gun ended the Cold War..Ha!