icon bookmark-bicon bookmarkicon cameraicon checkicon chevron downicon chevron lefticon chevron righticon chevron upicon closeicon v-compressicon downloadicon editicon v-expandicon fbicon fileicon filtericon flag ruicon full chevron downicon full chevron lefticon full chevron righticon full chevron upicon gpicon insicon mailicon moveicon-musicicon mutedicon nomutedicon okicon v-pauseicon v-playicon searchicon shareicon sign inicon sign upicon stepbackicon stepforicon swipe downicon tagicon tagsicon tgicon trashicon twicon vkicon yticon wticon fm
8 Jul, 2010 07:37

US congressman blames Cold War thinking for spy scandal

As the spy intrigue between Moscow and Washington gets more twisted, RT spoke to US Congressman Dana Rohrabacher about current American policy towards Russia and other burning political issues.

“I personally would have preferred that the head of our government had gone privately to the top leadership in Russia and said – Look, here is what we have. We’ve set “the reset button”, these people were sent over here before we had done that. Let’s pledge to ourselves we are not going to do that any more and do it in a very quiet way. Whether or not someone just wanted to boast, some government bureaucrats here wanted to boast of their capability of defending the country or sending a message to other spies from other countries, I don’t know,” Mr. Rohrabacher told RT.

“I think what has happened is that Russian-American relations have been on somewhat of a rollercoaster. I certainly understand why when the Russian government totally opened up and did not receive the open-armed acceptance of people living in the US, that there were people in Russia who probably had some second thoughts. And I think it was really important that Obama ‘set the reset button’ to make sure our relations did not keep deteriorating as they were,” he added.

Dana Rohrabacher also said that there is a divide within the US as there are too many people who are obsessed with Putin’s KGB background and believe that Russia is becoming a Stalinist state again.

“And these people, frankly, have trouble getting out of the Cold War. People like myself who grew up with that have trouble throwing that aside and viewing Russia as something different from those slogans that they heard all of their life,” he concluded.

Podcasts
0:00
23:13
0:00
25:0