Eastern Europe Is Uneasy Over U.S. Ties With Russia - Editorial - NYTimes »
Posted By gamahuche 4 months, 1 week ago in NewsBERLIN: The deep concern among America' s Eastern European allies over improved relations between Russia and the United States spilled into the open on Thursday when 22 prominent figures, including Poland's Lech Walesa and the Czech Republic' s Vaclav Havel , published an open letter to the Obama administration begging not to be forgotten.
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gamahuche
"I would rather be a square peg than fit in a pigeon hole" -
an essay which won me the "Lamb Essay Prize" at the Religious ...
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gamahuche4 months, 1 week ago
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Though I am fundamentally opposed to the missile shield some of the signals coming from Russia are extremely worrisome. This story also refers, for example to the very recent political murder in Chechnya of Natalya Estemirova, which is the subject of this story on propeller: http://www.propeller.com/story/2009/07/17/from-bey...
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This follows, for me, a recent meeting with some Russian film-makers from St Petersburg with whom I discussed social conditions in Russia - having read an appalling story which I believe I also posted about some appalling living conditions in a small town some 50 kms east of St. P. on a main railway line.
They looked at each other and sighed before confirming that you only have to travel some 30kms from the big city to encounter indescribable scenes of deprivation and horror.-
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gamahuche4 months, 1 week ago
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In any case I ALWAYS respect Vaclav Havl's opinions [and seldom Vaclav Klaus's :)] - whether ultimately I agree with him or not.
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What is for sure is that Obama should definitely use a long spoon when supping with either Putin or his surrogate Medvedev. -
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gamahuche4 months, 1 week ago
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"having read an appalling story which I believe I also posted about some appalling living conditions in a small town some 50 kms east of St. P. "
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Yes its here:
http://www.propeller.com/story/2009/05/25/cold-hun...
When you think of population centres close to the major city in this condition it is clear that lfe out in the steppes is going to be far worse..
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cleare4 months, 1 week ago
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as an estonian-american who has recently been to estonia, i can tell you that there is a lot of stress in that society between the ethnic estonians (about 60% of the population, thanks largely to stalin) and the ethnic russians. when i was there the disputed border at narva was closed and the russians were cyber-attacking.
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gamahuche4 months, 1 week ago
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That's obviously the crucial border - direct road and railway links from Tallinn. At least the ferries to Helsinki are running presumably?
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ALL the countries which were previous satellites or even "sphere of influence" countries have reason to mistrust the current regime in Russia
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Candida4 months, 1 week ago
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Frankly, I don't understand what these ex-leaders want. Do they want another cold war?
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Why are they turning to the US? They are members of the European Union, so why don't they just get together and defend themselves from Russia if and when needed?
Right up to now, the West was trying to convince Russia that the defense shield was not directed against it, but against Iran and "other rogue states." Now these leader plead with the US to build it and keep Russia out of it because they are afraid of Russia. I don't know, it sure sounds to me like they want that shield against Russia.
Russia may be devious, but so is the US, and so are the leaders of these countries. In the 1960s, the world almost exploded in a nuclear war because Russia wanted to plant missiles in Cuba. Why would anybody expect that missiles at Russia's doorstep are any more welcome by them than the Cuban missiles were by the US?
Russia has been very ruthless with the Chechens, but how is that different from the US's war on terror? Which country responds to separatists with "Sure, go ahead, separate"?
I have no love for Russia; I've lived under Russian occupation, but keeping all hatreds alive is not the way to solve the world's problems.-
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gamahuche4 months, 1 week ago
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I think that for most of the people involved with this thinking - and as you probably know I've been pretty militant AGAINST these installations [but then again I was hardly IN Czechoslovakia under Communism , a total of aboiut 4 months] - they are more advising caution about trusting Russia than they are trying to restart a Cold War.
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Candida4 months, 1 week ago
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FTA: "The former leaders also warned about threats within their own countries and across Europe, driven by the economic crisis, which had provided “opportunities for the forces of nationalism, extremism, populism and anti-Semitism,” according to the letter."
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That is very true. I don't know how much role the economic crisis had in these disgusting trends, but I know they are there. I'm bombarded by "literature" from my old countrymen expressing so much hatred that I'm sometimes afraid that my computer would be infected by it.
So now these leaders want to rekindle the old hatred against Russia to fight the other hatreds? Or do they expect economic aid from the US to appease the extremists?
I'm truly puzzled by this letter. -
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Spadecaller4 months, 1 week ago
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Profit linked aggression must be exposed and not tolerated. There is too much profit involved in manufacturing, selling, and deploying weapons and missiles. The motives to destabilize and create fear are mostly generated from greed. All the key players and toys are involved. That is my take.
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gamahuche4 months, 1 week ago
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The Washington Post has just published an editorial on the same topic: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic...
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I particularly liked the concluding paragraph:
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None of this will come as news to President Obama, who has made clear, in Moscow and elsewhere, that the United States will not recognize a privileged Russian sphere of influence in the former Soviet Union or Warsaw Pact. Vice President Biden, who first delivered that message for the administration in a speech in Munich in February, presumably will reiterate it during his upcoming visit to Ukraine and Georgia. The administration nonetheless should take the letter to heart, not as a rebuke but as encouragement. Nations clamoring for a stronger U.S relationship, built on the ideals of freedom and alliance, are not so numerous that Washington can afford to take them for granted.-
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gamahuche4 months, 1 week ago
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Here's the first part - up to the quote above..
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A Letter From Europe
U.S. leadership in the post-Soviet age is needed to face new challenges.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
TWENTY YEARS have passed since the revolutions that restored freedom to what had been the captive nations of Central and Eastern Europe. That many Americans no longer give much thought to that part of the world testifies, in part, to the region's success. The eastward expansion of NATO and the European Union helped bring security, stability and growing prosperity; more important, the countries themselves have nurtured democratic and free-market institutions that in 1989 would have seemed unreachable.
Yet an impressive collection of former presidents and ministers from the first two decades of post-communism warn, in a letter released last week, that long-lasting success should not be assumed. "All is not well either in our region or in the transatlantic relationship," they caution. Since the signatories are staunch allies of the United States and of democracy -- ranging from Vaclav Havel and Alexandr Vondra of the Czech Republic to Lech Walesa and Alexander Kwasniewski of Poland to Vaira Vike-Freiberga of Latvia and Valdas Adamkus of Lithuania -- they merit a hearing.
The global recession has given room to "nationalism, extremism, populism, and anti-Semitism" in some of their countries, the former leaders acknowledge. At the same time, they say, "NATO today seems weaker than when we joined" while "Russia is back as a revisionist power pursuing a 19th-century agenda with 21st-century tactics and methods. . . . The danger is that Russia's creeping intimidation and influence-peddling in the region could over time lead to a de facto neutralization of the region."
In response, they say, the Obama administration should recommit to NATO as a defense alliance, not just an expeditionary force with duties in Afghanistan and beyond. It should support pipelines that will diminish the region's dependence on Russian oil and gas. It should take care, as it evaluates planned missile-defense installations in Poland and the Czech Republic that Russia opposes, to consult closely with the governments that have the most at stake. It should invest in relationships with younger generations that do not remember communism or the struggle against it.
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wdfisher574 months, 1 week ago
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Its very easy to criticze people who have lived under Russian domination from ones easy chair surfing the net. These peoples being threatened by Russian intimidation need our assistance and NATO should invoke it treaty clauses on Mutual Self Defense. I realize tthat in the soft US homeland there isn't much of a stomach for doing anything militarily anywhere right now, but we are obligated to do so. The older folks grew up watching Russia crush dissent at every turn in these very countries. Now that we have developed the missile defense shield and it has demonstrated its effectiveness, we need to impliment it. If not for the stupidness of Obama and his advisers having foolishly and shortsightedly decided it could be used as a bargaining chip in our efforts to concentrate on nuclear stockpile destruction, we'd just build this shield in the East European nations that ask for them and be done with it. Russia is not in the position to declare war on the West and NATO is the group it would be up against. Any attack by Russia would surely get NATO off its ass. Russia is the one subject they can all agree on.
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gamahuche4 months, 1 week ago
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Your argument misses one very important detail.
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Though the Polish people are in favour of the project by a large plurality, by an even larger people the Czech people are staunchly against the project.
One very good reason for that is that the MS does not even pretend to provide any protection for the Czechs and, quite sensibly, the Czech see it as doing nothing but making them a target.
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