Dear friends,
I don’t like to get involved in sensitive political discussions very often unless I can ensure it will be an educational experience for both parties. This said, it makes me a little unconfortable to put this in writing b/c it is not my intention to offend my friends by saying something that might touch on something very personal.
That caveat out of the way, I’d like to mention a group I started on facebook that deals with the current political crisis between Russia and NATO. I am deeply troubled by the arrogance with which the US is approaching its foreign policy vis a vis Russia, treating its concerns as if they were irrelevant. Although the Bush administration insists on saying that “the Cold War is over”, we are in peril of starting a fresh Cold War if we continue to behave in a unilateralist manner, assuming that Russia is stupid to be concerned simply because we say so. Russia is not Iraq, and it would be a serious mistake to assume that we can treat Russia as cavalierly as we did Iraq.
I myself find that the Bush administration’s claims that its missile defense shield over Eastern Europe is not aimed at Russia a great deal more credible if the US did something concrete like unilaterally reduce its arsenal of nuclear weapons. Since this is unreaslistic, the US and NATO MUST start talking to Russia, addressing its concerns at a summit as if we were living in the Cold War. Otherwise we will reignite the Cold War, with troubling repercussions for the near future.
Url of the group is http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=28543335685. Please join if you feel the same way. I would be particularly interested in making this an international group if possible. None of the internet organizations that deal with international petitions has taken on this topic it seems. Perhaps if we get enough people joined we can draw attention to the need for dialogue, not denial.
Thank you.
Tags: America, Cold War, Current Events, Europe, Facebook, Foreign affairs, foreign policy, NATO, News, Nuclear war, nuclear weapons, Russia, United States of America, world peace, world war
