[Peace-discuss] Are we all neo-imperialists now?

[C. G. Estabrook]

[On this as on other matters a Democratic administration will probably bring no 
change in policy: "I have consistently called for deepening relations between 
Georgia and transatlantic institutions, including a Membership Action Plan for 
NATO, and we must continue to press for that deeper relationship" --Barack 
Obama, 8/11/08. As Obama calls for more US and Nato troops to increase the 
killing in Afghanistan, he surely must be regarded as one of the 
neo-imperialists to whom the letter refers. --CGE]

	The News-Gazette.com
	NATO expansion invites instability
	Friday September 5, 2008

An irony of the political status of the Caucasus breakaway regions is that their 
inclusion into Georgia dates only to the Russian revolution. Ossetia was 
incorporated in first days at the behest of Stalin, a Georgian. Abkhazia was 
annexed some time later while Stalin ruled directly.

This history makes Dick Cheney's bellicosity about sovereign nations ludicrous 
as well as hypocritical. But he is off to the region to advocate restoration of 
boundaries, inclusion in NATO and perhaps a personal share in the pipelines.

Both McCain and Biden advocated for the expansion of NATO in Senate debates 
during Clinton's second term, subsequently passed by Congress. But this debate 
also brought George Kennan, the architect of Cold War "containment," to warn 
that "expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the 
entire post-Cold War era." He concluded that such action would "impel Russian 
foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking."

Indeed, during the presidency of George H.W. Bush and after the unification of 
Germany, Secretary of State James Baker promised that NATO expansion would not 
be pursued. The reversal of this pledge has had the results that Kennan predicted.

The U.S. and the world are now less secure with the confrontational mentality 
that is implicit in the NATO structure. The current course condemns us to a new 
Cold War with Russia.

NATO should be more accurately named the North Atlantic and Mediterranean, 
Baltic, Black, and Caspian Seas Treaty Organization. With NATO troops in 
Afghanistan, it is clear that U.S. neo-imperialists regard the entire earth as 
their sphere of influence.

PAUL MUETH

Urbana
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http://www.news-gazette.com/news/opinions/letters/2008/09/05/nato_expansion_invites_instability
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