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U.S. must stop meddling in affairs of Russia and Georgia
TweetU.S. must stop meddling in affairs of Russia and Georgia
EDITOR:
As one who has participated in a number of grass-roots efforts to assist Russia rise up from a recent time of troubles, I am amazed at how we as a country are squandering our new-found partnership and turning it into a new adversarial stance ready to encircle Russia militarily and politically.
Hard-fought gains of the past 25 years to bring Russia to the table of civilized nations are now being sacrificed on the altar of the American belief that it can dictate the code of good behavior for the rest of the world. I ask you how we would react if Russia funded the separatist movement in Quebec in an attempt to destabilize our northern neighbor? Interference in our area, we would cry foul!
What about an advanced missile base in Greenland? Watch out Russial; you’re breathing down our necks. Even defensive radar screen on eastern Sakalin Island or the Kamchatka Peninsula opposite Alaska might provoke a new Cuban-missile-crisis mentality and move us another step closer to war.
I don’t see Russia doing these things, but we sure are supported by the color revolutions (orange in Ukraine, rose in Georgia, velvet in Czechoslovakia) via NGOs and humanitarian organizations, whose own credibility is now at stake. We do this so all the former U.S.S.R. republics bordering eastern Europe will eventually join NATO, further isolating (and threatening) Russia as it clearly would do us if we were in their shoes.
After assuring the Russians in 1991 that NATO would not expand to incorporate these republics, we now see the absorption of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, not to mention Poland and Romania, and the plans for Georgia and Ukraine are clear. How much hypocrisy can we expect them to stomach? Can we get past the Cold War, please?
What’s that? We’ve been training the Georgian army, the one that went into contested South Ossetia.
Since the fall of the Soviet empire 17 years ago, there was a brief period that followed a 200-year history of Georgia being an independent region within Russia. Does it matter that the majority Ossetians in Georgia’s South Ossetia have already expressed their desire to join their ethnic relatives in North Ossetia in Russia? Or do we just accept those expressions of democracy that agree with our preconceived notions of the new American world order? Do we really have the right to impose our solutions without consultation?
And what makes it our business in the first place? This is Russia’s neighborhood. Where is our sense of parity when we can freely interfere with others, but let ’em try to mess with us. Time to back off, Jack.
HOWARD METEE
Boardman
Save Hubbard’s supermarket
EDITOR:
I commend the people of Hubbard, as well as its city administration, for supporting the Hubbard Nemenz IGA. Hopefully your support is not “too little, too late.”
It’s important to our local economy that we support independent business owners, particularly those like Henry Nemenz who contribute so much to the community. I’m sure the union pickets are nice people, but we should keep in mind that they have no interest whatsoever in the businesses they are picketing and are paid by the union to do one thing: carry a sign.
That a picket sign can dissuade people from shopping at a store they would otherwise patronize is indeed unfortunate.
JOHN ZEDAKER
Poland
Comments
Are you serious with your editorial???? You blame the US for Russia sqandering there chance to be part of the civilized world??? Blame Russia not the US. All those countries that joined NATO against Russia's wishes, it was there choice to be part of NATO nobody forced this on them. If anything it is Russia that forced them to join these oraganizations out of fear that one day they will become targets once again of Russian imperilism and what happened in Georgia further solidifies there belief that there choice was the right one. Russia must not be able to hold a veto and decide for these countries which organization or alliance they can make. In addition what is the problem with defensive weapons???? Russia has nothing to fear as these are not offensive unless they want to reserve the right to attack first.
As to your comment this is Russia's neighborhood??? Russia has no right to dictate what happens in neighboring states. Sir you are clearly an appeaser and not to mention braindead. Thats like you blaming the west for Hitler causing ww2 because the Germans where not happy with the treaty ending ww1. You need to rethink who is truly responsible for this war.
So i guess according to your logic. We should allow Russia to attack any country they so choose as long as its in there vicinity??? Im sorry I can't stop laughing at your stupidity. Im guessing when you mentioned that US intereferes in other countries militarily, you are talking about Iraq. If you clearly where intelligent you would have known that when we attacked Iraq there was an Congressional Joint Resolution 114 and several UN Security Council resolutions permitting war. Point is we did not decide uniteraly to invade Iraq despite what the propagenda says. On the other hand Russia uniteraly made the decision to invade Georgia. Lets also look at the differances between Iraq and Georgia because your clearly incapable of distinquishing the differances and like to simplify things like a 7 year old does to be able to grasp something beyond there comprehension. First Georgia is a democracy. Iraq was a dictatorship. Second Georgia is not responsible for genocide, Saddam was. Third Saddam used wmd's(chemical weapons) during Iraq-Iraq war so it was safe to assume he still had them. Georgia has no wmd's and never possessed them since the end of the cold war. I can go on forever with the differances but I hope your not as ignorent as you make it seem.
NAd sating out of a war does not work. We tried it in both world wars and we stil got attacked. Russia is a county that would atatck anyone if they fet they were i nthe way or they did somethng to really tick htem off. Sadly no one did anytihng to stop them like in the past,we all were concerned but jsut watched. History does repeat itelsf and we are doing jsut hat we did in the apst and wil do it agaim someday in the future.
The US attacked IRAQ without world support. Lets not look at ourselves through rose colored glasses. We went to the middle east for oil bottom line. And another thing, if Texas said hey US you can kiss off, we want to be a independant nation. You better believe the US military would be down there just as the Russians went down to Georgia. We have no business putting our noses in their affairs, and quite frankly, I think we need to stand down those defense missles too. Because I would bet the house that those defense intercept missles we agreed to put in Poland can be turned from defensive to offensive in a matter of minutes.
"FEAR NOT MY GOOD PEOPLE" we are no longer going to get into world matters. I talked to the Mr. Bush and he said, "WE can not do it anymore do to lack of manpower" because we have to spend so much time getting the kids in Youngstown to school. I know its ashame but hey thats what he said. So now I hope everyone is HAPPY....its a win win.
Hey Metz87 that was very well put . Short and to the point. oldmangrump you to are one of the few around here that has a clue.You guys keep posting ,I love it when the others get upset.
Yes, we should make Russia do whatever we want them to do because we're the king of the world! *We* can declare preemptive war, not those uncivilized Russians!!!
OLD MAN GRUMP HAS A CLUE?
JEEZ......
Well Russia seems to feel we won't do nothing so that means they could bully us next. Sends the wrong message I think.
Oh people don't you understand the govt knew about this long before it took place. My GOD with the technology that we have today , trust me we seen it brewing. The Big BEAR does not eat ,sleep or take a dump without the United States knowing it ahead of time. It sucks what they did but then again you can not start a world war over it.
Do you think maybe we can get them to trade us Georgia for Detroit.
We see everytihng but we chsoe what to act on and what to leave alone to get worse. If we don't ahve a stake i nthat county we could care less.
"BINGO" Welcome to the real world people. Nice job Metz.
Sometimes life is not fair and thats the way its going to be for a long time.
If it's so wrong of Russia to invade Georgia (which obviously it is), why do we act on that instead of what's happening in Darfur or Yemen or Uzbekestan or Thailand or an even better example, if it's not ok for Russia to invade Georgia, why is it ok for Israel to invade Palestine?
Seriously, people- we aren't the good guys here, the benevolent cop of the world or something! The US picks and chooses its battles based on its own financial interests, period.
Noone wants to even touch the Israel/Palestine invasion. That is a religious war that has be going on since Jesus died on the cross. The US needs to stay out of that one big time. As for other countries. I think we ,the US, put our noses in too many other countries business. We need to stay focusing on rebuilding our country and spend the money here. Not 10 billion on a war going no where. And tons of money rebuilding Afghanistan, instead rebuild our own nation. We have tons of people starving and living in poverty here who would bennefit from it!
What happens when we mind our busniess and they attack us anyways? We should not defend ourselves or our ships in the ocean?
I think we all should start looking into building a fall out shelter in our back yards. If its not the big BEAR going to get us then it will be a black hole sucking us int its mist. Lets not forget about all the nut jobs that think the world is going to end DEC 22 2012. If we defend every little skirmish in the world how would we have enough resources to defend our own country? We will have to fight wars in the future but we cannot go to war for every time someone wants us to. We would be in Africa every time some country was getting invaded by its neighbor.[thats a weekly thing]
"This Letter of Apology" was written by Lieutenant General Chuck Pitman, US Marine Corps, Retired:
For good and ill, the Iraqi prisoner abuse mess will remain an issue. On the one hand, right thinking Americans will abhor the stupidity of the actions while on the other hand, political glee will take control and fashion this minor event into some modern day massacre.
I humbly offer my opinion here:
I am sorry that the last seven times we Americans took up arms and sacrificed the blood of our youth, it was in the defense of Muslims (Bosnia, Kosovo, Gulf War 1, Kuwait, etc.).
I am sorry that no such call for an apology upon the extremists came after 9/11.
I am sorry that all of the murderers on 9/11 were Islamic Arabs.
I am sorry that most Arabs and Muslims have to live in squalor under savage dictatorships.
I am sorry that their leaders squander their wealth.
I am sorry that their governments breed hate for the US in their religious schools, mosques, and government-controlled media.
I am sorry that Yassar Arafat was kicked out of every Arab country and high-jacked the Palestinian "cause."
I am sorry that no other Arab country will take in or offer more than a token amount of financial help to those same Palestinians.
I am sorry that the U.S.A. has to step in and be the biggest financial supporter of poverty stricken Arabs while the insanely wealthy Arabs blame the USA for all their problems.
I am sorry that our own left wing, our media, and our own brainwashed masses do not understand any of this (from the misleading vocal elements of our society like radical professors, and the NY TIMES).
I am sorry the United Nations scammed the poor people of Iraq out of the "food for oil" money so they could get rich while the common folk suffered.
I am sorry that some Arab governments pay the families of homicide bombers upon their death.
I am sorry that those same bombers are brainwashed thinking they will receive 72 virgins in "paradise."
I am sorry that the homicide bombers think pregnant women, babies, children, the elderly and other noncombatant civilians are legitimate targets.
I am sorry that our troops die to free more Arabs from the gang rape rooms and the filling of mass graves of dissidents of their own making.
I am sorry that Muslim extremists have killed more Arabs than any other group.
I am sorry that foreign trained terrorists are trying to seize control of Iraq and return it to a terrorist state.
I am sorry we don't drop a few dozen Daisy cutters on Fallujah.
I am sorry every time terrorists hide they find a convenient "Holy Site."
I am sorry they didn't apologize for driving a jet into the World Trade Center that collapsed and severely damaged Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church - one of our Holy Sites.
I am sorry they didn't apologize for flight 93 and 175, the USS Cole, the embassy bombings, the murders and beheadings of Nick Berg and Daniel Pearl, etc....etc!
I am sorry Michael Moore is American; he could feed a medium sized village in Africa.
America will get past this latest absurdity. We will punish those responsible because that is what we do.
We hang out our dirty laundry for the entire world to see. We move on. That's one of the reasons we are hated so much. We don't hide this stuff like all those Arab countries that are now demanding an apology.
Deep down inside, when most Americans saw this reported in the news, we were like - so what? We lost hundreds and made fun of a few prisoners. Sure, it was wrong, sure, it dramatically hurts our cause, but until captured we were trying to kill these same prisoners. Now we're supposed to wring our hands because a few were humiliated?
Our compassion is tempered with the vivid memories of our own people killed, mutilated and burnt amongst a joyous crowd of celebrating Fallujahans.
If you want an apology from this American, you're going to have a long wait! You have a better chance of finding those seventy-two virgins.
Chuck Pitman
Lieutenant General, USMC
A little taste of how the world really is for those of you who sit behind your computers and opine!
It's is a hard dangerous world out there and only a few nations will survive.
kblair1055 "I'm sorry" your Lieutenant General wants to spend all of my tax paying moneys for generations to come policing the world rather than caring about senior citizens having Social Security and medicare or children having a decent education and becoming contributors to the nation rather than criminals or about the cost of healthcare in the nation. Yes, let's ignore all the problems and issues that need attention in the USA and keep running all over the world to help every insurgency. I'm not trying to sound too Wilsonian (go look up President Wilson's presidency) but we've wasted how many trillions in Iraq over what? And, don't try to make me sound like I don't support the troops because I don't support the Bush Doctrine (hmm, I actually know what that is unlike Palin).
So let the world do what they want and mind our own busniess? We did that in the 20's and did it work? No the Germans attacked out ships while we were neutral.