RASMUSSEN SHOULD KNOW BETTER

As Secretary General of NATO, Anders Rasmussen should know, and does know, that his comments in this article are highly biased and factually misleading. The Cold War was the most dangerous time in world history. For the first time, society had the capability to end human life on earth as we know it. The East and the West had many times the number of nuclear weapons required to obliterate human life. And, during the Cuban Crisis, the world came all too close to doing this.



The Cold War was a long and bitter period of time, which lasted for some 45 years. Untold trillions of dollars were spent on both sides to develop the capability to utterly destroy the other side. There was deep distrust and antagonism on both sides of the Cold War. Then in 1991, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Cold War ended. Ronald Regan's strategy of militarily spending Russia into the poor house worked. With the economic collapse of the Soviet Union and Russia, the military capacity of Russia collapsed as well. Reductions of some 80% in Russia's military spending reduced it, as described by President Obama to a regional military power.



When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the United States and Europe promised Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would never move East and absorb the former Soviet Union countries. They lied and they admitted they lied. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, twelve of the former Soviet countries were absorbed into NATO. Given the history of Russia, and numerous international invasions including Napoleon and Hitler, it is understandable that Russia is nervous by the military encroachment of NATO.



Much of media reports regarding Russia and the Ukraine are equally specious. They clearly misrepresent the facts and the history related to Russia and the Ukraine. They ignore the fact that the Ukrainian Nikita Khrushchev, who was the Premier of Russia at the time, conditionally ceded the Crimea and the Donbass region of Russia to the Ukraine. With the help of the West, especially the United States, the protests in 2014, turned into a civil war. Given that the majority of the population in the Crimea and the Donbass region are of Russian decent, there is only one way to avoid catastrophic bloodshed, and that is for these two regions to separate from the Ukraine. All one has to do is remember what happened to Yugoslavia, once Tito died. It too, descended into a blood bath of ethnic cleansing, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. Ultimately, Yugoslavia separated into six separate countries and the fighting has stopped.



If the civil war continues in the Eastern Ukraine, it too, will evolve into ethnic cleansing, and untold thousands of innocent people will be killed. Is this the legacy NATO wants to be remembered for? Is this the outcome that Rasmussen wants to see? The whole issue regarding the Ukraine and the Middle East is about power and greed. It is one of the reasons that in human history, for every year of peace, we have had eleven years of war. It is unconscionable that the death of more than 100 million people in the last century has not taught us that war is not the answer.



SHAME ON YOU ANDERS RASMUSSEN.