Seriously, tell us how you REALLY feel!
Posted on 05/18/2023 9:12:47 PM PDT by Kazan
An open letter calling for a swift diplomatic end to the war in Ukraine was published on Tuesday in the New York Times. The letter’s 14 signatories consisted mostly of former U.S. military officers and other national security officials, including Jack Matlock, Washington’s former ambassador to the Soviet Union; Ann Wright, a retired U.S. Army colonel and former diplomat; Matthew Hoh, a former Marine Corps officer and State Department official; and Ret. Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as Secretary of State Colin Powell’s Chief of Staff.
Many are longtime critics of U.S. foreign policy and post-9/11 war policies.
The letter calls the war an “unmitigated disaster” and cautions that “future devastation could be exponentially greater as nuclear powers creep ever closer toward open war.”
“In diplomacy, one must attempt to see with strategic empathy, seeking to understand one’s adversaries,” according to the letter. “This is not weakness: it is wisdom.”
“Since 2007, Russia has repeatedly warned that NATO’s armed forces on Russian borders were intolerable – just as Russian forces in Mexico or Canada would be intolerable to the U.S. now, or as Soviet missiles in Cuba were in 1962,” the letter reads. “Russia further singled out NATO expansion into Ukraine as especially provocative.”
The missive, which appeared on page 5 of the Times’ print edition, lays out the history of warnings by key U.S. national security officials, politicians, and others about the dangers of NATO expansion in the late 1990s, and again in 2008 when then-U.S. Ambassador to Russia and current CIA director William Burns cautioned Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice against pushing for NATO membership for Ukraine.
Accompanying the text is a timeline of the deterioration in relations between Moscow and the West that begins in 1990, when Secretary of State James Baker assured Russia that NATO would not expand eastwards, until Russia’s invasion in February of last year.
“NATO expansion, in sum, is a key feature of a militarized U.S. foreign policy characterized by unilateralism featuring regime change and preemptive wars,” according to the letter, which suggests that Washington’s “failed wars” in Iraq and Afghanistan have been two of the results.
President Joe Biden has vowed that Washington will continue to aid Kyiv “as long as it takes.” The letter’s signers fear that this is a recipe for escalation that could result in catastrophe.
“As Dan Ellsberg has warned courageously and unceasingly, we — the world — are at the nuclear brink again, perhaps closer to the edge than ever before. It only requires one step to go over and then our steps end forever,” Wilkerson said in the statement released by the Eisenhower Media Network, which funded the full-page advertisement. “If that’s not sufficient reason for a return to diplomacy, our extinction is at hand; the timing is all that is in question.”
To date, the United States has sent $37 billion worth of military aid to Kyiv. High-level discussions with officials in Moscow have been rare, and a number of other entities, including China, Brazil, and the Pope, have taken on the mantle of pushing for a diplomatic solution.
What Washington’s role will look like going forward is more uncertain, with recent reporting as well as revelations from Pentagon leaks suggesting that the administration will continue supporting Ukraine through the anticipated counteroffensive against Russian forces before possibly reassessing, although officials have disputed that narrative.
The letter, entitled “The U.S. Should Be a Force for Peace in the World,” urges the Biden administration to pivot towards pursuing a negotiated solution to end the war “speedily.”
“This reality is not entirely of our own making, yet it may well be our undoing,” the letter concludes, “unless we dedicate ourselves to forging a diplomatic settlement that stops the killing and defuses tensions.”
Since when have the current admin leaders acted in US & citizen interest?
Anybody notice how when RATs are in power, the world teeters ever closer to the precipice? Anybody notice how when the world teeters ever closer to the precipice that liberals are too freaking stupid and obtuse to recognize they are the problem?
They are weak. And stupid. And weakness always invites aggression.
A stinking pile of the usual crap.
Ambassador Jack Matlock was and is a class act for sure. Many others that worked out of our embassy in Moscow during the last days of the Cold War seem to hold the same views for some damned reason. But what the hell do we know? We are Putinistas.
Only 14 signatories to that letter?
Well, letters signed by experts are no longer in vogue after the latest episode of The 51 Stooges.
BINGO
smh.
Did Baker not make the promise?
You are ok with The Warsaw Pact across the border in Mexico?
Nice source you have there,”Responsible Statecraft”
Here is another article from them “How Donald Trump is Saving the Occupation by Dismantling the First Amendment”
“DECEMBER 12, 2019
Written by
Lara Friedman
What does an antisemitism spewing, Nazi dog-whistling President give his favorite Jewish and Christian zealots for the holidays, after already giving them Jerusalem, settlements, the Golan Heights, the murder of the two-state solution, and the delegitimization of Palestinian national claims, identity, and aspirations?
An Israel exception to the First Amendment, of course.
That’s what Trump’s Executive Order on Combating Antisemitism is, no matter how the White House and credulous, lazy, or dishonest pundits try to sell it.”
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2019/12/12/how-donald-trump-is-saving-the-occupation-by-dismantling-the-first-amendment/
One of the most stupid leftist ideas is that they can plan the World to be as Utopian as they wish, and that know enough to do it.
Excellent. The linked letter is a must read.
“Why did the U.S. persist in expanding NATO despite such warnings? Profit from weapons sales was a major factor. Facing opposition to NATO expansion, a group of neoconservatives and top executives of U.S. weapons manufacturers formed the U.S. Committee to Expand NATO. Between 1996 and 1998, the largest arms manufacturers spent $51 million ($94 million today) on lobbying and millions more on campaign contributions. With this largesse, NATO expansion quickly became a done deal, after which U.S. weapons manufacturers sold billions of dollars of weapons to the new NATO members.
So far, the U.S. has sent $30 billion worth of military gear and weapons to Ukraine, with total aid to Ukraine exceeding $100 billion. War, it’s been said, is a racket, one that is highly profitable for a select few.”
Garland Nixon explains why.
While condemning Vladimir Putin’s “criminal invasion and occupation,” the letter, which notes the serial invasions of Russia by foreign adversaries, encourages readers to understand the war “through Russia’s eyes.”
“The U.S. Should Be a Force for Peace in the World,”
We are
This is a proxy war to distract Russia and deplete their logistics to the point they cannot ally with China when we go to war with them...
compare it to supposed "serial invasions of Russia"??? What invasions?
Simplicius gives an in-depth analysis here
It’s almost like reading an open letter in the 1990s titled “Why the Abuse Excuse is right, and conservative values aren’t.”
NATO policy from day one has been, if you ask to join NATO and ALL the existing members of the alliance agree AND the accessor countries satisfy the qualifications like not being actively at war, there’s no reason to block the process.
Russia’s CSTO has a different policy.
We don’t tell Russia who can and can’t be in CSTO, Russia can take a running jump if it thinks it can tell NATO which countries can be in NATO.
Russia, like Ukraine and Belarus, was guaranteed the right to decide its own defense strategy.
Russia, unlike the other SSRs, wanted the USSR legacy right to invade other countries.
Because Russia wanted the Stalinist conquest rights, other countries wanted to join NATO.
By invading Crimea, Chechnya (twice), Georgia once, and Ukraine, Putin has proved we were right to allow NATO to expand.
Irrespective of the pledge Baker made to Gorbachev.
Gorbachev would not have invaded Crimea, Chechnya, Georgia and Ukraine.
Putin is not Gorbachev.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.