Dear CCI Folks,
I am the newest director of CCI so please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Charles Heberle. I am a retired COL of the US Army who was heavily involved in the goings on in the 1989 to 1992 time frame which resulted in the Soviet Union voluntarily closing shop. This was and probably will be an unprecedented event in world history for which Russia, unbelievably, gets no credit right now. I know about the negotiations first hand as I became a friend of GEN John Shalikashvili after he retired. He related the whole story to me as he was the key negotiator. Later on I developed a democracy training program for the USA which empowers the people so both parties hate it and shot it down. The Russians however found it and hired me to teach it there which I did for 5 years living in the provincial capital of Karelia, Petrozavodsk. I am now a past president and current member of the Russia-USA Intercountry Committee of Rotary International. I also accompanied Sharon, who I have known since 2006, on the 2015 and 2016 CCI trips. I am unapologetically pro-Russia in all these latest goings on. Particularly with regard to welcoming them back to our world as a regular member which was the original intent. This has not happened regrettably.
A lot of this has to do with our, in my view, needless continuation of the Cold War for what appear to be various and often nefarious reasons. As a result we have continued our support of organizations in Ukraine, which while useful to us in the Cold War are now, in my view, detrimental to what is obviously in our national interest – having normal diplomatic relations with Russia. From a military standpoint driving the biggest nuclear power into the arms of the 3rd biggest nuclear power is idiotic at best. In this light I give you two things that support my contention. One an article by Harrison Berger and another a video interview of MIke Benz by Glen Diesen.
I give you these with the reservation that I don’t necessarily agree with all the views of Harrison Berger at least in tone. Plus there was a lot in the Mike Benz interview that came as a surprise to me.
Both of these raise two questions in my mind:
- Why are “non-governmental organizations” being funded by our government?
- Why are we continuing a Cold War after we successfully negotiated a settlement?
Hopefully we in CCI can rectify some of this by our people to people diplomacy efforts which we hope will commence soonest.
Charles Heberle, COL, USA (Ret)