Dear CCI Friends,

A very important Webinar on NATO Expansion is being offered by the Quincy Institute on May 11. Check it out below to see what time it will be offered in your time zone.

Ambassador Jack Matlock will lead off with others following. Anatol Lieven, a Russian and international specialist will moderate the event. It should be terrific!

Let’s plan to interact via email or Zoom following this event to determine a course of action. More to follow.

Sharon Tennison
Center for Citizen Initiatives

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Reminder to all CCI Followers,

From World BEYOND War and Center for Citizen Initiatives:

An Online Conversation on Peace, Russia, and the United States with Vladimir Kozin and Ray McGovern

Start: Thursday, May 06, 2021 • 1:00 PM • Eastern Daylight Time (US & Canada) (GMT-04:00)
End: Thursday, May 06, 2021 • 2:30 PM • Eastern Daylight Time (US & Canada) (GMT-04:00)

Register here.

Once you have registered you will be given the Zoom link to enter the discussion.

Pressures for war are building. What can people do for peace between Russia and the United States? Join in this conversation, in English, between Vladimir Kozin and Ray McGovern.

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CCI Friends,

I was shocked on April 13 when ominous U.S. “Defender-Europe 2021 ‘War Games’” were announced on Ukraine/Russia’s border … using 30,000 NATO troops, miles of new tanks and battleships headed for the Black Sea. Stunned also, Russians quickly fielded a similar number of soldiers, miles of trucks near their borders and ordered the ships out of their waters!

The U.S. side, hyped the news channels about Russians mounting for war (while totally ignoring the U.S. Defender-Europe 21 War Games). For those who don’t follow news carefully, Russia looked like the big bad bear … there was no mention of the U.S. War Games (which preemped Russia’s response)!

We Americans believe in fair play … don’t we? We teach our children to treat others kindly on their playgrounds … don’t we? We expect fair play on basketball courts and golf greens … don’t we? It’s a matter of personal pride … isn’t it? Only unsavory characters do otherwise … right?

Then why do we tolerate our government, president and military to stoop to such dangerous antics? They provoked fear in another heavily nuclearized nation, spent enormous amounts of our tax dollars for troops, tanks, weapons and battleships,  … and then blamed Russia for having troops on their own borders?

Below Natylie Baldwin points out other dangerous idiocies. Please read and determine if this is acceptable behavior for people in U.S. leadership.

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Dear CCI Followers,

Like many of you, I’ve been deeply conflicted regarding the role our nation has and is playing across the world. Our military combined with NATO has caused unimaginable devastation, death and suffering in one nation after another for decades.

For years the notion that we were ‘taking out dictators’ and creating the way for democracy, seemed to make us feel like we were forging a noble path. Ignoring the killing fields in Vietnam, we moved into the Middle East countries with a vengeance. Many of us have become deeply disturbed by the outcome of these wars.

Reading James Carden’s “Isolationism Revisited” below, I’m finding myself excited by Thomas Jefferson’s 1801 inaugural address saying  “peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none.”  Any of the Middle East people today would be better off if we had stayed out of their countries.

I think I’ve just become a Jeffersonian Isolationist!  If we go into another country to share food, water, sanitation and medical help, that’s wonderful. If not, we need to stay out and let them work out their own evolutions.

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