The Cold War confrontation in Colorado Springs...

"The Cold War confrontation in Colorado Springs..."
By Erin S. LaPorte
Mon, Oct 13 2003
http://www.pronato.com/commentary/index.htm

Nope - the Cold War is not over!

As this Author has been writing, the Cold War is not over unless NATO dumps
Cold War Atlanticism and stops subscribing to the mass media pushed notion
that it was formed ONLY to "meet the Soviet threat in Eastern Europe." This
Author is well aware, as are her associates, that the Cold War is not over
and that NATO and the Atlantic Community, as well as Russia and the Eastern
European nations, remain in its icy, crippling grip.

Another Cold War battle raged in Colorado Springs this last week. Russia
still sees "anti-Russian components" in NATO's military doctrine and is
"sick of NATO's anti-Russian bias" (Well this Author is sick of it too!)
Russia still views the "United States and NATO as the enemy." And the
Russians may by right about the lingering Cold War mentality in NATO, as
this Author, (a non-Slavic, American and NATO patriot) sees the Cold War
continuing on and on in NATO despite the statements from the Alliance and
its leaders that "the Cold War is over."

If Russia still sees the Alliance as "the enemy" then there are those
officials in NATO, including the Political Committee, that are either not
doing their jobs, or their jobs are still Cold War defined - or they do not
know what their Cold War jobs should be. Part of the post-Cold War work of
the NATO Alliance should be to explain to the world that its functions ARE
NOT just military-defense, but to also be a political-cultural association
for democracies that subscribe to North Atlantic democratic practices (aka-
Western, liberal democracy).

We in NATO and the Atlantic Community are allowing the newspapers to dictate
to the public that NATO "is just a military alliance whose purpose is to be
anti-Russian." There is no presentation to the Russians, the global media,
nor to the leaders of nations that the North Atlantic Treaty and NATO itself
ARE NOT anti-Russian and the NATO's treaty was created to be more that just
collective defense not under a military-only kind of alliance. Part of a
needed task is to educate the world, especially in the mass media, that NATO
was NOT intended to be "just a military alliance" and the North Atlantic
Treaty is NOT "anti-Russian" and can be embraced by Russians, as well as
Serbs and Muslims too.

There are people in NATO and the Atlantic Councils that ARE NOT doing enough
to educate the global general public and the Russian leaders especially that
the North Atlantic Treaty - and the organization arising from it - are open
to subscription by any democracy and just NOT about the naming of enemies,
arming armies or defense doctrine. The Creators often spoke the Treaty and
the Atlantic Community in the same paragraph and both the Treaty and the
Atlantic Community are not military only institutions defined only by the
military-defensive strategic. Both the North Atlantic Treaty and the
Atlantic Community are not "Cold War military institutions."

What occurred between our friends the Russians and NATO this last week in
Colorado Springs was not surprising at the very least to this Author and is
just more of the mounting evidence that the Cold War is still going on.
Now - while stating that the Cold War is over, the NATO Alliance is doing
little to either purge itself of Cold War Atlanticism and Cold War-military
mentality and even little still to counter that notion both in Russia and
the rest of the world that it is more than just a Cold War-military
alliance.

The North Atlantic Treaty has no defined enemies, is open to all, and the
Atlantic Community keeps no enemy lists!

See the essays:
"NOT JUST MILITARY! The other purpose of the North Atlantic Treaty."
http://www.pronato.com/NATreaty/article2(1).htm
"The Atlantic Community and the North Atlantic Treaty"
http://www.pronato.com/NATreaty/atl.comm(1).htm

-- 
Erin LaPorte
The NATO Citizen - www.pronato.com
P.O. Box 371162
Milwaukee, Wisconsin - USA 53237-2062
"In service of peace and freedom!"