BUSH/CHENEY BELIEVE GUNS AND MISSILES ARE THE ANSWER TO ALL PROBLEMS

Messrs Bush and Cheney continue to think the United States can solve all national problems by bombs and missiles. How else explain the move by the U.S. to implant missiles in the Czech Republic and Poland? There must be some flaw in the American psyche that causes Americans to want to control everything at the barrel of a gun. That's why Mr. Cheney said in campaigning for the 2000 elections that he would beef up the U.S. military. I am sure that promise had a a positive effect on those many Americans who think war is the answer to all problems.

So I can understand Vladimir Putin's concern over American militarism. He and most Russians must think that missiles placed in European countries adjacent to Russia are a direct affront to Russian sovereignty and self-defense. American proponents of the missiles claim they are defensive as against Iranian or North Korean aggression. But this is made up of whole cloth. Iran does not have a missile that can reach Europe, much less the United States. And it has no nuclear weapons. North Korea has its hands full just putting bread on the table for its citizens.

Furthermore, why must the U.S. constantly treat Iran as the enemy? I want the U.S. to sit down with Iran as well as with North Korea and negotiate from a friendly non-belligerent posture. How come Russia befriends those "evil-doers" Iran and North Korea? Why don't both countries constitute an "imminent" and "deadly" threat to Russia? Why is the United States the only country that believes itself the target of these "enemy" countries? Instead of American foreign policy being paranoid, let's dump Bush/Cheney and establish a sane foreign policy that believes in friendly negotiation rather than bellicose missile rattling.