BE MY GUEST, CHARLEY!! I'll answer your long post tomorrow.... In the meantime, here's a message for you ... from your Bilderberg pal Henry:
(from today's Financial Times)
europe
EU-US tension worries Kissinger
By Stephen Fidler in Washington
Published: May 15 2001 22:41GMT | Last Updated: May 16 2001 10:36GMT
Henry Kissinger, the former US secretary of state, this week added his voice to those expressing concern about deteriorating relations between Europe and the US.
Describing tensions in the transatlantic alliance as the "source of my present greatest concern," he said the alliance stood at the moment of its greatest opportunity, and it would be ironic if it started to fall apart.
"The issue is whether Europe can find its identity by means other than opposition to the US and whether Europe can express its identity in co-operation with the US," he said in a speech on Monday night to the Atlantic Council, a group favouring strong transatlantic relations.
He described himself as "astonished" by the mission sent by the European Union, under Sweden's chairmanship, to North Korea on the grounds that Europe had to fill the gap that had been created by the US hard line against Pyongyang.
Mr Kissinger said he was not arguing that the Bush administration's decision not to restart negotiations immediately with North Korea was presented in the most elegant manner.
But he said the Europeans should have been more interested in the viewpoint of the US, which keeps 40,000 troops on the Korean peninsula. He suggested it was reasonable for the US to require some demonstration of its good intention and "not to be satisfied with just a friendly reception". The US "should be given credit for asking the right questions" about a changing world. Referring to European concerns that the US might abandon the anti-ballistic missile treaty with Moscow, he said the world had totally changed since it was signed in 1972.
In the context of US plans to build missile defences, he raised the question of whether it would be right for the US to cede vulnerability to missile threats, asking whether it was possible to "make total vulnerability an essential element of political and strategic stability".
He also referred to plans to create a European rapid reaction force, indicating concerns with the possibility that the European governments would hold caucus meetings before each Nato meeting. The US was right to try to understand its implications.
Mr Kissinger said the west had an extraordinary opportunity to bring Russia back into the international system. But in an apparent reference to the handling of the missile defence issue by the Russians and the Europeans, he said "we shouldn't waste that opportunity by tactical manoeuvres to try to bring Russia on one side or another in a hypothetical European-American dispute".
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news.ft.com |
