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Politics : Bill Clinton Scandal - SANITY CHECK -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neocon who wrote (38160)	3/12/1999 3:52:00 PM
From: DMaA	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 67261

I did too at one time but now, Gee whiz do I miss him. Plus, he had a visceral dislike of Bush, I think.

To: Neocon who wrote (38160)	3/12/1999 3:54:00 PM
From: Neocon	Respond to of 67261

Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic Sign To Join NATO By Tabassum Zakaria Mar 12 3:33pm ET INDEPENDENCE, Mo. (Reuters) - Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic Friday became the first former members of the old Soviet bloc to join NATO, expanding the Western military alliance to 19 members. At a ceremony in the hometown of late U.S. President Harry Truman, the foreign ministers of the three new members signed formal documents of accession and gave them to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who told the ministers: ``You are truly allies, you are truly home.'' The low-key ceremony at the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library crowned a controversial process, bitterly opposed by Russia, that began with the end of the Cold War a decade ago. Albright said expanding NATO was ``erasing ... the line drawn in Europe by Stalin's boot'' -- a reference to the long Soviet control over countries which have now embraced democracy, market economics and NATO membership. In speeches at the signing ceremony, the ministers said their countries saw NATO membership as an assurance of security and as overdue recognition of their rightful place in Europe. They evoked the memory of Harry Truman, who helped found the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949, and the unhappy recent history of most central European nations. ``It is a guarantee that my country will never again become the powerless victim of a foreign invasion,'' said Jan Kavan of the Czech Republic. ``The Czech traumas of the century have now been relegated forever to history,'' he added. ``We celebrate today the end of the bipolar world symbolized by the Iron Curtain.... Poland forever returns where she had always belonged -- to the free world. Poland is no longer alone in the defense of her freedom. It's a great day for Poland and for the world,'' said Bronislaw Geremek of Poland. Said Hungarian Foreign Minister Janos Martonyi: ``The decision was not only about security. NATO accession is also about returning Hungary to her natural habitat. It has been our manifest destiny to rejoin those with whom we share the same values, interests and goals.'' ``Hungary has come home. It is back in the family... From this day on, we are the closest of allies,'' he added. Albright, who was born Czech and took refuge in the West from both Nazi and Soviet domination, said NATO membership brought the three countries ``fully and irrevocably within the Atlantic community for freedom.'' ``Never again will your fates be tossed around like poker chips on a bargaining table,'' she said. The three new members will now be able to take full part in the NATO 50th anniversary summit in Washington from April 23 to 25, where the North Atlantic alliance will announce a revised ''strategic concept'' for the next century. Albright noted that NATO intended to keep expanding. ``The nations entering our alliance today are the first new members since the Cold War's end but they will not be the last. For NATO enlargement is not an event, it is a process,'' she said. ``It is our common purpose, over time, to do for Europe's east what NATO has already helped to do for Europe's west. Steadily and systematically, we will continue erasing ... the line drawn in Europe by Stalin's boot,'' she added. Russia, which dominated the three new members from the 1940s until the end of the 1980s, grudgingly bowed to the inevitability of NATO expansion but also said it was a dangerous mistake that could divide Europe anew. The Russian Foreign Ministry said: ``The enlargement of the North Atlantic alliance will not promote a strengthening of trust and stability in international relations. On the contrary, it could lead to the appearance of new dividing lines.'' In London Foreign Secretary Robin Cook and Defense Secretary George Robertson warmly welcomed the new members. ``For the first time we are bringing together former adversaries from both sides of the Iron Curtain (in) an historic step on the road to a united Europe, free from the conflicts that have beset our continent throughout too much of this century,'' they said in a joint statement. ``This will not be the end of the process -- NATO remains open to more members in the future. Britain has been a leading supporter of the enlargement process,'' they added. ----This makes me very happy!!!