Come on! Does the West really think the Russians will put up with NATO surrounding their borders? How about the Poland anti-missile shield that puts American missiles, radar and troops next door to their motherland?

No major power is going to take these threats lying down.

Look at how easily we get spooked. Witness the Cuban Missile Crisis and our eagerness to push NATO eastward. The Georgian invasion is a Russian line in the sand and we had better see it for what it is.

Who conjures up our self-destructing foreign policy anyway?

Larry Schmidt

Lebanon

Caught up in a drug raid

I would like to ask readers of the Albany Democrat-Herald to please keep in mind that the newspaper only prints what details they are given from a providing source.

Spurred by my friendship with the owner of a property where a recent drug bust took place, I feel moved to write this letter. Hopefully what I have written will fill in some of those information gaps.

The property owner, Frank (Lucky) Gardner, became ill with cancer and kidney failure last year. His health insurance does not cover all of his mounting medical bills, and because of this he decided to rent space on his property for additional income.

In the drug raid the search warrant did not include his dwelling and as a result it was never searched by authorities. Mr. Gardner was arrested for “frequenting a place where controlled substances are used.” This is a standard charge for anyone who is at a location where a drug bust occurs even if it is the owner of the property who is uninvolved in the events leading up to the bust itself.

I hope this letter clarifies any misunderstandings that might have developed from the recently published article reporting a drug raid in our community.

Morgan Jones

Albany

Check history, please

Allan Silver (Mailbag, Aug. 11) needs to study history. Israel “acquired” 78 percent of Mandate Palestine not from the British but by ethnically cleansing 750,000 Palestinians — their catastrophe, “al-Nakba.”

The U.N. divided Palestine into 56 percent Jewish, 44 percent Palestinian but Israel ignored that ratio and initiated Plan Dalet to claim 78 percent.

The “surrounding Arab nations” had about 5,000 soldiers (mostly Jordanian) against Israel’s 50,000. A deal with King Abdullah let Jordan keep 22 percent (the West Bank), and Egypt kept Gaza, which has become an outdoor prison where children must dig tunnels in areas that can collapse just to get basic supplies for their families. One tunnel collapsed recently, killing five child diggers.

Silver’s wrong, the wall doesn’t keep hundreds of more-devastating Israeli rockets out of Gaza, or stop Israeli helicopter missiles from murdering Hamas leaders in their cars, or keep out one-ton bombs that destroy whole neighborhoods while targeting one “suspected militant.” (“Suspects” don’t get a trial in Israel; they get a bomb!)

A wall for security would have been built on the Green Line, but it’s well east of that in order to grab more land for settlers. Israel has grabbed half of that tiny 22 percent of Mandate Palestine, leaving Palestinians (who are half the population) with only 11 percent.

Since Annapolis, when Israel agreed to “reach their hand in peace” to Palestinians, they have started some 7,500 housing units on West Bank land. Israel is without honor, never keeping their promises to stop settlements. Their hand is reaching all right — to grab more land!

June Forsyth Kenagy

Albany

I’ll write in whom I want

For a number of years now I have been voting for the least of the bad that have been presented by the almighty parties as the top contenders to be president. (As have most of us who vote.) Now I am an ex-Democrat, a liberated voter and I will enjoy casting my vote this year. I invite you and your readers to join me in this exciting time at the polls.

Who will I cast my vote for? I will write in “Senator Hillary Clinton.” I like John McCain but I could never vote for the Republican agenda. Senator Obama leaves much to be desired, and his offer of a $1,000 payoff won’t buy my vote, nor will his high-handed negotiation to “allow the delegates the right to cast their vote for all candidates at the convention” to bring about unity to the party.

I couldn’t care less about the parties. They are force-feeding us again, or trying to. There are enough nonaffiliated voters to start our own movement, and this is the year to start.

I know my vote won’t count but I’d rather it didn’t count because I’m finally taking a stand than have it count for someone I don’t believe is the best that we have. I care about who you support because it affects all of us, but I’d sure like to see some of you who feel as I do stand with me and write in whomever you do support if it’s not one of the two whom are presumed to be the candidates.

Oh how I’d love to see the Democratic delegates at the convention stand up and actually vote in the interest of “we, the people” instead of the backroom deals. How refreshing it would be to see democracy at work. I can dream, can’t I?

Mary A. Martin

Albany

A natural phenomenon

I urge M.E. Bennett (Mailbag, Aug. 12) to follow the advice in “Change Your Brain, Change Your Life,” because homosexuality is not a disease. Something that is not a disease cannot be cured. Can you cure a race or any inherent trait? That’s eugenics. However, now that we have established the fact that it is not a disease, and we agree that it is not a choice, we must conclude: It is a natural phenomenon. For those “afflicted” with homosexuality, hope will not be found in its eradication, but its acceptance.

Ajai Tripathi

Corvallis

What about this ‘race card’?

Day in and day out our presidential (presumed, of course) candidates seem to accuse each other of being the first to play that mythical “race card.”

Since he’s the child of mixed-race parentage, how can he be considered black? Genetically he’s no more a black man with a white mother than he is a white man with a black father.

It seems fairly clear to me that Senator Obama played the Race Card decades ago; the first time he claimed to be black.

Ted Salmons

Lebanon

GUIDELINES: Letters must bear the writer’s full name and address, but we’ll omit the street address in the paper.Please include a daytime telephone number. Letters should be as brief as possible and are subject to editing and abridgement. Letters from the same person generally are limited to one a month. We usually do not print verse.