I NOTE with interest tour report on military activity over the Baltic Sea ("RAF jets intercept Russian aircraft over Baltic", The Herald, June 10).
An alternative factual headline would be "RAF jets deliberately provoke Russian planes in international airspace". The spurious excuse for intercepting these military flights is that they had not registered flight plans. One wonders in the past whether the United States registered flight plans for its countless Blackbird spy flights over Russian sovereign territory or when Gary Powers was shot down over Russia in the U-2 spying incident. On this occasion did Nato lodge flight plans with the Russians before launching their interceptors? Do the Americans tell the Chinese in advance about their spying missions over the military bases the Yellow-peril are building on artificial islands in the South China Sea?
Defence Secretary Michael Fallon bristles with pride at the vital work our "boys" are doing hundreds of miles away from our own shores to ensure the power and influence of the Western alliance is maintained. Protecting the "Free World" from what? Communism is dead. Protecting it from rampant aggressive neo-capitalism? Protecting it from competing corporate imperialism?
The US and the UK have historically proven track records of interfering catastrophically with the affairs of sovereign nations both overtly and clandestinely, often with venal rather than altruistic intent - as has recently been the case in the Middle East and the vaunted "Arab Spring" which has destabilised much of Mediterranean Africa. Don't forget that Saddam Hussein was "our man" until be stopped playing ball with Iraqi oil and upset the cartel by demanding to be paid in euros rather than dollars.
I and I am sure most Scots have no intention of invading anywhere and I am convinced that the same can be said for most Russians. Wars are started by a few powerful individuals simply to increase or protect their personal power and wealth. The expensive and potentially catastrophic game of "cowboys and Indians" that Nato is playing in the Baltic is yet another chapter in this sorry tale.
David J Crawford,
Flat 3/3 131 Shuna Street, Glasgow.
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