How unfortunate that Russians did not choose Gorbachev as its first president after the fall of the Soviet Union. He would never have accepted the shock doctrine nonsense forced upon Russia by Bush I's administration, but would have moved to build a mixed economy and would never have wiped out Russia's socialized health care system.

He should be listened to now by America: We should stop baiting Russia with plans to put missiles in the Czech Republic and Poland and then saying how "hostile" Russia is to us.

We should stop trying to undermine all the leaders in South America who are ALSO trying to establish mixed economies that no longer leave the poor, indigenous majorities with nothing look forward to but continued bleakness (Chavez most notably, but also Morales, Correa and Lula).

And we really need to give up the insane idea that we can help Africa become more peaceful and prosperous if we just build American military bases through the continent and staff them with MERCENARIES, since we have decimated our armed forces elsewhere.

There's so much more we should do, and I'll bet Mr. G is aware of them all. Keep writing, sir.