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Of course there is a reverse side to this too - throughout at least last 300 (if not 500)years Russia has been the towering menace on horizon . And have been very agressive , started numerous wars etc. For the same reason you say , people view Russia with great deal of mistrust
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Uh...Did I say that the Eastern Europeans didn't have a reason to fear Russia? But guess what the same resentments that Eastern Europeans have towards Russia, guess what many Latin Americans have towards the United States. They have long memories of the United States getting involved in their internal affairs. Castro had strong national security reasons for wanting those Soviet missles. Heck, we even stole half of Mexico, after promising Spain, when they gave us Florida that we would respect Mexico's territory. Do you think the Mexicans have forgotten that one. Or the Haiwian natives have forgotten how we stole Hawai? Or the American Indians have forgotten how we stole the entire United States. We have absolutely no justification to be pointing fingers at Russia. In that regards. I guess according to your theory, Russia would be justified in setting up bases in Latin America. But well, we have the Monroe Doctrine which specifically rejects that idea.
Well similarly, Russia has security reasons for not wanting NATO in Eastern Europe. If we want Russia to respect our feelings about Latin America, we should respect Her feeling about the danger of Nato troops on the Russian border. The only thing this has done is make the Russians feel they were perhaps wrong to voluntarily give up their empire. And they did give up those nations voluntarily.
Besides, given that there are a lot of unsolved issues in Eastern Europe with Russia. For example, the ethnic Russians in Georgia wanting to succeed from Georgia etc. Why in the heck do we want to have NATO anywhere near those countries. In some aspects, you could have a powder keg waiting to happen. To I really want to go to war with Russia over those two territories in Georgia, heck no.