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December 23rd 04, 02:28 PM

In article , (Steve
Robeson K4YZ) writes:

I stand corrected...We lost the chance in 1950 when we had them back
at
the Yalu. When the Chinese came over, we should have bombed Bejing.

And expanded the conflict into a full scale war, possibly with nukes. Do you
think the Soviets would have stood idly by for that?

Who cares? The Russians didn't have the means to deliver a nuke to us
then. They still didn't have any significant Navy to counter what we had and
were contained on several sides by nations then friendly to us.

I see. So you think it would have been morally OK for the USA to nuke the
Chinese and anybody else we don't like simply because they couldn't respond in
similar manner?

And how can you be sure they didn't have a delivery system? Several B-29s wound
up in the USSR during WW2, their crews interned because the USSR was n't at war
with Japan. They took the B-29s apart and made a near-perfect copy -
Tupolev-something-or-other. B-29s delivered the bomb to Japan.

HST did the right thing and contained the conflict. So did DDE. Neither one
of them was a stranger to armed conflict, nor to tough decisions.

Truman was a coward.

That's simply not true.

Eisenhower wasn't left with many options aftr
Truman had thrown the opportunity away.

20-20 hindsight?

Sure they do. I just don't find a need to be Lennesque and recite
1950's
era history here.

How about learning from history's lessons?

Uh huh.

And the lessons are that wwe shouldn't be in an armed conflict unless we
are going to commit 100% of ourselves to winning. We didn't do that in Korea
or Viet Nam.

What does it mean to "commit 100% of ourselves to winning"? How many dead, how
much destruction? How much expansion of the war?

As I recall, one of the biggest concerns in VN was that the war would expand
into direct confrontation between the superpowers.

We DID do that in WW2 and Desert Storm.

The threat of nuclear annihilation did not exist in WW2. And if we were 100%
committed in WW2, why wasn't SH wiped out then?

Did Papa Bush make a mistake by leaving SH in power?

We really believed that "Domino Theory" stuff in the 50's.
Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather talked us out of it in the 60's and 70's.

They were right. The theory was bunk.

They were wrong. Viet Nam and North Korea are the most virulent of
communist states.

Then why do we do so much trade with Viet Nam? How come communism hasn't spread
from those states to others?

And what would you suggest we do, James?

For a start, we could take a long hard look at our foreign policy and how it
causes peoples all over the world to hate us.

Then we could look at domestic policy that makes us so dependent on imported
energy that we have to go to war to defend it.

And we could also take a good look at what the *real* threats to our
security
are.

We could also focus on the most important issues rather than nonsense like
whether gays should be allowed to form legal unions or whether pseudoscience
nonsense like "creationism" should be taught in the public schools.

Most of all, we could start thinking long term rather than short term.

OK...YOU tell the American people to not buy Toyotas, Samsungs and cheap
clothing.

They need to understand the consequences of their actions. Many Americans don't
like to do that.

Due solely to the tenacity of Ronald Reagan.

Nonsense! What about Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, LBJ, Nixon, Ford and
Carter?
Did they simply let the Soviets do whatever they wanted?

They kept them guessing, at best.

Sorry, that's just not right. The Berlin airlift? NATO and all it
entailed?
The
Cuban missile crisis, the entire Cold War, were simply to keep the Soviets
guessing? I think not.

The Berlin Airlift was before the Korean War.

It was during Truman's administration.

The Cuban Missle Crisis was in our own back yard.

Not entirely. It was sparked by the presence of IRBMs in Turkey.

The Cuban missle crisis was sparked by Russians parking ICBMs in Cuba.
That's why it was called the Cuban crisis...Not the Turkish crisis.

That's simply, flat out wrong.

How come it was OK for the USA to base nuclear missiles within range of
Moscow
but not OK for the USSR to base similar missiles within range of Washington
DC?

The Russians could have made the same point in the UN that we did. They
didn't. Oh well.

More double standard, Steve. The protest isn't the issue at all.

The Soviets tried to negotiate the IRBMs out of Turkey. JFK said no, they were
part of NATO, etc.

Soviets decide to plant their own missiles in Cuba. Leaned on Fidel, who didn't
want them but couldn't get along without Soviet aid.

Then JFK goes ape over having the Soviets do the same thing the USA has already
done.

And in the end, the IRBMs are quietly pulled out of Turkey. They weren't really
all that essential to MAD anyway.

I ask again:

How come it was OK for the USA to base nuclear missiles within range of
Moscow but not OK for the USSR to base similar missiles within range of
Washington DC?

And the Soviets are no more. By their own admission, the USSR failed
when
it financially imploded trying to keep up with what they PERCEIVED as our
capabilites.

Which started soon after WW2. Not in 1980.

Which started with the Presidency of Ronald Reagan in 1980.

Nope. It started long before then. You just like ol' Ronnie, 'cause he made
people feel good by ignoring real problems.

The Soviet
Union was as powerful as it ever would be at that point.

Not at all.

If they hadn't run up
against RR's tenacity to see communism crumble, the Iron Curtai would still
be drawn across Europe.

And in a closed society, without it's "Internationalist" policies, it
may
have fared better. It didn't.

I have no idea what that is supposed to mean.

The reason the Soviets couldn't feed themselves was because their *system*
didn't work, not because their land was no good or their farmers no good.

Their "system" would still be in place if not for the tenacity of Ronald
Reagan.

That's simply not the case. You're giving the rooster credit for the dawn.

Americans are generally ignorant of how much devastation and death the
USSR
suffered in WW2, and how much that experience affected them and their
foreign
policy for decades later. Look at how the USA reacted to Pearl Harbor and
911
-
then compare what kind of attacks the Soviets survived.

Do you think the United States would have suffered any less if our
back
door was up against Germany? Any more?

Irrelevant to the point I was making. That devastation made the Soviets very
defense-oriented, in ways Americans have a hard time relating to.

So to defend the Russian homeland, they HAD to occupy eartern Europe and
half of central Europe???

They think they did.

Why did the USA have to fight wars thousands of miles and oceans away from the
USA in order to defend the US homeland?

Classic double standard: You think it was OK for the USA to push war in
Vietnam, which is 8000 plus miles from the USA, but not OK for the Soviets to
push war in Afghanistan, which is on their *border*.

I remember American Presidents shaking hands with Stalin and Zehdung.

They were our allies once too.

You'd think we'd have learned something, but nooo.

We did not help keep Stalin in power.

Sure we did. We had the resources and the opportunities to put the
wrench
on the Soviet Union back then. We didn't do it.

How? You mean during WW2?

America's policy during WW2 was to help the Soviets defeat Germany. And also to
let them do much of the fighting and dying. Took some resources away from the
western fronts.

If the USA hadn't helped the USSR in WW2, that country might (just might) have
fallen. Then the Germans could have focused all their attention on the western
fronts - supported by the resources of the entire USSR.

Nor any Chinese regime. There was no
good
reason to be so buddy buddy with SH.

Sure there was.

Such as? Oil?

The places where OBL was most likely to be were left to Northern Alliance
troops to control. Those folks can barely keep from fighting each other,
and
were clearly inadequate for the task. If capturing OBL and Co. were really
important to Shrub, he would have insisted on putting our best people on
the
job, not short-term allies.

Jim...Take a cloooooooooooose look at the topography of Afghanistan,
and
you tell me how we could even remotely cover ALL those avenues of escape.
even
if we had commited forces the like of which we dedicated to Desert Storm,
we
couldn't hope to have sealed those borders.

Then don't put folks like the Northern Alliance in charge of the best escape
routes.

Big mistake, at best. Incompetence, most likely.

Lack of assets is more like it.

Lack of competency.

Lack of assets.

Competency is an essential asset. It's lacking in the White House.

And if you're going o make claims like we do about
supporting freedom and human rights, you'd better be ready to put your foot
down on occassion.

Force our world order on people, you mean.

Yeah...really sucks being able to choose your own government...

What if they *want* to be communists? Or a religious state? Or friendly with
such folks?

to not be
afraid to go to sleep for fear of who might drag you out of bed in the middle
of the night...I can see how a lot of people might not be predisposed to
wanting those things.

Yet the USA turns a blind eye to the abuses of folks like SH and the Shah of
Iran, because they were "friendly" to us.

Would you rather have the Russians or the Red Chinese forces in
there...???

Yes - let *them* do some paying and dying for a change.

He simply disagrees with a policy. Does that make him a traitor?

Who called him a traitor...???

Supporting terrorism is treason.

Well then...maybe we need to drop the dime on him.

I think we should praise his patriotism.

What "patriotism"...???

Having the guts and honesty to say Emperor Shrub has no logical clothes.

He thinks denying potential adversaries access to systems we developed
and paid for is a "stupid idea". Hardly "patriotic".

Have any of those adversaries ever used those assets?

You just don't like conflicting facts and opinions when it comes to Shrub.

Neither do you.

I look at the facts about Shrub and see incompetency and arrogance.

I am sure you do. Do you discuss these ideas with Harvey, too?

My name isn't Dowd. Is yours?

And I ask you to show where I suggested it was IL-legal, Jim...

Supporting terrorism is illegal.

But Hans obviously did.

No, he simply disagreed with a policy.

No, he called the idea of being able to take our GPS out of the hands
of
people who would use it against us "idiotic".

And that's what it is. Terror folks don't use GPS, and turning it off isn't
going to make any difference to them. It's all for show.

Terror folks haven't used it YET. Up until September 11th, 2001, they'd
never used an airliner as a missle...YET.

Airlines are still flying. Phony test weapons still get through the screening.
Our borders are still not as secure as they should be.

Suicide aircraft attacks go back to WW2. Why didn't Shrub do something before
911? He had almost a year and lots of intel.

Do YOU think we should HELP those who wish to harm us, Jim?

You're assuming your conclusion, Steve.

I asked you a direct question, Jim. I assumed NOTHING.

You assume that leaving the GPS system on aids terror. There's no evidence
that's true.

Please answer this DIRECT question, Jim: "Do YOU think we should HELP
those who wish to harm us?"

Of course not.

But why should I answer your questions when you ignore mine?

Name one case where GPS was used to help a terror attack.

On September 10th, 2001, I could have asked you how many times an
airliner
had been hijacked and used as a weapon.

Name one case where GPS was used to help a terror attack.

The Homeland Defense folks are trying to cover any POTENTIAL for future
attacks using any other of our technologies or freedoms against us.

Maybe they should look at things like why we are so dependent on imported
energy.

You and Hans both seem to think that's a bad idea. Why?

Because it's focused on the wrong things! It's a smokescreen to distract us
from what *isn't* being done.

He expressed public disdain for government
plans
to interrupt GPS service in the face of an attack, and verbalized a
derrogatory
diminutive for the President in a time of war.

And that's supporting terrorism? How?

(1) Suggesting that we give aid and comfort to our foes by not
securing our technology,

Then shut down the internet, because terror folks use it. And shut down the
airlines, or at least severely restrict them.

There are already "Internet Police" out there, Jim.

Do they stop all the terror comms?

and (2) actually GIVING aid and comfort to our foes by
demonstrating disrespect for our leadership.

Bull****, Steve, pure bull****.

Again with profanity, Jim...???

It's justified by the unfounded claims against Hans.

You're really going for least common
denominator, but you're the one lowering the bar. Try to do better, eh?

I'm just following Our Wonderful Republican Vice President's example. If it's
OK for him, who am I to criticize?

And YOU just gave me the business about "not learning from our
mistakes",
when one of the biggest mistakes we made was by giving the North Vietnamese
reason to believe that our resolve was less than 100%.

That's the price of free speech. Plain and simple. If we can't tolerate
disagreement with Shrub's idiotic policies, then we're no better than the
"communists" you despise so much.

They were right. They stuck it out long enough to wear us down. Bravo
for them.

So nobody should ever protest a bad foreign policy, huh?

We can express our disatisfaction at the ballot box.

IOW, all voices of opposition should shut up until Election Day, at which time
the opposition will somehow rise up magically and change leadership. But no
talking about it beforehand!

You're saying that no one must criticize Our Wonderful Republican President,
because anything less than *your* standard of respect is disloyal and
treasonous.

I say when we reach that level of nonsense, we've pretty much destroyed free
speech.

There's a very thin line between "freedom of speech" and anarchy,
Jim...very fine.

Just the opposite. There's a world of difference. Free speech is the
unrestricted expression of ideas, nothing more. Anarchy is unrestricted
*action*. BIG difference.

Or are you just picking on Hans?

Are you for real, Jim?

Yep. Are you? Do you realize that true free speech means that dissenting
opinions are more important than Shrub's feelings?

Do you realize that there's a price attached to being able to live in a
safe, RELATIVELY free society?

It's called putting up with differing views and opinions.

There will never be a truly "free" society.

I think there can be.

Not here, not in Europe,
Russia, the African continent or the Pacific Rim. Because in order for us to
have "freedom", there have to be mutually agreeable rules about how we live
together.

That's called "responsibility". Freedom and responsibility are linked.

Our own society is already so morbidly regimented with laws drafted to
supposedly protect "everyones" rights that we're afraid to say ANYthing for
fear that someone will file some sort of charges agaisnt us for having
violated
their "rights".

You mean like calling an incompetent president "Shrub"?

You actually have the temerity to suggest that actually participating IN
the democratic process is no different than expressing disrespect for our
leaders?

I have the honesty to say clearly that a key element of the democratic
process
is being able to criticize those in power and their policies. Including
Shrub
and including *any* of his policies. Even if you think it's disrespectful.

So...You're saying it's impossible to criticize the President of the
United States or question his policies without calling him "Shrub" or an
idiot?

Not impossible at all. But if it's OK to call a president "Slick Willy" and
"liar", then it's OK to call another one "Shrub" and "idiot".

Unless you have a double standard, that is.

You called Clinton "Slick Willy", but say that calling Bush "Shrub" is akin
to
treason. That's a clear double standard.

Perhaps.

No perhaps about it. It's exactly the situation.

..However Bill Clinton was caught over and over and over again in
blatant lies and deceit. And his lies were not intended to guide American
policies or promote an agenda...They were intended solely to save his hide.

So what? To some people (not me), those lies were not a big deal because they
were about his *personal* life.

"Bull****" was the right word. If Cheney can tell a reporter to "@#$%
off",
what's the problem?

It was wrong for him too...

But you support him because he's a Republican.

I support them because the last President made a mockery of the office
of President with his blatant disregard for that office.

And this one continues the tradition in grand style.

Uh huh...Right.

Glad you agree.

I have stated clearly that there are mistakes being made.

Shrub doesn't admit them. I don't think he even sees them.

No president
since Washington has been without them...At elast when THIS President
speaks,
he's talking about the business of the government...Not how he's gonna
squirm
out of yet another embarrassing lie.

You mean like the embarrassing lies about WMDs, or connections to terror, or
"mission accomplished", or fiscal responsibility....

Still no evidence of some ulterior motive or active deceit, Jim. Worse
case senario you cn say he made bad decisions.

Bad decisions = incompetence.

I just thought you more apt and able to express yourself without it,
Jim.

I'm just following Our Vice President's shining example of statesmanship.

That's really childish, Jim. Really.

Why? If it's OK for the VP, why isn't it OK for me? *He* works for *us*, not
the other way around.

You promote yourself as an educated and learned person, Jim.

Where? I don't wave my education around - it took several years before I even
mentioned it here.

Were you lying about that? Are you NOT able to express your opinions
without blatant profanity?

So there's one standard for me and a different one for Cheney.

No, Jim...it was not "fear of the truth"...it was a newfound wonderment
as
to why so much emphasis is put on post-graduate education when I see so
many
around me who can't communicate without profanity.

Where did Cheney go to school?

What does it matter?

He's in charge. I'm not.

I am disappointed in YOU, Jim.

But not in him.

Nice try at diversion.
Didn't work.

As for mistakes the President has made, I once again re-iterate (and
dare
you to find and quote a post wherein I say otherwise) that I acknowledge
that
mistakes are being made. This President is not mistake free or fool proof.

He thinks he is. That's the problem.

Show me ONE speech or interview wherein the President of the United
States
(this one or any before him) said they think they are without fault or error.

In one of the debates, Shrub was clearly and directly asked if he had made any
mistakes while in office. He couldn't think of any, except that maybe he'd made
a mistake in appointing certain people to certain jobs.

You expressed a comment that states a "known fact". ("He thinks he
is").
Please provide me some corroboration of that.

See above. He's arrogant and incompetent. He takes an extremely narrow margin
of victory as a mandate to do whatever he wants and ignore the opposition.

I pray we can make it to 2008.

73 de Jim, N2EY

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