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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SirRealist who wrote (40451)	8/28/2002 1:05:55 AM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

I suspect Stalin had a nuclear bomb. He was far more threatening to our security and world security, and murdered more inside and outside his country than Hussein ever will, and we were -even the US public- quite willing to nuke him if he tried to use his bomb. Cheney's arguing that the US public can't ever be trusted to defend itself He had, he was, he did, and we were deterred. That is why the world rested on the hair-trigger of the Cold War for forty years, and central and eastern Europe were abandoned to their fates. Not the most convincing argument for repeating the arrangement on a smaller scale, even leaving Al Qaeda's potential out of the picture.

To: SirRealist who wrote (40451)	8/28/2002 2:11:19 AM
From: KLP	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

For some reason, the Cuban Missile Crisis came to mind...link: nsa.gov To the Brink On October 22, President Kennedy appeared on television and announced the U-2 findings to an anxious public. Despite assurances from the Soviet government that the buildup was defensive in nature, he said, medium-range and intermediate-range ballistic missiles had been introduced into Cuba. He called for their withdrawal or elimination. As one measure to solve the crisis, he proclaimed a naval "quarantine" of Cuban ports to prevent the introduction of additional Soviet armaments. Kennedy also warned that further actions might be needed if the buildup of offensive weapons continued. SIGINT collectors listened to the radio messages to and from the Soviet vessels on their way to Cuba. Would they turn around, or would they challenge the U.S. Navy "quarantine" that the president had imposed on Cuba? A cordon of U.S. Navy vessels awaited the Soviet cargo vessels in the Atlantic. Conflict between them, if it happened, carried with it the possibility of escalation into a wider war between the two superpowers. Full-Length Synopsis Prelude The Cuban Arms Buildup The Crisis Grows The NSA Response To the Brink The Fever Breaks -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cuban Missile Crisis Page .

To: SirRealist who wrote (40451)	8/28/2002 2:36:56 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Another take on Coulter Editors' Links The Bold and the Boring By Jesse Walker Ann Coulter, the Karen Finley of the right, has stirred up a tempest again, this time for telling The New York Observer that her "only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building." Her comment was immediately branded outrageous, offensive, and horrible; many drew comparisons to her infamous statement , in the immediate aftermath of September 11, that "we should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity." (In the same paragraph, she called for killing civilians, but this prompted little outrage. These days, religion is more controversial than slaughter.) Not everyone has been so literal-minded. Former Forbes editor Melik Kaylan sticks up for the lady pundit in The Wall Street Journal, writing, "Why would anybody even pretend to believe that Ms. Coulter wishes any real harm to the New York Times or wishes to convert all Muslims forcibly to Christianity?" He has a point, though it'll be a long time before you see the Journal extend it to Eminem or Ted Rall. The chief trouble I have with Coulter is not that she goes overboard with her invective. It's that she picks such dull targets. Listening to Coulter attack Those Darn Liberals (they're all weaklings who hate America , dontcha know) and then pat herself on the back for her bravery is like hearing some insufferable lefty drone on about "the threat posed by the Christian Right" or watching a performance artist boldly stand up against the social mores of the 1950s. The debates between Coulter and her counterparts on the left seem to take place in some alternate universe where Walter Mondale and Jerry Falwell still tower against the horizon - where Bill Clinton shares the principles of George McGovern and Ann Coulter lives the lifestyle preached by Phyllis Schlafly. The resulting fog obscures some far more interesting issues, like whatever happened to the federalist ideals Coulter sometimes espoused before September 11 turned her into a post-op Spiro Agnew - or, more immediately, what other comments in that New York Observer article were jokes. Specifically: Does she really think Dick Cheney is "extremely sexy"? Or was that just more irony? Associate Editor Jesse Walker is author of Rebels on the Air: An Alternative History of Radio in America (NYU Press). reason.com

To: SirRealist who wrote (40451)	8/28/2002 8:59:07 AM
From: Ilaine	Respond to of 281500

I suspect Stalin had a nuclear bomb. He was far more threatening to our security and world security, and murdered more inside and outside his country than Hussein ever will, and we were -even the US public- quite willing to nuke him if he tried to use his bomb. We screwed up royally letting Stalin get the bomb (1949 - damn Klaus Fuchs for eternity). Once he did, the Soviets could do anything behind their iron curtain, and we were too damned scared to help them. I won't patronize you by telling you what happened to Eastern Europe afterwards because I hope you know your history. The famous iron curtain came down before then, but countries like Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia tried to install democratic regimes and the Soviets sent the tanks in and we sat on our hands. That's what deterrence means in this context.