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

To: Brumar89 who wrote (215346)	1/28/2007 11:22:04 PM
From: Katelew	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

Pretty clear it won't be communism. Someday that will be a sad chapter in human history Communism is simply a revolt by the masses of poor in a country to overthrow and redistribute the wealth held by a ruling elite. It's pretty crappy if you are one of that small class of the wealthy. But what communism accomplishes, often in one generation, is to bring across the board education, health care, and new sets of job skills to those masses of poor. I don't know if that's any sadder a chapter in human history than the preceding chapter of oppression, exploitation, and indifference to the poor. It's hard for the average American to view communism without extreme prejudice because this country was founded and developed in such a unique manner.

To: Brumar89 who wrote (215346)	1/29/2007 12:27:00 AM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Brumar, re: "Hey, here's a question for you - do you think Putin was lying when he said Russian intelligence had received word Saddam's government was plotting terror attacks against the US?" let me answer your question with a question: Is Russia in a stronger or weaker world position now that we've mucked up Iraq, lost a huge amount of prestige and influence in the world, spent a huge amount of our resources, taken the terrorist bulls eye off Russia and put it on ourselves, lost our oil pricing power in the Middle East, increased the price of Russia's exported oil and natural gas by a factor of 4-5x, increased Russian influence in Iran and the Middle East exponentially, and created budding new alliances AGAINST the US? But of course the Russians aren't clever about the world, they didn't learn anything from the trap we set for them in Afghanistan, and they'd never lie, would they? Sure, W met Putin, looked into his eyes and lo, he beheld a "good" man. But your simplistic views on that issue are understandable, after all it is you who's doing the thinking. What's not so easily understood is your other statement, i.e.: "Whoever we killed in the VN conflict, it was for trying to impose their system on people who didn't want it." But we weren't there trying to protect the S. Vietnamese from N. Vietnamese and Viet Cong soldiers who were "trying to impose their system on people who didn't want it." Maybe no one told you but one of the things we promised long before the war heated up was that we'd allow elections and let the Vietnamese choose what system they wanted and whether to unify. We reneged on that promise. I bet that even you can guess why we refused to keep our promise. A majority of Vietnamese rejected what we offered. More importantly, a huge majority of those willing to fight and die for their preference ended up fighting and dying to oppose us and, ultimately, they prevailed and made a much better life for their people. Almost 60,000 American soldiers died in Vietnam and millions of Vietnamese perished. If there was anything of value to be gained from those deaths it lay in the lesson we should have learned. Your unwillingness to learn that plain lesson does a disservice to every man woman and child who died there.....every one of them and the ones dying in Iraq as well. You'd probably learn it if you were doing the dying but I suspect there is some fundamental defect in the brains of those who will not learn that lesson when others are dying. That's too bad but it's no excuse. Ed

To: Brumar89 who wrote (215346)	1/29/2007 8:18:42 AM
From: GST	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

<We could have continued to go after terrorists as a primary goal> Your reply: "How about the terrorists Saddam was sheltering?" It sad to see anybody at this stage of the game still trying to perpetrate this hoax. You are either dumb beyond all measure or 100% committed to the perpetuate the disinformation campaign that flowed from Cheney's rear end.

To: Brumar89 who wrote (215346)	1/29/2007 8:20:17 AM
From: GST	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

<they will choose their own path -- whatever that might be> They already have done that -- they decided to be one country instead of accepting the French partition of their country. We tried to stop them from having their country back -- and killed millions of civilians along the way. But in the end it was and is their country.

To: Brumar89 who wrote (215346)	1/29/2007 8:21:59 AM
From: GST	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

<China isn't seeking to spread communism around the world anymore either> So a country that seeks to export their political system via invasion and war makes them bad? Let me see, we are in Iraq doing what again? As for Vietnam, they were not trying to export anything. They were trying to kick out the US just as they kicked out the French before us. They got half their country back from France. They got the other half back from us. Now they have it all -- their own country. A country called Vietnam where Vietnamese people live. A place where we give them all the respect and recognition we give to other countries. The only difference is that we made millions of them die for them to earn the right to be a country. I don't think that makes them 'inhuman', using your words. I think it makes them Vietnamese. As for our role, their is nothing noble about the millions of women and children we slaughtered in their own country. If there is anything inhuman about our war in Vietnam it was the slaughter, the horror and the tragedy of the millions of innocents who paid with their lives.

To: Brumar89 who wrote (215346)	1/29/2007 9:35:08 AM
From: GST	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

<do you think Putin was lying when he said Russian intelligence had received word Saddam's government was plotting terror attacks against the US?> Do you think Putin was lying when he said that his government had nothing to do with the assassination of Russians who are critical of him? Or do you believe what you believe when it suits you? Putin also said that he did not believe Iraq still had any WMD -- did you believe that? The absolute lack of evidence of any credible connection linking Saddam to anything worth considering for even one second launching an invasion and setting in motion a catastrophic meltdown of the region -- catastrophic for us -- is laughable, except that it is tragic. Your attempts at whitewashing this catastrophe are as endless as they are vacuous. Cheney put together an office for promoting the smallest slimmest and sometimes fabricated 'intelligence' on Iraq -- and you take that crap to this day and read from Cheney's little red book of lies like it forms the basis for a sound decision to invade Iraq. If not for the endless killing and the terrible cost of this war in every sense, it might be worth a good belly laugh to think that you would expect anybody to still be repeating the same old BS. But there is nothing funny about the outcome.