describing a position on the political spectrum is only an attack, if you feel ashamed of it. And your lack of knowledge vis-a-vis communism, is beyond grotesque... Every war since WWII outside the middle east, has some underlying component of the hot underside of the Cold War. In fact, it's fairly accurate to note that the American anti war left of the later Vietnam era has the blood of the Cambodian Genocide on their hands. in fact, they're still using the Khmer Rouge's rhetoric... But hey, it's not really marxist trope when the American left spouts it...
Bingo! World Wars that killed millions in a short period of time were to prevent world domination by very unsavory characters who wanted to destroy our way of life and had the means to do so. We're now fighting regional wars with bit players who don't really like anything about us except our money, again halfway around the world. And they never end! How long have we been in Afghanistan and how long in Iraq? And they just lost another cache of US- supplied weapons when the army again just walked away from the battle. The only real fighters in Iraq are Shiites loyal to Iran and their grudging allies... US. To be honest I just can't see the point of trying to help anyone in the middle east any more with the possible exception of the Kurds.
Sheesh. World domination by unsavory characters that want to eradicate our way of life and had the means to do so, and you place it's end at WW2? Did you miss the whole Communist/Cold War thing? You guys don't even catch the shit that IS being reported.... (Here's some real life context...Iran is accelerating it's program to develop nuclear weapons, Putin is expanding in places he's not wanted..(can you say Sudetenland all over again) and China is growing more bellicose, every day... Here's one you may have missed. (And it would have been easy..it was only on the front page of the friggin New York Times...(Drudge linked it too) China just learned a new trick. Miniaturization of nuclear warheads...you know...MIRV's (multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicles) 3 nukes to one ICBM. Maybe if you bothered to read progressive magazines (like The American Prospect)one of the major the underlying principles for spending so much coin in Iraq, was to make it a de-facto copy of Diego Garcia. A forward element of projecting power, with Iran the major consideration, but other elements as well. If you bothered to look at a map, and register some of the lefts own complaints, you'd get at least a small piece of the picture. We currently have bases completely ringing the planet (and large ones too).....and in todays geo-political climate, that is not necessarily a bad thing.
apparently without a dictionary, this sentence eluded you. And I see your math skills are quite degraded. there was no second moron. (until your chorus added members.) Yes, standing off Communism was completely antithetical to the interests of the American people. Clearly the policy of containment was a failure, eh comrade?
You can make all the assertions you want about my knowledge, or lack of same, about communism but that doesn't make them accurate. As a child of the cold war and a draftee in the sixties, I believe I have a better idea than you do about "the red peril", the "domino theory" and any other boogie man that sends you cowering under your bed You haven't earned the right to call people names regardless of how your juvenile self-righteousness feels the need. Any Cambodian genocide happened halfway around the world from American borders and without the imprimatur of the American people. All you chicken hawks who can blatantly ignore the abysmal history of meddling in the affairs of other nations and want to carry on the sad tradition of being the policemen of the world need to get out in front and send yourselves and your families, not mine.
Here's a quasi-government phrase for you, which as a big defense, big government guy you should appreciate describing your sacrifice - "intentionally left vague". It's not that important; neither is your counting of "moron", but not "moronic". I feel much more threatened by people like you than I ever did the possibility of the Russian army hitting the beaches of Long Island or the Jersey Shore. You'd make McCarthy proud.
Anyway... This thread has been interesting. I'm as anti-govt as your local conspiracy theory nutjob. I'm considering enlisting. I'm late twenties college graduate btw. Being in the service is a personal sacrifice. Sad that a lot of people in this country feel a need to shit on that.
They didn't need to draft me. volunteered. It takes an internet tough guy to call a Marine a chicken hawk...I suppose you'd have the same balls in bar? Somehow I doubt it. And no, quite the opposite in fact, your abject denial of facts that are more than open in light of recent history (Say the exposition of the Venona project) makes your denial of said facts shameful, and sad.(And FWIW I would say studying makes me more likely to at least having a majority ofthe facts right than you merely by virtue of being older than me...and not by all that much) Yes, the Cambodian Genocide happened half way around the world. So, I guess in your , if you actually meant to phrase it like that...some human rights are more equal than others? And yes, american left in this country made it impossible to fight the war in Vietnam (with help from Mother Russia see a couple pages back) and our withdrawal, and lack of political will led directly to the conditions on the ground that made the great "Agrarian" reform (read Genocide) possible. And as far the abysmal meddling in the affairs of other nations....It's a pretty good thing the French didn't have your parochial good sense, in the 18th century, or you'd still be speaking the Kings English.... And...it's always fun to end with yet more of the same. War, Miltary Buildup and Empire using the proletariat for the benefit of the Capitalists... Nope...not Marxist trope. Honest.
You really are ignorant. One, Parris Island..should not be that hard to decipher. I'm a Marine, long removed from duty, Two, you don't know half of what you think you do. The jersey shore, particularly Gateway National Recreation area, has a (now) defunct NIKE site buried in and around it. Specifically to protect NJ and NY from attack. http://nikemissile.org/sandyhook.shtml P.S. FWIW...Books can be a wonderful thing. You might try reading the Venona cables. The Roosevelt administration was riddled with communist spies, and supporters. White,Hopkins,Hiss...among them. Mrs. Roosevelt was also quite suspect... Eisenhower was the one who got McCarthy right, saying, he agreed with his notions, but not his methods. History, as told by no less an institution as the FBI, has you on the wrong side of history...again...
OK, that's enough remedial history for one night... I have to get up at 5 to go to the gym. Maybe you could try a library card. Witness by Whittaker Chambers would be a nice start...
I'm as small gov't as it gets.... Natural Right, and liberty and leave me the fuck alone. Sadly Iran and China currently have other agendas. If you enlist. Be a Marine bro.
They do have the coolest uniforms... but why should I listen to you? You can't even understand that 2 million Cambodian lives are worthless, they're not even halfway around the world in Europe or Jewish.
Ignorant? You have the balls to call me ignorant and then somehow believe you're going to school me on the existence of coastal missile batteries justifying the red threat of the fifties and sixties? Somehow you think that it still exists or is at least relevant today? I've been to Parris Island too but that doesn't mean I was ever a marine. If you say you were a marine, fine, you were a marine. I'd think you'd be a little less cavalier about sending our young people around the world to die. Maybe your time in the service was a period of relative calm and that somehow you regret not being more involved but that doesn't justify sending today's kids on fool's missions.
Best Uniforms of course, toughest training. Until you get to the extreme special type forces. But you'd still be SEAL eligible.
Lets agree to disagree peaceably. Iraq is a strategic piece of real estate that serves many functions, the mistake was not in Bush the younger going back. The mistake was Bush the Elder not finishing the job. The Saudi's would have supported him. Iraq separates Iran from Syria, and by extension, Hezbollah. Had we been in Iraq back in say 1990, we wouldn't be dealing with their nuclear aspirations at this level now. And that was long before China, and Russia started to get their dander up.... Had we been established Russia would not have so easily invaded Ukraine, in order to capture (though they already had agreements for it's use) Sevastopol, the warm weather port, with access to the Black Sea, and hence the Turkish straits and access to the Med. (where we are already having trouble with Russian aircraft)... Airbases in Iraq, makes it far easier for the forward projection of power by Aircraft Carrier, (think of the Airstrip building that took place during the Island hopping campaign in the Pacific during WW2. anyway...
Thanks for insulting the shit out of me personally, Hobbes (1st sentence is your direct quote from my post). I'm not one of your enemies, have rarely posted in any threads you've commented on and never argued with you. Thank you for showing me what others have apparently known for years. Thanks for telling me about the Cold War- never heard of it before. Thanks for telling me about Iran and Putin; I was completely in the dark until you told me. Thanks for telling me I'm too dumb to read the NY Times, that damned liberal rag. Thanks for pointing out that I'm too lazy to read even progressive magazines. I guess everything I know must've come to me in a dream. Enjoy sitting in your house, armed to the teeth, surrounded by electrified barb wire fencing with surveillance cameras filming everything. Make sure to be on High Alert when Jade Helm starts- it's obviously the beginning of that godless commie African Hitler Obama's taking over the country by force. There'll be armed soldiers outside every church in America making sure no Christian will ever pray again! I'll worry about Iran or China or Putin when they do something to threaten AMERICA- you know, us. Not Israel, Saudi Arabia, Korea, Ukraine or any of the over 100 countries we have our troops stationed in at our expense (apparently you think that's a good thing- I must be too dumb to understand that. My bad!) I'll sleep better now that I know you're vigilantly monitoring every country everywhere in the world to keep the entire world safe. I'll no longer worry about ISIS or the Iranian Navy breaking into my house in the middle of the night to torture me. What a relief- I haven't been able to sleep because of it! Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
When? Sheesh. Mentioning Iran, is too...facile to even waste time rebutting. However.. China.. (not some Right Wing Website...The NYT, fcol http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/20/w...hip-takes-hard-line-in-secret-memo.html?_r=3& Putin(Russia) http://www.forbes.com/sites/lorenth...sia-is-the-biggest-threat-to-america-in-2015/ Again, Forbes...not some right wing website.. (umm..Germany...1939 ring a bell...with Crimea playing the role of the Sudetenland.) And now they're cultivating Turkey... http://www.jamestown.org/programs/e...=43202&cHash=c7ff1433028ada988a21baea68d5ae79 The last steps to open access to the Atlantic, and escaping the ring of NATO. (which is fairly toothless, as the Ukraine can attest) I suppose the acts of provocation in the area of the Turkish straits, have just been all in good fun? Two virulently anti-western Communist nations, expanding outward, militarily...beginning to whip up nationalistic and party fervor at home, with us as their demon... Expanding militarily in both directions, towards...us.. Yeah...keep whistling past the graveyard. There are reasons we have fairly brutal sanctions on both Russia and Iran...do you think that's because we have nothing to fear from them?
I glanced at this screed of yours but I won't waste my time debating you any more. I know all I need to about you. You revel in arguing with and talking down to people you consider to be beneath you. You throw in multiple links to prove how well read you are and by extension how ignorant your "enemies" (i.e. fellow board members) are. You act like a bored college professor lecturing incoming freshmen about how dumb they are. It may shock you but I can read too- Forbes, NYT, BBC as well as Al Jazeera, RT, Xinhua for differing POVs. Yes, I've read books and newspapers, and I watched Cronkite report on the Vietnam war as a teenager. Was he a Khmer Rouge tool as well? Jeez, didn't realize that til you made me see the light. The most fearful I've ever been in my lifetime was when I watched with my father (a WW2 vet and conservative) as Nixon fired Archibald Cox in '73 and many people feared martial law would be declared. Tell me, Mr. Expert, exactly what will happen to THIS country if Iran has nukes? Do you think we would be their first target? or the second? or even the third? Don't you think our satellites and massive spy rings will detect a nuclear explosion? And if we can shoot down Russian missiles why wouldn't we be capable of shooting down one from Iran? Oh, I forgot- Iran is "too... facile" (ooh, big word- I bow to your intellectual superiority!) to discuss. Don't want to "waste your time". Let's change that to... don't you think we can shoot down a Chinese MIRV? Tell me- are the Chinese confronting us off the California coast or is it in the South China Sea, off THEIR coast? Is Putin sending troops to invade Jones Beach or is he sending troops to the Ukraine, right next to HIS country? I'm sure you're surprised but I do know what happened in 1939. Are we as close to China or Russia as France and England were to Germany? Ever hear of those little buffers we have, the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans? To paraphrase your words, do you know how to look at a map? It's easy! You believe Papa Bush should've finished the job and everything would be peachy keen now, with us happily ensconced in the center of the arab world- just like Bush, Cheney and Rummy thought in '01. Have you ever considered the idea that the exact same thing that's happening now would've happened 20 years earlier? Or is that outcome something you won't even consider since it doesn't fit your agenda? I have no interest in any reply you may write. I find you to be a pedantic "conservative" who believes in the Bush-Cheney doctrine of invading sovereign nations that may be potential threats to this country. As such I dismiss your opinions as drivel. A true conservative recoils at that notion. Stop pretending to be a paleocon and admit what you are- a belligerent, militant Neocon who thinks every country's business is our business. And keep your personal insults to yourself, the actual reason I engaged you here. I've spent many hours debating real conservatives (who would laugh in your face) and have never heard the insults you routinely throw out. Good- bye!
