Oh, you are *not* citing The Day After as a source. We won't even mention the buy-in to the Vietnam canard. Also, "the only time in recorded history"? Has the threat suddenly dissipated? Or did you mean to say "first" time?
You were talking about how the threat was written being elevated now, right? It seems it was being written large back in the day, to the point that there were massive protests about it on a regular basis. Vietnam was all about how the threat was written. We were there because of the threat as it was perceived, not for any other reason such as economic or resource gain. It killed somewhere between 2-4 million people. There are 1/8th the number of active warheads there was at the height of the cold war. They aren't constantly pointed only at each other, and we aren't at DEFCON 2 every time a flock of geese are picked up by NORAD. Nuclear armed ships aren't playing chicken with each other, nuclear firing controls aren't being given to enlisted men, and the militaries of the two superpowers that can blow up the world aren't every now and then actively trying to kill each other, like they did in Korea where US and Soviet pilots were directly engaged. Yeah, I'd say the threat has dissipated. It's not entirely gone, but it isn't an active part of our day to day awareness like it was for several decades.
Granted, it was how it was written...in the mainstream media at the time. Unless you're about to argue that "the MSM" only developed a tendency to slant the news within the past decade or so, you have to make allowances for this little thing called "propaganda." It's easy enough now, with a multiplicity of sources, to see that the press releases from the Johnson White House RE: the Gulf of Tonkin was skewed a particular way to make it look like the start of WW III, but it wasn't that clear at the time. Just as Saddam Hussein was imbued with the power to drop nukes on the continental U.S., if you believed the propaganda from a decade ago. Still, with a little bit of thought, you could say "Wait a minute. A teensy little country that can't even grow enough rice to feed its people is suddenly a threat to us? Aren't we supposed to be the Best Damn Country in the World?" One-eighth the number of active warheads under the control of major powers. And, yeah, detection has improved. But then there are all those other wild cards like India that have the toys, but not the safeguards or necessarily the wisdom to understand that they're not toys.
Wait... showing a "flagrant disregard" for the people of the nation you represent is enough basis for calls for that representative to step down? Obama, I call upon you to step down.
Again, 'non-military' aid is VERY much open to interpretation. It could be argued that all we ever gave to the insurgency was 'cash and non-military aid.' Too young to be fully indoctrinated by it yes, old enough to have studied it. By Special Forces do you mean members of a US Army Special Forces Group were in Afghanistan? Or just Special Operators in general? Or CIA Paramilitary trainers? What does it being official have to do with our responsibility? Whether official or covert we were still there egging the Soviets to invade. Bullshit. There is a damn ocean of difference between halting trade with and fomenting and funding an insurgency against. Maybe instead of rejecting the idea b/c it disagrees with your preconceived notions of Carter, you should reexamine that premise. Again I wish I had my copy of From the Shadows with me, but one thing Robert Gates points out is that in his opinion the commonly held beliefs about Carter and the Cold War are dead wrong. From a WashPost article on the book when he became SecDef: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/22/AR2007012201181.html
Oh it does, does it? Perhaps you should share some of that secret knowledge of yours with the rest of us.
Only if you were being extraordinarily intellectually dishonest. US made stinger missiles bought with US funding, with training by US operatives qualifying as 'non-military aid?' Sorry, doesn't wash, and you know it. Operation Cyclone was the largest CIA covert op in history, and it definitely supplied military aid. It explicitly stated as such, and was funded by the House Appropriations subcommittee for Defense. LOL, OK Anc. Well, having grown up in it AND having studied in it, your assertion that the US intelligence community regarded the coup in Afghanistan by avowed marxists as just another change in Afghani leadership like so many before is completely wrong. It was viewed as a possible thrust by the Soviets toward the Persian Gulf by many intelligence analysts. The subsequent invasion seemed to confirm this. It's easy to look back with hindsight, but any communist uprising near the Persian Gulf during the height of the energy crisis was bound to get Langley's attention in a big way. C'mon, you know that's true. Don't argue for it's own sake. CIA Special Activities Department paramilitary trainers. The group still exists, I'm sure you are familiar with it. Michael G. Vickers is widely considered to be the expert credited for implementing the strategies and weapons employed. The only evidence of such is a interview in a foreign paper that the interviewee himself disavows. Gates book doesn't say as such. Washington is certainly not a monolithic entity. The best you could say is that the National Security Director was playing a deep game that the President, CIA and State didn't support. Gates book does say Brzezinski wanted to start arming the rebels prior to the invasion but that the State department stopped it, as they were convinced that the Soviets wouldn't invade and that the Wheat program was working to ease tensions. Bullshit. We didn't fund an insurgency against the Soviets. They had no moral authority to send in the Hinds, BMPs and T-55s. They were asked in, yes. But they were asked in by a government that had seized power in a military coup, and were suppressing a popular uprising. Tens of thousands of Afghanis died in the prisons of the Taraki regime of the PDPA. And they were asked in to help continue that oppression. They were already funding and arming the PDPA at that time. The escalation was their choice. Morally, they don't have a leg to stand on. And if you argue realpolitik for their actions, you are ceding the same premise to the US actions. Of course, the Soviets were acting on realpolitik. How do we know that? The President of Afghanistan, who requested their assistance, was assassinated by the KGB within months of the Soviet invasion. See Hafizullah Amin. I don't disagree with any of that. Carter was a man of peace, but there's no denying he came from a military background. And I've read a number of times that he started many of the initiatives that Reagan finished, including that of providing arms to the Afghans after the Soviet invasion. That doesn't change the fact no arms were sent prior to the invasion, that the State department publicly accused Brzezinski of trying to restart the Cold War (which appeared to be waning at the time), and that State successfully blocked arms going to the rebels prior to the invasion - and that the final decision on that had to rest on Carter. If you wanted to ensure an invasion, that would have been the way to do it, don't you think? Prior to the invasion, the Cold War appeared to be winding down - SALT II had just been negotiated, the US was actively shipping wheat to Moscow to help with food shortages there, and the Summer Games were awarded to Moscow, an unprecedented move. After the invasion, it super-heated. Which do you think Jimmy Carter would have preferred? He doesn't have to a weak man to chose the former over the later.
Here's at least one view that jibes with my own personal view on the subject from my readings, by Michael Rubin, a Ph.D with many books on the subject and the editor of Middle East Quarterly from 2004-2009. Here's an article from 2002 prior to him assuming the editorship about the fallacy of any direct CIA-AQ link, and it goes into some detail on the events surrounding the Soviet Invasion on p5-9: http://meria.idc.ac.il/journal/2002/issue1/mrubin.pdf wiki has a good (though perhaps not neutral) article on Operation Cyclone, and the escalation of aid to the Mujahadeen is covered in the book Charlie Wilson's War (the movie as I understand it took some liberties). I've only read paraphrasing on Gates' book, I'll take a look at that when I can.
I don't see how that is bigotry at all. One has to wonder if there are smart people running things. Are these same smart type people making their traffic laws? When you see 17 people hanging out a bus window, its shows a complete disregard for any kind of safety or respect for human life.
Even if we had launched on Russia or them on us, it would not have been the end of the human race, just the end of a large part of the US and USSR for a long time. Just because two countries launch on each other does not mean that everybody else is going to launch as well. At one time it was my job to calculate human survivability ratios for areas around USAF bases. There was and still is a lot of hype and unproven theory out there. Things like nuclear winter, etc. A lot has to do with the type of impact. If its an air burst from a mile high, that causes the maximum amount of are to be devastated, but with a minimum amount of radioactive fallout. A ground burst causes devastation to a much, much smaller area but maximum fallout. The idea for both us and Ruskie was to take out larger areas as quickly as possible. Ground bursts don't serve much purpose. I mean, if the enemy is within the 3-5 mile area of the ground burst then he is done, but if he is 15 miles out, and has anything, he will have time to launch it before he dies in the secondary kill (radiation poisoning).
In this country called Libya, perhaps you've heard of it? They're having a civil war and it looks like the rebels are knocking on the doors of the capital.
It's no secret. A person with a modicum of intelligence can study up on the Indian government's idea of "security" at nuclear facilities.
Which is why I seldom take you seriously. When you're ready to act like an adult, we can continue this conversation. In the meantime, Google Dr. Gopalakrishnan...if you're grown up enough to spell it correctly.
In other news: Hamas would agree to immediate ceasefire with Israel Could be another case of SSDD, or not. Wonder what the Israeli response will be...
Are you? Your Google must be broken. Glad to help: There are over 5,000 additional articles. Too bad you can't get to them.
Margaret's not online at the moment, but while we wait for her to answer you, I'll ask you why you only got your panties in a bunch now, and not when Shoes and Demi, et al. were discussing everything from WWII to Vietnam upthread.
So they fire 70+ missiles killing one and wounding other civilians. They send an infiltration group that kills 8 more and wounds dozens and now when they're about up get decimated they want a cease fire. Fuck em. Let Israel bomb the shit out them, then we'll have a cease fire.
I just found it interesting that they were willing to go with Egyptian intervention...the new Mubarak-free Egypt. Side effect of the Arab Spring? Fascinating to watch, in any event. The irony would be that every other nation in the ME settles down to some sort of rapprochement, and Israel is still the flashpoint...
Absolutely nothing. It's a country of over a billion people. Did you imagine there was only one person with the same last name? Besides, KIRK has decreed that from hereon we can only talk about Libya in this thread. You want to talk about India, you'll have to start another thread.
Margaret, you are such a fucking drama queen. Not surprising since you are really have no life outside of WF and TBBS. Keep trying though. It's always good to see your never example of an "improved" poster... well at least according to Tamar.
Hey darling I just followed your direction. Silly me I would think that a guy publicly exposing shoddy security at India's Nuclear Arsenal would rate higher on google than a yoga instructor. We're done here your bigotry has been exposed for all to see.
Because you don't understand how number of hits affects Google ratings? Yeah, I'd believe that. Excellent. See ya! Although now that I know you choose to interpret "criticism of government programs" as "bigotry," I'll be sure to call you on that.
Really? Getting paid to write Star Trek books is "having no life?" What kind of life do you have, KIRK?
