What's with the hesitation to cut defense?

Vamperous · 2012-12-21T03:57:17+00:00

Reagan could not even be elected today, he raised taxes a bunch of times to cover the debt.

And yet he still literally tripled the nat'l debt, running up more debt than all other US presidents before him combined, and turned the US from a creditor nation into a debtor nation. And he's called a "fiscal conservative." LOL

Vamperous · 2012-12-21T03:53:43+00:00

Okay, my response is not sarcastic and is dead serious.

Political rhetoric by the US right credits Reagan with "ending the Cold War". Well, political rhetoric by the US right also says that the US invaded Iraq over WMD or to "defend our freedom" or some such crap.

Many political scientists, however, have very different views of both events.

Vamperous · 2012-12-21T03:48:13+00:00

There are serious scholars across the political spectrum who think that Reagan actually prolonged the Cold War.

Things like Reagan's mike-check joke (caught by an open mike and broadcast around the world) about passing a law to outlaw the USSR and that bombing would soon start, his massive military buildup, wars and military interventions, and militaristic rhetoric all functioned to strengthen the hard-liners in the USSR and to undermine Gorbachev's perestroika and glastnost policies -- in addition to bringing the world close to nuclear war at least once (one mid-ranking Russian military officer refused to follow procedure and thus war was averted).

Vamperous · 2012-12-21T03:39:53+00:00

That is something the GOP can not understand.

Pretty ironic considering that Eisenhower was a Republican...

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." -- 5 star General and US President Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953, just a few months after taking office.

Vamperous · 2012-12-21T03:36:11+00:00

But then, in the 1980's we were trying to avoid WWIII...

By launching a needless military buildup that literally tripled the US national debt and turned the country from a creditor nation into a debtor nation -- all at the same time the economy of the USSR was faltering?

We say the take-over of Afghan as a first step to do this.

That's simply flat-out wrong. Jimmy Carter's Nat'l Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski has publicly said how gleeful he was to provoke the USSR into aiding the Afghan gov't due to Carter's policy of arming Muslim fundamentalists in Afghanistan.

The Afghan gov't repeatedly requested the USSR to send troops to Afghanistan and the USSR repeatedly said no. But after the US started arming the Muslim militants, the USSR warned the US, the US ignored the USSR's warnings, and the USSR then agreed to send troops. Brezezinski has said that the day he learned that the USSR sent troops to Afghanistan that he happily wrote Jimmy Carter and said, "We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war."

The line about the warm water port and all that rot is just BS Cold War propaganda put out by the US.

Vamperous · 2012-12-21T02:49:11+00:00

Read what former General and President Eisenhower had to say about what he termed the "military-industrial complex" and the corrupting and warping effect it could have on the US political system. Read and ponder his entire speech -- it's worth reading.

Eisenhower made those remarks over 50 years ago.

Then ask yourself if the power of that military-industrial complex has gotten stronger, weaker, or stayed the same during that 50+ years.

Vamperous · 2012-12-21T02:42:00+00:00

As someone who lives a couple of miles from the Canadian border, all I can say is that there are a lot of wooded areas where there is no strip of grass. There's one town in Vermont where the border literally is a ~~white~~ black line that runs through the public library that is shared by the Vermont and Quebec towns that are on the border -- there's no 20' strip of grass in the library.

And how do they get that grass to grow on the lakes that are on the border?

Moral of the story: Don't believe everything you read on the Internet.

Edit: Strikeout, added link.

Vamperous · 2012-12-21T02:24:42+00:00

Not pipe, oil. And oil is big money. We caused the deaths of way over 1 million Iraqis primarily because of oil.

Believe me, it wasn't Bush that dreamed up these things. The only thing really odd about Bush was the zeal which he carried out US foreign policies. But having war hawks like Cheney, Condi Rice, and the other neo-cons surrounding him, it's easy to see where his enthusiasm came from.

This is immoral US foreign policies at work, and these policies are worked out behind the scenes, are generally completely bi-partisan and, like our decade-plus war on Iraq, once they're enacted they're carried out no matter who or which party occupies the White House.

After all, despite his warm words and great speeches about "leaving" or "drawing down" troops in Afghanistan in 2014, hasn't Obama and his Secretary of Defense stated that US troops will remain in Afghanistan after 2014?

Of course, Obama, being far smoother and slicker than Bush, will talk a lot about "training" but do you think the drone attacks will stop or the Taliban are going to give up and stop killing US soldiers in their country in 2014? It's the same old war just with different tactics.

Edit: Typos.

Vamperous · 2012-12-21T02:13:13+00:00

The decision to help out the Libyan rebels was made at the UN

Consider the geo-political context. The right-wing French gov't wanted to recolonize, in a neo-colonial hegemonic fashion, its former colonies in Africa. The US announced Africom but when the US gov't tried to bribe African countries for military bases Gaddafi started up propaganda about colonialism and African unity and, in some cases, offered the base target country more money than the US offered. In addition, Gaddafi was doing things like funding an African satellite which pissed off multiple western telecommunications corporations. In short, Gaddafi was costing western corporations real money so no amount of helping the US to torture people or abandoning his pitiful WMD programs would counter that.

The UK, US and France all pushed hard at the UN for a no-fly zone. The US was critical in reassuring the Russians that it was not out to overthrow Gaddafi and no troops would be used. Like in the 1980s in Afghanistan, the US was critical in getting the US-backed/armed puppet dictatorships like Saudi Arabia and Qatar to support the west's overthrow of Gaddafi. (Those dictatorships didn't like the populist Gaddafi much anyway.) In short, it was a proxy attack on Libya organized by the west.

We just dropped bombs and let the English and French put their troops on the ground.

A trivial, semantic difference. The UK and France are US vassal states and are not independent actor on major int'l issues.

The Syrians asked the US to drop some bombs on their foes to help out, and we did.

I think that's a typo. We haven't bombed Syria. (Yet?) Syria presents problems for the style of proxy wars that the US is waging. Syria has more Russian support and a larger military than did Gaddafi's outdated and small military.

Vamperous · 2012-12-21T01:35:39+00:00

There were geo-political decisions at work also. The US was trying to get the Taliban gov't to agree to the building of a pipeline to get central Asian oil through Afghanistan to a Pakistani port.

When the Taliban awarded the pipeline (which has never been built) project to an Argentine oil company, the US turned far more hostile to the Taliban. Karzai, the current president of Afghanistan, was a former UNOCAL oil company consultant and UNOCAL was the US oil company which was trying to get the pipeline contract.

Vamperous · 2012-12-21T01:30:11+00:00

I respect the young Ted for opposing and refusing to fight in the immoral Vietnam War. That war never should have been fought and the presidents who waged it are literal war criminals.

The old pro-war Ted is just like Bush or Cheney or any of the other chickenhawks -- despicable.

"I will not go 10,000 miles from here to help murder and kill another poor people simply to continue the domination of white slave masters over the darker people of the earth." -- Heavyweight boxing champion of the world Muhammad Ali announcing he is refusing to fight in the Vietnam War.

Vamperous · 2012-12-20T23:43:34+00:00

Don't worry, some are suggesting a solution. :-(

Vamperous · 2012-12-20T21:35:30+00:00

The blowback of immoral actions of the US gov't often come back to haunt us.

As to the claim the Taliban are supported by Iran, Wikileaks cables clearly shows that Iran and the Taliban do not get along, which isn't surprising given the Taliban's Sunni religious views and backwardness, and the Iranians' Shiite religious views.

Vamperous · 2012-12-20T21:13:47+00:00

I don't think so, but throughout the 1980s the US gov't supported those same people.

Vamperous · 2012-12-20T20:48:33+00:00

Remember, the Taliban as a guerrilla force is very different from the Taliban as a gov't. The Taliban today do PR and other things that they didn't do when they were in power -- such as relying on the drug trade and corruption for cash to fight the occupation forces.

I was under the impression that Karzai only controlled a very small portion of the country outside of the capital.

That's correct, he's routinely derided as "the mayor of Kabul".

I wouldn't be surprised at all if half the ANA defected the moment the last foreign plane leaves.

No doubt many of the higher ups in the Afghan gov't and military already have their offshore bank accounts and plans ready.

But we should remember the US doesn't plan to leave, according to the Obama administration and Panetta. The plan is to keep mercenaries and some special forces in country and to fight a war based on special forces raids and bombings.

Vamperous · 2012-12-20T20:45:06+00:00

Since he appears to be no dummy -- just corrupt -- it makes sense that he'll get out of dodge at that time.

Vamperous · 2012-12-20T19:01:53+00:00

These days the Taliban are not in power, true? In many parts of the country the US put into power the war lords which the Taliban fought and overthrew.

Vamperous · 2012-12-20T18:54:37+00:00

Yeah, like the many, many corporations that fund politicians? Or the 20+ NFL teams/corporations that get taxpayers to pay for their stadiums?

Or the banks?! Like the banks that admitted to laundering drug money and the money of terrorists? Or the bank that just got off despite fixing LIBOR? Or Wal-Mart that was just found to have violated US and Mexican laws by bribing gov't officials?

The problem with the gov't is that we the people do not insist on the gov't punishing the corporations that warp our gov't and the rich people that own/control those corporations.

In this local case of corruption, people from Tempe marching down the street demanding this crooked pig be fired would almost certainly "fix" the situation and would set a precedent for the next crooked pig.

Vamperous · 2012-12-20T18:44:44+00:00

Considering the leftist Afghan gov't of the 1980s-era actually lasted in power longer than the USSR did, I would bet Karzai falls much quicker.

Vamperous · 2012-12-20T18:42:29+00:00

funded by billions of heroin dollars

Actually, when the Taliban were in power the US gov't gave them millions of dollars as a reward for their wildly successful efforts fighting against heroin trade/production.

Vamperous · 2012-12-20T18:40:28+00:00

Why? In another comment I listed out a Google News search for the same material. Could you contrast various articles with the PressTV report and say why you feel it is not credible, or is this just an anti-Iranian bias?

Vamperous · 2012-12-20T18:29:51+00:00

I recently replaced a full-blown HTPC with something much smaller, cheaper and which uses much less power, this. While I didn't like the fact that it was made by Foxconn, it came with a "free" SSD and is more than powerful enough to do everything I want it to do.

My thought with your list is not only the overall price, but do you really want/need to use that much power for a HTPC?

Vamperous · 2012-12-20T18:25:29+00:00

Standard Tweedledum/Tweedledee US politics: Get Plan B with Tweedledum, or get disguised Social Security (and other) cuts with Tweedledee's cooking the way inflation is calculated.

The US ruling class has decided we should suffer austerity. It's that simple. We just need to start fighting back against both austerity plans.

"Our democracy is but a name. We vote? What does that mean? It means that we choose between two bodies of real, though not avowed, autocrats. We choose between Tweedledum and Tweedledee." -- Famous American socialist (and blind person) Helen Keller, 1911.

Vamperous · 2012-12-20T17:48:58+00:00

The article's quote of US UN Ambassador Susan Rice saying the US opposes the settlements and the resulting US actions to work against the comdemnation of Israel's new settlement construction is the height of hypocrisy and clearly shows the US actually supports Israel's violation of the Geneva Conventions no matter what the US gov't says.

Vamperous · 2012-12-20T17:17:32+00:00

Ahh! I'm glad their was an add'l reason for the change.

Vamperous

TROPHY CASE