pluto77189Interesting point – some authorities still mantain that his famous “We will bury you” was actually a mistranslation of “We will outlive you”.
Who can tell? :confused:
I just relish the irony of the sight of Paul MCartney playing in Red Square.
What do you think our friend Nikita would have said if he was told that the BEATLES(close enough) would play in Moscow?
pluto77189“And what exactly did he do to force this abandonment? I doubt there could have been any other result unless the west treated their former ally half as well as they treated their former enemies.”
Now there is a thought. Does anybody know exactly how NATO and the WP became such deadly enemies after fighting tooth and nail along side each other in WW2? My guess is total hatred by the yanks against anything remotely red. Fair enough Stalin wasn’t a great help but why did it carry on thus after he died? That said it seems certain that the Soviets had infiltrated almost every aspect of American life including some of the highest echelons of power. So maybe the Americans has some reason at least to be as paranoid about communism as they were.
One thing I can think of. My father remembers Kruschev(misspelled) banging his shoe, and him saying the “Your grandchildern will live under communisim” and “We will bury you.”
I think that at the very least made all americans determined to NOT live under communism.
Irony…His own SON is now an American Citizen.
I know he did a lot to get americans thinking even more negativly about communism, even if he was bluffing.
The principles of communism as just So against the core american values, and the thought of losing our freedom probably had a lot to do with the stance the US held.
I can only guess, I wasn’t around when Kruschiev was
pluto77189I was referring to the commision as being un-American. Fancy making the vice president look like a liar…
I remember seeing, a couple of years ago (maybe), TV footage of an American teacher explaining to her class that Saddam was responsible for all those who hijacked the airliners on 11/9/01, and why it was so important to rid the world of this monster. Had America still been friendly with Iraq at the time I wonder who else they could (and would) have blamed instead – Libya, North Korea, or Syria maybe?
I’d like to think that all those kids are now being instructed that teacher and government were wrong – Saddam was not guilty of that particular crime against humanity (loads of others but not that one). Won’t happen though.Flood.™
I would say you’er full of it, if I did not know the gullibility of the “masses”.
While the majority of Americans are NOT stupid, the “masses”, the large amoount of people who pay no attention to the world, and only care about their own lives…they are a different story. America affords these people th eABILITY to actually live in such a sheltered world. There are people inlarge cities that NEVER EVER leave the city, siply for the fact that they do not have to. They have ZERO clue as to what’s going on ANYWHERE.
Comedians will go out and interview people askking them questions about science, history or current events. It’s amazing how many people do not know who the president is, or who is the mayor of their city.
I have NEVER seen any source of iformation that said, with any data, that Saddam was involved in 9-11. The Governemnt still insists he had connections with Al-queda, but never have they said he was invloved in 9-11. The News has never said that. Yet somehow, it seems, a large amount of people think he was the one who ordered it!
It’s amazing what ignorance can do–people know just enough to make themselves look even “stupider”.
It’s definatly not most americans though, it’s probably the majority of city-dwelling Americans however, who kead very sheltered lives.
It ****es ME off when I hear people try to justify the war by saying they didn’t want Saddam to hit us AGAIN…. Ignorance.
The justifiability(is that a word) of the war can be argued for many other reasons, and saddam’s connection to TERRORISIM is one of those reasons. The POTENTIAL connection to al-queda is another POSSIBLE reason. His involvement in 9-11 WAS researched–as was probably every world leader–and found to NOT be likely. I simply do not understand how people can come to such a conclusion.
I bet it’s because we get hit, then go to war, so….naturally….we’re going to war to get the guy that hit us, right? ….idiots….makethe rest of US look like morons…
Although a UK survey DID find that 59% of UK citizens between 18-25 did not know who Churchill was. So I guess it isn’t solely an American problem.
pluto77189The Stryker is no POS. As a tank REPLACEMENT, yeah it is not up to the job. But for most of the conflicts we are in, it is far more practical. They have taken direct RPG hits, and all but two survived. Those went up in fire after fuel was ignited. I believe only one soilder was killed by an RPG strike, and a few by a grenade tossed in.
It’s doing its job very well. It’s just that it has a different job than a tank. Tanks are great, but the M1 weight 70 tons. SEVENTY TONS. That’s an incredible amount of weight, and is not for every situation.
We definatly need to pull troops out of Europe–they aren’t needed there. We should pull most of them out–keeping “enough” forward deployed, and the rest back here.
The US military has near-record recruitment right now, and they are having difficulties rotating people in and out of Iraq. Why? BEcause MOST of our troops are “needed” to run based that we don’t really “need” anymore.
I understand that it is a hit on the economies of the countries when we close a base. We have done it here many times. It shouldn’t affect relations with Germany. They will have to deal with the fact that we need to be more careful with tax money.
Keeping US military bases in areas where they aren’t needed is almost a form of social welfare–US taxpayer money goes to the citizens of the foreign country who depend on the military instalation for their livelihood. It is a great mutual partnership when there’s a soviet union next door, but when there is no therat of hordes of T55’s and T72’s streaking through the contryside… The only side benifiting is the local people–at MY expense.
pluto77189Every military source I have heard now says it was a missle(first they couldn’t believe a missle would lock, they thought it was a lucky AAA shell…same arrogance that led to the thing getting shot down!).
They used the same flight plan, over and over. The serbs, not being idiots, decided to put radar and missle units near this flight plan. The thing flew over, and they got a lock and shot it down. Nothing spectacular, since the whole reason for stealth is to minimize the ability of an enemy to see you and track you. This opens bigger holes in enemy air defense.
Flying a stealth aircraft very close to a radar site nullifies its advantage, and it’s no different to any aircraft then.
pluto77189[QUOTE=Ja Worsley]I agree with Ohadbx, US$150M up in smoke on Stealth research, I mean seriously why make a plane stealthy if you aren’t going to keep it that way what ever the threat level?
QUOTE]
The Air force has announced plans to increase internal AIM-120 carriage to 8 in future blocks of F-22’s.
The internal bays have been tested, and missles fired from them during mach 1+ speed, in all types of manuvering situatons. The external carriage is a new test, I believe.
It’s not ans un stealthy as it initially seems. Once the weapon/fuel tank is used up, the pylon can be jettisoned as well, and the mounting holes automatically covered up, bringing the plane to it’s full stealth configuration.
Not too useful with external missles, but very useful with external fuel tanks. The thing can fly in with 4 external tanks, and go “clean” before approaching enemy territory.
VERY useful.
pluto77189Or Palestinians in Rafah?
Or doesn’t the USA’s buddy Israel count as part of “The West”?
Actually, if the freedom of movement is such a big deal who can explain why only 1 in 5 Americans have a passport and that GWB had only left the country once (to Mexico, I believe) in his first 50-something years.
Mind you, they do say that “travel broadens the mind” 😀
I forgot the rest…
The point is we ARE free to go and do what we want. Most Americans just simply are perfectly happy with being where they are, in America, and see less need to travel.
Things are so beautiful here, we do not want to leave. We don’t live in a land whose miserable and oppressive conditions compel us to leave the borders at any given chance…hehe….
pluto77189Actually, if the freedom of movement is such a big deal who can explain why only 1 in 5 Americans have a passport and that GWB had only left the country once (to Mexico, I believe) in his first 50-something years.
Mind you, they do say that “travel broadens the mind” 😀
….because we don’t want to.
is that too hard to understand?
Why? Because we don’t NEED to leave the country to travel. You have to keep that in mind, my European friends. I have left the country twice–to go to the west indies in 88, and to Cancun for my honeymoon in 02.
there’s not too much reason to leave my own state: Some of the greatest beaches in the world on the coast, great smokey mountains in the west, and everything in between. You can hop on a chartered boat off the coast and within a few hours, your in the gulf stream, catching Tuna, mahi and whaoo.
Florida is only a 12 hour car drive to the South, D.C. is 4-5 hours north, NYC is only 8 or 9 hours away. That’s just the EAST coast. Hawaii is also on the “no passport required” list of tropical paradises along with the Us virgin islands, florida, and many parts of the Texas coast. Inland, we have the rockies, sierra nevada and the appalachians, the grand canyon, yellowstone, and all the national parks included within. And if that’s not enough, Alaska is also a state, and there’s plenty to do in alaska.
Americans have much less reason to leave the country than Europeans do.
I find it funny that people have noticed GWB hasn’t spent too much time out of the country, and made a big deal about it. why is that an issue? Are you insinuating that becasue he prefers to stay here, he is less “cultured”? He doesn’t like to spend time in DC, preferring instead to stay home on his texas Ranch when he can. I hate not being home. Maybe Europeans don’t get it as much because they typically have smaller properties and homes.
Europeans also take more vacation time off than Americans, someof it government mandated, I believe. For most of us, every weekend is a vacation.
pluto77189GWB is a neo-conservative. AFAIK these neo-cons were very much inspired by a marxist American thinktank. Is that right? That could explain GWB’s trend to increase gov’t.
Cutting back on gov’t in all areas except national security. That sounds a bit like a totallitarian regime though, a “democratic totallitarian regime”, maybe. I can understand why Americans are afraid of their gov’t though, because it scares the sh!t out of people by all kinds of terrorist threats. A gov’t should not scare its people, in fact, it should call them down.
Cutting back everytthing except national security couldn’t be farther from a totaliarian regime. Cutting taxes and limiting the inherently ineffecient and wasteful spending of the government does everything to increase production and overall wealth. National security is a major concern right now, because priviously our security forces were NOT dealing with what is now a big threat. therefore, he’s spending money to straighten things out–communication between different organizations being a BIG issue.
Americans are not AFRAID of their government. It is our job to oversee the government, and ensure it does not get too big and overpowering. That is why things like the patriot act get put under a microscope–people want to make sure that their rights will not be infringed.
I don’t believe a government should “calm it’s people down”. For me, a government should regulate certain transactions, enforce the federal law, and ultimately, it’s PRIMARY responsibility is to protect us. The US military is the MAIN purpose of the US federal government. American citizens would get along just fine with out the fed. gov.–it’s the military we need.
We don’t need the government to spend tax money on midnight basketball, wasteful school spending, and lining the pockets of unnecessary federal employees.
pluto77189You know that GWB has been increasing government rather than diminishing it, don’t you?
In areas NOT concerning national security, the government has recieved many cuts in funding. In areas directly, and somewhat indirectly related to national security, GWB has DRAMATICALLY INCREASED th esize of the federal government. One could fudge the numbers and say that if it weren’t for the war on terror, the government would be smaller because of him, and that the only reason for the spending is because of the WAr on Terror.
unfortunatly, we can’t be sure, of course.
However, I have said it clearly before, that many conservatives criticize him for not really being all that conservative at all. He’s got the core values, and is cutting the heck out of taxes, but he’s spending like crazy too.
GWB is a conservative, but he’s NOT THAT conservative. Tax cuts are great, but the increase in revenue o the government that will result from increased earning DUE to the cuts seems destined to fall RIGHT BACK into the government unless he plans on trimming quite a bit of fat.
pluto77189Sure, it was a dictatorship in which the economy was run by the state. Not really different from all those right-wing banana republics.
As far as the American definition of right-wing/left-wing, you’ve proved my point. Right wingers here aspire for the smallest amount of government control possible, left wingers wish the government be involved as much as possible.
I identify myself as a conservative. You can point out aspects of any leader and say they are this or that, but Hitler’s Nazi germany was socialist in form, if not in ideals. socialists have more gov. control–maybe not by idealogical nature, but they end up that way.
conservatives (in America) want to cut governemnt, and allow individual freedom and individual self-determination. Hitler was so far off of that ideal, I can’t even begin to place him on the scale.
Seriously, he was responsible for the deaths of millions and years of war. What makes us think that evil son of a ***** had the mental capacity to stay consistent with any philosiphy? He was all over, and evil. We don’t want him on EITHER wing.
pluto77189I guess the credit of the end of the USSR empire is more for Gorbatchev that for Reagan IMHO.
Reagan was smart enough to consider Gorbatchev as a man he could speak with.
What did he do to bring an end to the USSR?
R.R. stood firm, didn’t back down to accept the status quo, and forced the Soviets to try to match the US. Reagan knew the Soviet System couldn’t match our system in the long run, and the SDI was the final nail in the USSR’s coffin.
I grew up knowing of the soviet union, and the threat it posed. Gorby was a reasonable man, and knew when to stop, but he surely did try to keep the USSR going as long as possible.
Giving HIM credit for his system’s downfall is pretty absurd. If it were not for the pressure put on them by Reagan, Europe would still have an iron curtain, a berlin wall, and bread lines.
pluto77189When in low rate initial production, the cost will be less than $200 million. When it finally goes into high rate production, the costs are projected to drop to around $120-$150 million per plane.
Whne you consider how much was already invested in its development, things start to make sense.
Congress delayed this, cut back on that. That’s whay costs became so high. The ONLY way to save money is to increase production.
Hopefuly, it will be a success, and more will be ordered.
just like the C-17. IT was a similar cost overrun boondoogle, hundreds of millions per copy. Now, they’ve orderd many more, more than double the initial order, and prices have dropped dramatically.
If such a thing were to happen to the F-22, and they ordered nearly a thousand, they’d end up costing under a $100 million per plane.
pluto77189Interesting. However Antlantis has been discovered in so many places …..
Yeah, the recent sat. photos look just as much like atlantis as the ones of my parents property. This is just like the face of jesus in a tortilla chip, or the blessed mother in the shadow of a tree on someone’s front door.
PEople see what they want to.
pluto77189Sorry , I didn’t get that you were speaking of American only.
It makes sense that a war overseas makes “less” casualties than a “domestic” one.However just to give a picture : the only ” bataille de la Marne ” during WWI killed more than 1 million. 1 million people killed on a single battle field.
I guess that Stalingrad was close to 3 million (if my memory is still accurate).
It’s scary…
The casualties that were accrued in past wars still amazes me. It’s almost impossible to imaging casualties in orders of hundreds of thousands, let alone millions. It seems we have always fought the same way as we did the last war, only with the newer weapons we’ve developed. Civil war: old-school toe to toe in a field, only with ACCURATE rifles and cannon=suicide. WWII turned into a trench war when artillery and machine guns rendered the old style TOTAL suicide. The blitzkrieg made the rest of us re-think our strageties REALLY quickly. There were tens of thousands of civilians killed at NORMANDY alone! The airel bombardment that was used in WWII eventually turned into mass destruction when it entailed thousands of B-29’s and incendiaries… Add nuclear weapons and see hiroshima and nagasaki.
When you compare the amount of firepower let loose in Iraq, it’s utterly amazing that so few have died.
consider the progress made in 50 years. No longer is the mass death s of civilians acceptab;le in war. Not bad for just 50 years of history.
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