You Senator, are no Ronald Reagan

[sirs]

...You are not even a Neville Chamberlain
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: May 21, 2008

Dear Sen. Obama,

It is often politically inconvenient when someone tells the truth about you before millions of people. When President Bush spoke before the Israeli Knesset last week to commemorate the anniversary of the formation of the state of Israel, he said something you found politically inconvenient. "Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along," Bush said. "We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is ? the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."

You rightly perceived President Bush's statement as an attack on you. But that doesn't make the attack illegitimate. You blustered, "It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 60th anniversary of Israel's independence to launch a false political attack. ? George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists, and the president's extraordinary politicization of foreign policy and the politics of fear do nothing to secure the American people or our stalwart ally Israel."

For you to criticize President Bush's "extraordinary politicization of foreign policy" is in itself extraordinarily audacious. You have stated that you would sit down for talks with Iran, Cuba, Syria, North Korea and Venezuela without preconditions. You have made a career out of politicizing foreign policy, with a particular bent toward appeasement. Last Monday, for example, you stated in a speech in Montana, "Demanding that a country meets your conditions before you meet with them, that's not a strategy, it's naive, wishful thinking. I'm not afraid we'll lose some propaganda fight with a dictator. It's time to win those battles, because we've watched George Bush lose them year after year after year."

You, Senator, are concerned about winning propaganda victories. You should be concerned about real victories. Propaganda victories mean nothing in the long run ? you please your constituency, you boost your approval ratings and your enemy remains intact. And when your enemy remains intact, he grows stronger. And when your enemy grows stronger, people die.

Back in September 1938, Neville Chamberlain won a propaganda fight with Hitler. He arrived back home in England from the Munich Conferences ? where he had just handed over Sudetenland to the Nazis ? to wild applause. Just six months later, Hitler invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia while the world did nothing.

You may think, Sen. Obama, that talks do not signify appeasement. You may point out that you aren't handing over the Sudetenland to Iran or Syria or North Korea ? you're simply trying to find common ground.

Let me put this simply, Senator: There is no common ground with those who adamantly cling to evil. Finding a midpoint between the twisted agendas of rogue states and the righteous mission of the United States is capitulation. Ronald Reagan could negotiate with the Soviet Union because he never compromised his basic stance that the Soviet Union was an evil empire that had to dismantle its global objectives. And the Soviet Union compromised because it recognized that the United States would force it into collapse.

You, sir, are no Ronald Reagan. You are not even a Neville Chamberlain ? at least Chamberlain had the excuse that Britain was at a military disadvantage. You are a true believer in your own messianic myth. You are the fellow who thinks, "If only I could talk with him, we could straighten things out." If diplomacy should be the iron fist in the velvet glove, your diplomacy is the cotton-candy ego in the velvet glove.

Senator, I know you believe in the power of your words to convince. And why shouldn't you? You've hoodwinked millions of Americans into backing your presidential campaign. But if you become president, there's something you must recognize: There are some people who cannot be convinced minus the threat of force.

We should know.

Sincerely,

The victims of the Holocaust

The victims of Soviet oppression

The victims of Pol Pot

The victims of Ho Chi Minh

The victims of Saddam Hussein

The victims of Yasser Arafat and his successors

The victims of Kim Jong-il

Millions to come ?



Open letter to Barack Obama

[Xavier_Onassis]

Reagan had nothing to do with the collapse of the USSR.
He was just this dumb actor they hired. Basically he was a parrot.
Juniorbush has not won any real victories OR any propaganda victories. He has presided over the worst US foreign policy, ever. A greater amount of incompetence will never reside in the Whitehouse than Juniorbush, Rumsfeld, Cheney and Rice.

[Plane]

"Reagan had nothing to do with the collapse of the USSR. "

http://www.worldsecurityinstitute.org/showarticle.cfm?id=236

Twenty-one years ago, at the October 1986 Reykjavik Summit, President Ronald Reagan and Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev

[Xavier_Onassis]

I repeat. Reagan had zip to do with the collapse of the USSR. They simply reached a point in which they could not progress without computers, and could not permit people to have computers and continue to oppress people. The Afghanistan War was their Vietnam, but because there is a physical land border between Afghanistan and the USSR, and a major opium production there, it did them a lot more harm. The USR was basically a Third World country outside the major cities.

Reagan was a figurehead, an actor they hired who was good at giving speeches, provided someone else wrote them. He fooled most of the people some of the time, people who had been primed to worship film actors, people who thought of John Wayne as a bigger hero than people who actually were heroes, like Audie Murphy.

Despite the phony dyed hair, Reagan LOOKED presidential and sounded presidential. More to Americans than others, of course.

[Plane]

I repeat. Reagan had zip to do with the collapse of the USSR. They simply reached a point in which they could not progress without computers, and could not permit people to have computers and continue to oppress people. The Afghanistan War was their Vietnam, but because there is a physical land border between Afghanistan and the USSR, and a major opium production there, it did them a lot more harm. The USR was basically a Third World country outside the major cities.

Reagan was a figurehead, an actor they hired who was good at giving speeches, provided someone else wrote them. He fooled most of the people some of the time, people who had been primed to worship film actors, people who thought of John Wayne as a bigger hero than people who actually were heroes, like Audie Murphy.

Despite the phony dyed hair, Reagan LOOKED presidential and sounded presidential. More to Americans than others, of course.

It is hard to contradict such firm beleif , it renders all success coincidence.

So do you think that Walter Mondale or Jimmy Carter would have delt the same with Gorbachev and gotten the same result?

[Xavier_Onassis]

So do you think that Walter Mondale or Jimmy Carter would have delt the same with Gorbachev and gotten the same result?

Of course. And the S&L crisis would probably have been avoided as well. Mondale would have had more honest people around than Ed "Fathead" Meese.

Gorbachov did all he could to keep the USSR together, but some things a leader just has no control over, like Juniorbush cutting the price of gasoline.

[Plane]

So do you think that Walter Mondale or Jimmy Carter would have delt the same with Gorbachev and gotten the same result?

Of course. And the S&L crisis would probably have been avoided as well. Mondale would have had more honest people around than Ed "Fathead" Meese.

Gorbachov did all he could to keep the USSR together, but some things a leader just has no control over, like Juniorbush cutting the price of gasoline.

I think that Carter or Mondale either one would have eagerly said "yes" to Gorbachov and therby empowered him , perhaps enough to rescue his declineing system from dissolution.

[sirs]

[Xavier_Onassis]

I think that Carter or Mondale either one would have eagerly said "yes" to Gorbachov and therby empowered him , perhaps enough to rescue his declineing system from dissolution.

Said "yes" to what?

The crisis was economic. The USSR had no money and no way of modernizing without major access to computers by the people. That brought on Glasnost, and that (not wrinkled old Ronnie) caused the dissolution of the USSR.


As for the stupid cartoon, is it seriously the contention that if Obama decides to discuss matters with Syria or Iran, that he will be boiled and eaten?

[Plane]

I think that Carter or Mondale either one would have eagerly said "yes" to Gorbachov and therby empowered him , perhaps enough to rescue his declineing system from dissolution.

Said "yes" to what?

The crisis was economic. The USSR had no money and no way of modernizing without major access to computers by the people. That brought on Glasnost, and that (not wrinkled old Ronnie) caused the dissolution of the USSR.

Gorbachov was asking for an end to the star wars program , copeing with the potential for needing to revamp their whole missle program to cope with the B-1 , stealth and the potential of missle sheild was causeing an economic crisis.

Ronnie did a lot to encourage the dissolution of the Soviet Union buthe wasn't alone , Pope John Paul ,Margret Thatcher, two million Afgans and Mathias Rust also helped.

You might even say that Fidel Castro helped , even tjhough he didn't mean to.

[Xavier_Onassis]

You might even say that Fidel Castro helped , even tjhough he didn't mean to.
==============================================================
I think that is something you might be more likely to say.

The Star Wars program was, and continues to be, more of a fantasy than a reality. In Reagan's time, it was 100% fantasy. The Russians may have believed it would work, neutralizing their half of the MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) system. The US could have spend a fraction of what they did on Star Wars and gotten 100% of the results that were produced by the actual, multizillion dollar, mostly nonfunctional plan.

But they had no plan to thwart it, and spent little money on doing this

US intelligence on the USSR was terrible. They thought the Russians were far more capable than they actually were. The Defense Department never met a weapons "system" they did not like, and Congress loved military pork, since it is easier to get and need produce no results. People make fun of a Lawrence Welk Historical Museum, but few make fun of military disasters, like the troop-killing Osprey and dozens more lesser known military weapons boondoggles.

[Plane]

You might even say that Fidel Castro helped , even tjhough he didn't mean to.
==============================================================
I think that is something you might be more likely to say.

The Star Wars program was, and continues to be, more of a fantasy than a reality. In Reagan's time, it was 100% fantasy. The Russians may have believed it would work, neutralizing their half of the MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) system. The US could have spend a fraction of what they did on Star Wars and gotten 100% of the results that were produced by the actual, multizillion dollar, mostly nonfunctional plan.

But they had no plan to thwart it, and spent little money on doing this

US intelligence on the USSR was terrible. They thought the Russians were far more capable than they actually were. The Defense Department never met a weapons "system" they did not like, and Congress loved military pork, since it is easier to get and need produce no results. People make fun of a Lawrence Welk Historical Museum, but few make fun of military disasters, like the troop-killing Osprey and dozens more lesser known military weapons boondoggles.

You are way behind the times on the tecnology , a system called "Patroit" was 50% effective at intercepting incomeing warheads , twenty years ago.

The spin offs of the program are soon to spawn systems that can shoot down a RPG in flight or an ICBM in boost phase.

The Russian people were shocked by Mattias Rust penetrateing their airspace in a simple aircraft.

The Soviet military dispared for the money needed to make their defense adequate to prevent incusian of B-1s , to revamp their ICBM fleet with countermeasures and cope with stealth, they were spending so much that the whole country was sacrificing lifestile for the defense that seemed useless , inadequite and unneeded.

I think Ronald Reagans laughing in their faces really injured them , the people of Russia have several times proved themselves remarkably patient and strong , but they ran out of patience with the huge expense of fending off the American invasion that seemed more and more to be a political fantasy.

[Xavier_Onassis]

What the Soviets were spending all that money on was due to the invasion of Afghanistan, which was quite similar to the US invasion of Iraq: it was a piece of cake to overthrow the Afghan government- they just shot the leaders. Once they were in charge, however, they discovered that staying in charge was not really possible, as Rummy discovered in Iraq, and for that matter, in Afghanistan.

A weapons system that can shoot down missiles when their trajectory and time of firing is preprogrammed can be nice as fireworks but piss-poor as defense.

The physical infrastructure of the USSR, built after WWII, seems to have been very poorly built in the first place and barely maintained, and much of it collapsed all at once. This was not caused by Reagan reading pre-prepared speeches.

Reagan was a lot like John Wayne. A great symbol, but a major hat with no cattle. He was just lucky thoughout his life, and had great connections. It 's not like the Duke could actually face down a gang of onery outlaws or even successfully rope a car or shoot at and hit a bullseye. But he LOOKED like he could do it all. Reagan was like that.

Lincoln said that you could fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time. Reagan was simply better at fooling more people all of the time than Lincoln could have ever imagined. He was a lot more good-looking than Lincoln, after all. But there still is no car named after him. Still, he continues to fool them posthumously, because although people are mortal, image tends to last a longer time.

Not that Ronnie was the best from a worldwide perspective: I would say that the prize for that should go to Mustapha Kemal Ataturk, whose picture still hangs in nearly every home in Turkey, even 70 years after his alcoholic demise. I went to a Turkish national day celebration in a park in Broward County several years ago, and the centerpiece of the festivities was a huge silhouette of Ataturk's head. I am sure that there was not a soul there who had ever seen him in person, being as no one there was old enough. I don't expect that Reagan's silhouette will even be recognized by Republicans (if we are so unfortunate as to even have any left) in 2058.

Chairman Mao was no slacker at having a lasting image, either. His image is about as common in the PRC as George Washington's is in the USA.

Albanians seem to still rally round the legend of Skanderbeg, who kicked the bucket 'way back in 1466.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skanderbeg

[Plane]

What the Soviets were spending all that money on was due to the invasion of Afghanistan, which was quite similar to the US invasion of Iraq: it was a piece of cake to overthrow the Afghan government- they just shot the leaders. Once they were in charge, however, they discovered that staying in charge was not really possible, as Rummy discovered in Iraq, and for that matter, in Afghanistan.

A weapons system that can shoot down missiles when their trajectory and time of firing is preprogrammed can be nice as fireworks but piss-poor as defense.

The physical infrastructure of the USSR, built after WWII, seems to have been very poorly built in the first place and barely maintained, and much of it collapsed all at once. This was not caused by Reagan reading pre-prepared speeches.

Reagan was a lot like John Wayne. A great symbol, but a major hat with no cattle. He was just lucky thoughout his life, and had great connections. It 's not like the Duke could actually face down a gang of onery outlaws or even successfully rope a car or shoot at and hit a bullseye. But he LOOKED like he could do it all. Reagan was like that.

Reagan made his connections.
He cut his way , earned it .

If all these things really made no diffrence and Reagan could not have chosen to make a diffrence , why was Gorbachof comeing to Iceland to ask forsome releif?

The Debacle of Afganistan was engineered from Jimmy Carter and continued by Reagans administritation , it is a lot like the operation of the Contras in Nicaragua , only with better success at secrecy.

[Xavier_Onassis]

If all these things really made no diffrence and Reagan could not have chosen to make a diffrence , why was Gorbachof comeing to Iceland to ask forsome releif?

====================================

Reagan, you will recall, spoke of pushing the red button and the "Evil Empire", and joked about a desire to push the Soviets back rather than containing them. Gorbachov wanted to make his peaceful ambitions to be well known.

Reagan may have wanted to make a difference, and may have made a difference, but I do not think that Carter or Mondale would have made a great difference.

If there is no danger of a war between the US and the USSR, is it not logical that both sides should save the bother of both sides pissing away huge amounts of money on unneeded weapons?