First Hilliary now Chelsea

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But you were suggesting that the "cool Dad" was somehow inferior to the authoritarian, yet the evidence doesn't support that. It's a cliche that authoritarian parents have rebellious kids, so if people saw Clinton as the cool dad, and if he was, then why is that a bad thing?

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Step away from the analogy you seem to be losing the point which is Clinton’s presidency looked good while it was going on, it took some time and a few years from when he was in office to figure out that things were not as good as we thought they were, especially in regards to foreign policy.

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That's the conservative position, certainly. Every market is regulated, except in anarchic states. You can find some free markets, just look for societies that are melting down. Reagan just shifted the tax burden from the rich to the poor.

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Come on now that is a bit cliché no? You might as well have added that he stole old peoples Social Security. The problem is you think being kind to the poor is giving them a whole bunch of money. In fact this is the worst thing you could possibly do as you create a cycle of dependency and no desire to get yourself out of being poor because the government is providing for everything. Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime…

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I would say they were bad at the beginning, mediocre in the middle, and declining towards the end. The stock market crash happened in 87 (I think, It might have been 88), and the recession that removed Bush Sr. from office was getting going by the end of the 80's (Bush Sr. lost in 91, technically, though he didn't leave office until 92). So where is the "great"? Is it in the recession, or the market crash?

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If you looked at the employment rate you will find that it steadily declined from a high in 1982 until several years after Reagan left office. And I do recall the stock market recovering rather fast after the crash; take a look at the DOW chart from when Reagan was in office vs. when Carter was in office. For Carter the Dow opened around 950 when he took office and it was 870 when he left. For Reagan it was 870 when he took office and 2000 when he left, even with the 500 point correction taken off (which by the way was recovered in less than a year). Kind of a different picture when you actually look at the facts, instead of simply saying the stock market crash huh.
The recession you are talking about didn’t really take effect until mid-way in Bush Sr.’s term, which included higher unemployment. Recessions are a natural part of the economy, just as the collapse in the housing market which happens about every decade or so, it’s just the economy going through its natural cycles. However you cannot disregard the huge turn around following the late 70’s into the 1980 mostly due in part to reforms by the Reagan administration.

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That's just a fantasy that is used to attribute good news to the party of your choice. The president has the single largest impact on how spending happens of anybody involved. He may not technically set the budget, but to pretend that it isn't his doing requires considerable deception.

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The president presents the budget which the congress has to pass, remember it is Congress that adds a lot of earmarks and appropriates the money for the budget which effects how much money will be spent. It is a combination of both the Executive branch and the Legislative to pass a balanced budget so saying the Republican congress had nothing to do with it is inaccurate and disingenuous.

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I killed off the first part of the quote about the Contract on America by accident. I've never heard anybody assert that before. Not in the conservative journals, not in the mainstream magazines, and I actually haven't read the liberal ones.

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Most conservatives are unhappy with how the Republican controlled congress behaved post-Clinton. This is the main reason the Republicans lost control of both houses as people decided to go with Conservative Democrats instead of their Republican rivals. The same thing goes with Bush and his wild spending on everything from No Child Left Behind to his prescription drug program.

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You must listen to Fox. I hear about Iraq every day. If you really haven't been hearing anything, here's a brief update: They are still killing people at a good clip. The surge appears to have reduced some of the violence in Iraq, but the violence in Afghanistan is rising just as fast, and the decrease in Iraq happened to coincide with a couple of confounding factors, so figuring out which part can be attributed to the surge is dependent on what answer you want.

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Violence is down in Baghdad 80% from its highs. Are people still dying? Sure they are but in not such an extreme clip as they once were. Reports on Iraq are down, not just on Fox but in the New York Times, the BBC, and every other publication. There is less to report in regards to violence and death therefore there are less reports out there, seems like simple logic to me rather than a plot by the Fox news channel. Iraq isn’t front page news anymore, hence my comment on having to dig around for it. If you want to find it its still there, but most people are just happier it’s a lot better there.

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You haven't read enough of history. Things like Chamberlain and Hitler are trotted out to justify rushing off to war whenever needed. There are FAR more examples where we just talked rather than taking a hard line, and many more examples of others doing the same. There isn't one solution, and the hard line is not just one alternative, it is often disastrous. Even in the case of Hitler, everyone assumes that if Chamberlain had taken a hard line right from the start that WWII would have been averted. Based on what? At the start of WWII, France had the greatest army in the world by everyones estimation. They had more tanks, better tanks, better aircraft, etc. When Hitler was finally given no choice, he attacked with the Panzer I and II, which were training tanks with fake armor....and he crushed France and threw the Brits into the sea. Why does everyone assume that he would have been reasonable a few years earlier? Why does anyone think the result would have been different? Hitler wasn't prepared for the fight when it did come. Those early training tanks were just used because the real tanks were just starting to be developed.

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Just so you know my father was a History teacher and had a library of thousands of history books which I read while I was growing up, so I do know my history, especially WWII. You obviously have read different books than I have and have gleaned different lessons from history than I have, that’s fine. Everything from the fall of the Roman Empire up until modern times if full of examples of how appeasement just doesn’t work when you have an enemy that is bent on conquest.
From what I remember the Germans used both the Panzer III’s and the Panzer IV’s during the France invasion and went up against the Renault and Somua French tanks (as both were developed in the early to mid 1930’s). The Panzer I and II were used at the beginning of the invasion of France as well but were not equipped with “fake” armor as you put and were not training tanks, they were the main battle tank of the German army with many different variants entering service until they become obsolete somewhere in the middle of the war (1942) (later they became scout tanks before being complete decommissioned). I know a lot about the equipment used during the war, from reading and playing the Panzer General series (among other) computer games :).

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The ugly wars and entanglements were created by W. N Korea is the same mess as it has been since the truce was declared, no better, no worse. Iraq was 100% neo-cons, and the first offensive war in the history of the US. RIT was the creation of Reagan, if anybody can be given the blame, because of the Afghanistan issue. So now we have action taken, and we are in a mess in Afghanistan, a mess of our own creation in Iraq, a growing mess in Pakistan, and a cooling status quo ante in N. Korea. Now everybody knows we wear no clothes.

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Iraq was 100% Saddam Hussein created, the US or neo-cons as you put it didn’t invade Kuwait and try to corner the world’s oil market. You seem to be so informed as to North Korea’s cease fire yet you fail to remember Iraq was also under the same condition.
Afghanistan isn’t a mess, Iraq is a lot better than it was, and North Korea is at the table talking disarmament. Pakistan is in trouble but that is hardly our doing. I suppose blaming the US for everything is the easy way out, sort of like blaming the government for being unemployed when sitting around drinking beer all day instead of actually looking for a job.

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The same use that they were against the Russians during the cold war pre-sattelites. MAD still exists, and always had. We can't beat the Chinese if they are willing to fight us, nor can they beat us. I'm not the slightest bit worried about them unless we attack them.

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What if they attack Taiwan? Are you willing to ignore China taking over a free and democratic nation or would you be willing to confront them? If you do nothing who is to say they stop at Taiwan and not move on to Japan, do we do something then? I don’t think there is any chance the US will strike China first. It is China that will make the first move, the thing is how do we react when they do.

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Yeah, he attacked a country that wasn't involved with 9/11 in any way.

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Afghanistan was attacked first they had everything to do with 9/11.

X

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Originally Posted by Xanith

Come on now that is a bit cliché no? You might as well have added that he stole old peoples Social Security. The problem is you think being kind to the poor is giving them a whole bunch of money. In fact this is the worst thing you could possibly do as you create a cycle of dependency and no desire to get yourself out of being poor because the government is providing for everything. Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime…

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that may be true, but all the knowledge in the world on how to fish won't help you if there aren't any fish. I have personally been VERY poor to the point that i didn't even know what bologna was until custody was awarded to grandparents. we were so poor that the hospital refused to accept my brother as a patient and he died. And my mom HAD a job.

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If you looked at the employment rate you will find that it steadily declined from a high in 1982 until several years after Reagan left office. And I do recall the stock market recovering rather fast after the crash; take a look at the DOW chart from when Reagan was in office vs. when Carter was in office. For Carter the Dow opened around 950 when he took office and it was 870 when he left. For Reagan it was 870 when he took office and 2000 when he left, even with the 500 point correction taken off (which by the way was recovered in less than a year). Kind of a different picture when you actually look at the facts, instead of simply saying the stock market crash huh.
The recession you are talking about didn’t really take effect until mid-way in Bush Sr.’s term, which included higher unemployment. Recessions are a natural part of the economy, just as the collapse in the housing market which happens about every decade or so, it’s just the economy going through its natural cycles. However you cannot disregard the huge turn around following the late 70’s into the 1980 mostly due in part to reforms by the Reagan administration.

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truth is that Alan Greenspan is the one who pretty well controls the economy. President can affect it, but Greenspan is the one controlling interest rates, etc.

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The president presents the budget which the congress has to pass, remember it is Congress that adds a lot of earmarks and appropriates the money for the budget which effects how much money will be spent. It is a combination of both the Executive branch and the Legislative to pass a balanced budget so saying the Republican congress had nothing to do with it is inaccurate and disingenuous.

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The president also is able to veto their earmarks. Bush has never vetoed anything. Clinton was a veto master and even did line-item vetoing for a long time, until it was overruled as unconstitutional as giving president too much power. This is why the budget clinton presented was actually not only balanced, but had a surplus. You know of any other presidents closing government offices when they claimed "we are out of money" instead of giving them more money? Bush gave us a 500,000,000 deficit then touted his ability to cut in half the deficit he created himself.

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Most conservatives are unhappy with how the Republican controlled congress behaved post-Clinton. This is the main reason the Republicans lost control of both houses as people decided to go with Conservative Democrats instead of their Republican rivals. The same thing goes with Bush and his wild spending on everything from No Child Left Behind to his prescription drug program.

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A major reason they lost both houses is they were going along with every single little thing Bush wanted them to do. People hoped that Democrats would show more backbone. As for his spending on stuff is proven to not work, such as "no child left behind", his idea to fix a broken program is give it more money!

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Violence is down in Baghdad 80% from its highs. Are people still dying? Sure they are but in not such an extreme clip as they once were. Reports on Iraq are down, not just on Fox but in the New York Times, the BBC, and every other publication. There is less to report in regards to violence and death therefore there are less reports out there, seems like simple logic to me rather than a plot by the Fox news channel. Iraq isn’t front page news anymore, hence my comment on having to dig around for it. If you want to find it its still there, but most people are just happier it’s a lot better there.

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violence is down in baghdad because of the huge police force we have there. All we have done is have the radicals move somewhere else. On average, violence is up in Iraq, even though the camera-ready green-zone (arguably the safest place in Iraq) is lower. It is still dangerous though.

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Just so you know my father was a History teacher...

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if you really read 1000s of history books, you would see how often they disagree with each other. Why don't you read a german history book of ww2 and see how well it matches ours. History is subjective. However, having lived through this part of history, i won't be fooled by the censors in the future that try to convince our children that Saddam Hussein (capable of keeping that nation at peace whereas we can't) caused 911.[/quote]

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Iraq was 100% Saddam Hussein created, the US or neo-cons as you put it didn’t invade Kuwait and try to corner the world’s oil market. You seem to be so informed as to North Korea’s cease fire yet you fail to remember Iraq was also under the same condition.
Afghanistan isn’t a mess, Iraq is a lot better than it was, and North Korea is at the table talking disarmament. Pakistan is in trouble but that is hardly our doing. I suppose blaming the US for everything is the easy way out, sort of like blaming the government for being unemployed when sitting around drinking beer all day instead of actually looking for a job.

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having been unemployed as well, and forced to put in at least two applications a day, it still took me over a month to find a job, and i don't drink beer. Quit stereotyping. And i would have been out on the streets if i didn't have relatives willing to let me stay with them. I can tell you've never had it hard in your life.

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What if they attack Taiwan? Are you willing to ignore China taking over a free and democratic nation or would you be willing to confront them? If you do nothing who is to say they stop at Taiwan and not move on to Japan, do we do something then? I don’t think there is any chance the US will strike China first. It is China that will make the first move, the thing is how do we react when they do.

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i seem to remember that tiawan used to be part of china? What if, say, florida decided it didn't want to be part of the US any more? would you be upset if we sent troops in there?


Afghanistan was attacked first they had everything to do with 9/11.

X[/QUOTE]

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Originally Posted by Xanith

Step away from the analogy you seem to be losing the point which is Clinton’s presidency looked good while it was going on, it took some time and a few years from when he was in office to figure out that things were not as good as we thought they were, especially in regards to foreign policy.

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To me, parts of Clinton's policy looked good, others only so-so. None looked bad, and it all looks much better when shown in comparison to W. It was statesmanship rather than ideological blindness.

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Come on now that is a bit cliché no? You might as well have added that he stole old peoples Social Security. The problem is you think being kind to the poor is giving them a whole bunch of money. In fact this is the worst thing you could possibly do as you create a cycle of dependency and no desire to get yourself out of being poor because the government is providing for everything. Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime…

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Except that Reagan raised taxes on the poor, so the saying becomes "Take a fish from a man and he stays hungry." Taking money from the poor is not exactly the same as not giving money to them. The tax burden on the lower sectors of society increased under Reagan, just as they decreased on the rich.

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If you looked at the employment rate you will find that it steadily declined from a high in 1982 until several years after Reagan left office. And I do recall the stock market recovering rather fast after the crash; take a look at the DOW chart from when Reagan was in office vs. when Carter was in office. For Carter the Dow opened around 950 when he took office and it was 870 when he left. For Reagan it was 870 when he took office and 2000 when he left, even with the 500 point correction taken off (which by the way was recovered in less than a year). Kind of a different picture when you actually look at the facts, instead of simply saying the stock market crash huh.

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No, not really. It's kind a bizarre statement that Reagan boosted the DOW. Sure a crash was recovered from. Look at how the DOW is compared to the Depression. It recovered. So what? If you lost a bundle in that crash, you still lost a bundle.

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The recession you are talking about didn’t really take effect until mid-way in Bush Sr.’s term, which included higher unemployment. Recessions are a natural part of the economy, just as the collapse in the housing market which happens about every decade or so, it’s just the economy going through its natural cycles. However you cannot disregard the huge turn around following the late 70’s into the 1980 mostly due in part to reforms by the Reagan administration.

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Technically, the rise in the 1980s was also due to me eating a cheeseburger back in 72. Under Chaos Theory, which you can actually study with Excel, you can see that the impact I had with the cheeseburger is the same as Reagan had, unless the strange attractor was shifted, which the recession in Bush Sr. administration proved not to be the case.

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The president presents the budget which the congress has to pass, remember it is Congress that adds a lot of earmarks and appropriates the money for the budget which effects how much money will be spent. It is a combination of both the Executive branch and the Legislative to pass a balanced budget so saying the Republican congress had nothing to do with it is inaccurate and disingenuous.

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Saying that the Republican congress was responsible for it is even more innaccurate and disingenuous by your own argument.

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Most conservatives are unhappy with how the Republican controlled congress behaved post-Clinton. This is the main reason the Republicans lost control of both houses as people decided to go with Conservative Democrats instead of their Republican rivals. The same thing goes with Bush and his wild spending on everything from No Child Left Behind to his prescription drug program.

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Most conservatives will vote R no matter what choices are put before them. It wasn't the conservatives who failed to re-elect Republicans, it was that the majority of the country doesn't fall squarely into either camp. In this case, they didn't like the job the Rs were doing, so they voted D.

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Violence is down in Baghdad 80% from its highs. Are people still dying? Sure they are but in not such an extreme clip as they once were.

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Much of the violence was sectarian. How much of the decrease results from the several million Sunnis who have fled? Once a neighborhood has become ethnically cleansed due to all "others" having been killed or fled, does that count as success? If so, then just stand back and let the murders flow.

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Reports on Iraq are down, not just on Fox but in the New York Times, the BBC, and every other publication.

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I certainly haven't been counting. I only hear about Iraq every day. Whether the reports take five minutes or ten I have no idea.

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Iraq isn’t front page news anymore, hence my comment on having to dig around for it. If you want to find it its still there, but most people are just happier it’s a lot better there.

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So if the media stops reporting on a problem, people will think that the problem has gone away, and therefore believe that things are better. The fact that most of US news is more interested in Britney's custody battles rather than depressing foreign messes leads to what?

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Just so you know my father was a History teacher and had a library of thousands of history books which I read while I was growing up, so I do know my history, especially WWII. You obviously have read different books than I have and have gleaned different lessons from history than I have, that’s fine. Everything from the fall of the Roman Empire up until modern times if full of examples of how appeasement just doesn’t work when you have an enemy that is bent on conquest.

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I read those books now, too. I got thinking about this. Appeasement is almost impossible to identify, but beligerence isn't. However, I think it has a stronger history even in the US. Consider the terms Grant gave to Lee, which lead to the terms Sherman gave to Johnston, which went a long ways towards patching up the Civil War. Of course, when Andrew Johnson ratified the terms, he infuriated the hard line Republicans who wanted to punish the south, and he was impeached (and came within a single vote of being removed from office). Once he did leave office, the hardliners introduced a new term that is still with us: "Carpet baggers." Much the same argument could be made about the treaty at the end of WWI, which most historians blame as the direct cause of the rise of Hitler and WWII.

However, nobody really knows what would happen if the alternative was chosen. If a difference is patched over, was it appeasement? If you bought off somebody who was going to attack you when you couldn't fight back (France in WWII), was it appeasement? I know of no clear cut example of appeasement other than the often cited Chamberlain-Hitler negotiation. Could you name a few others?

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From what I remember the Germans used both the Panzer III’s and the Panzer IV’s during the France invasion and went up against the Renault and Somua French tanks (as both were developed in the early to mid 1930’s).

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I was surprised to find that the IV was actually used in Poland, however, in Panzer Battles, Maj. Gen F.W. Von Mellenthin points out that there were very few of them (~10%), and the I and II were the main tanks. The percentage was a bit higher in France, though both Mellenthin and Panzerkrieg by McCarthy and Syron have the IV as being in a supporting role since it's gun was insufficient to penetrate allied armor. You also left out the best of the French tanks (Char B1) which was about as numerous as the Somua.

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The Panzer I and II were used at the beginning of the invasion of France as well but were not equipped with “fake” armor as you put and were not training tanks, they were the main battle tank of the German army with many different variants entering service until they become obsolete somewhere in the middle of the war (1942) (later they became scout tanks before being complete decommissioned).

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McCarthy and Syron disagree with pretty much everything you say there, except for the bit about fake armor. The armor on those tanks, which were developed for training purposes because the IIIs and IVs weren't available, was able to stop small arms fire only. The I had only machine guns (Von Mellenthin claimed that the II had only machine guns in Poland, but McCarthy and Syron state that the IIs were equipt with a pathetic 20mm gun by France). I was aware that many variants of the I and II came out, but what I said was correct. They were training tanks, and the armor was not designed to withstand anything stronger than small arms fire. They also had no effective guns, and made up the majority of all German armor in France. In contrast, the Char B1, the Somua, and the larger British tanks had armor that could stop all German tank cannons (since the III had the weak 37mm cannon that both sources disparage as being inadequate against any armor, and the IV had the low velocity 75mm which was ineffective against armor).

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I know a lot about the equipment used during the war, from reading and playing the Panzer General series (among other) computer games :).

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Good for you.

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Iraq was 100% Saddam Hussein created, the US or neo-cons as you put it didn’t invade Kuwait and try to corner the world’s oil market.

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The neo cons put out their manifesto back in the early 90s, which called for Saddam to be replaced by a democracy that would serve as an example for other states in the region (which it certainly has). They consistently advocated the overthrow of the regime, and within two days of 9/11, a memo came out (which was very publicly leaked) asking how the attack could be used to attack Iraq, a course of action that was ultimately followed.

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You seem to be so informed as to North Korea’s cease fire yet you fail to remember Iraq was also under the same condition.

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Nope, I just note that we attacked Iraq, but are still just negotiating with N. Korea. It's hard not to be cynical.

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Afghanistan isn’t a mess

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How do you figure this? Is that success? Heroin production is the surrogate for government in most of the north, we control a couple cities, and the Taliban pretty much controls the south. Violence is increasing there, US forces are attacked almost daily (and quite ineffectually), aid workers are being driven out of large parts of the country, and control is slipping steadily away from the government. What part of that is good?

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Iraq is a lot better than it was

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Unless you happen to be either American or a Sunni.

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and North Korea is at the table talking disarmament

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No they aren't, they are negotiating for more goods in exchange for a bit less bad behavior. They aren't talking about disarmament, they are just seeing how much they can get to stop rattling their saber. Since they never had any realistic chance at an offensive war, that's a sweet deal for them, but it's also the best deal for us, and it's a deal we already had until Bush cut off oil shipments. Sure he had a reason. He'll be given another one, too.

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Pakistan is in trouble but that is hardly our doing.

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Yup.

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I suppose blaming the US for everything is the easy way out, sort of like blaming the government for being unemployed when sitting around drinking beer all day instead of actually looking for a job.

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Beats me, I've never been unemployed, and I don't drink.

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What if they attack Taiwan? Are you willing to ignore China taking over a free and democratic nation or would you be willing to confront them?

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What would you suggest, waving our fists, or a full scale assault on a country far larger than our own?

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If you do nothing who is to say they stop at Taiwan and not move on to Japan, do we do something then?

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The difference being that China claims Taiwan is part of China, a claim that is not actually disputed by the bulk of the Taiwanese. The Taiwan government was formed by the remains of the old Chinese goverment after the communist takeover.

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I don’t think there is any chance the US will strike China first. It is China that will make the first move, the thing is how do we react when they do.

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Actually, not many people on either side really want to find that one out. A war against China would make Iraq look like a party. No country has ever conquered one of the large land area countries of the world unless that country was too scattered to resist.

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Afghanistan was attacked first they had everything to do with 9/11.

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True, but most of the people I have heard and read say that Afghanistan was attacked because W couldn't have gone to Iraq otherwise. The Afghan war was prosecuted mostly by the Northern Alliance with special forces and air support from the US. We had few boots on the ground, which allowed Osama and others to escape from Tora Bora.

sorry, i meant "alan greenspan WAS in power. he finally got so sick of George W Bush that he very publicly retired, and became an outspoken opponent of him.

As for Afghanistan being responsible for 9/11... Well, they were responsible to the extent that they allowed terrorists to base there. You will notice that mere days after 9/11 we were all over that country, but we weren't looking to overthrow the government. We were looking for a terrorist cell. But yet Iraq was due for an overthrow when they were publicly anti-terrorist? Now look at them since the so-called democrats took over.

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Except that Reagan raised taxes on the poor, so the saying becomes "Take a fish from a man and he stays hungry." Taking money from the poor is not exactly the same as not giving money to them. The tax burden on the lower sectors of society increased under Reagan, just as they decreased on the rich.

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When Reagan took over from Carter there was double-digit inflation and high unemployment (the prime interest rate was something like 20%!). Reagan’s polices created 20 million new jobs, reduced inflation (to around 4%) and unemployment. I don’t know about you but I never got a job from a poor person, reducing the top rate (on those rich people) created all those new jobs, which allowed the doubling of the income the government received from 500 billion to 1 trillion.

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No, not really. It's kind a bizarre statement that Reagan boosted the DOW. Sure a crash was recovered from. Look at how the DOW is compared to the Depression. It recovered. So what? If you lost a bundle in that crash, you still lost a bundle.

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You are the one that brought up the crash in 1987 as an example of how the end of Reagan’s term was bad. Now you are saying Reagan had nothing to do with it and how “bizarre” it is. What’s bizarre is how you can attribute the crash to Reagan and his policies than dismiss the more than doubling of its value (even with the crash) under his presidency. So which is it?

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Most conservatives will vote R no matter what choices are put before them. It wasn't the conservatives who failed to re-elect Republicans, it was that the majority of the country doesn't fall squarely into either camp. In this case, they didn't like the job the Rs were doing, so they voted D.

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I voted for a D just recently for Senate. I would have voted for JFK if I was around to do so. However today’s Democrats really do leave no choice when it comes to voting for conservatives.

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So if the media stops reporting on a problem, people will think that the problem has gone away, and therefore believe that things are better. The fact that most of US news is more interested in Britney's custody battles rather than depressing foreign messes leads to what?

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Things are better! Most people realize that things are not perfect, but what is? I don’t think you need to be reminded about murder and strife every day to know it is there. Honestly you can look at the murders that occur every day in each American city to be reminded every US city has a problem, or about the death toll of wars currently raging on the continent of Africa. But most normal people don’t eat, breath, and sleep death and destruction on a daily basis to know that there is evil in the world.

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However, nobody really knows what would happen if the alternative was chosen. If a difference is patched over, was it appeasement? If you bought off somebody who was going to attack you when you couldn't fight back (France in WWII), was it appeasement? I know of no clear cut example of appeasement other than the often cited Chamberlain-Hitler negotiation. Could you name a few others?

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One of the top of my head was the fall of the Roman Empire and their appeasement of the Barbarian hordes, they attempted to placate them with offerings and attempted to keep them fighting among themselves all to no avail. Of course by this time this was probably the only option left up to the Romans as they didn’t have much of an army left. But again the attempt to appease didn’t prevent the fall of the Empire.

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McCarthy and Syron disagree with pretty much everything you say there, except for the bit about fake armor. The armor on those tanks, which were developed for training purposes because the IIIs and IVs weren't available, was able to stop small arms fire only. The I had only machine guns (Von Mellenthin claimed that the II had only machine guns in Poland, but McCarthy and Syron state that the IIs were equipt with a pathetic 20mm gun by France). I was aware that many variants of the I and II came out, but what I said was correct. They were training tanks, and the armor was not designed to withstand anything stronger than small arms fire. They also had no effective guns, and made up the majority of all German armor in France. In contrast, the Char B1, the Somua, and the larger British tanks had armor that could stop all German tank cannons (since the III had the weak 37mm cannon that both sources disparage as being inadequate against any armor, and the IV had the low velocity 75mm which was ineffective against armor).

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In a sense you are correct if you look at it a different way. The I’s and the II’s were used in training but were not exclusively training tanks as they were used in theatre until about 1942, they were the main battle tank Germany used until the III’s and the IV versions of the Panzer were rotated in as their replacement. While you say fake armor I would say lightly armored. I think we are arguing semantics, we really mean the same thing but we are just saying it differently. I do love talking about the different Allied and German equipment of WWII, typing it all out you can’t seem to tell everything you want however without writing a super-long post.

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Good for you.

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You would be surprised what you can learn from a computer game they are really accurate as far as equipment and all of the different battles that were fought.

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The neo cons put out their manifesto back in the early 90s, which called for Saddam to be replaced by a democracy that would serve as an example for other states in the region (which it certainly has). They consistently advocated the overthrow of the regime, and within two days of 9/11, a memo came out (which was very publicly leaked) asking how the attack could be used to attack Iraq, a course of action that was ultimately followed.

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Regime change? Wasn’t that the stated policy of the Clinton administration for Iraq? Unless the Clinton administration was made up of these “neo-cons” as you put it, although they might be “neo-cons” as I thought they were democrats who left the party because of the Democrats weakness on foreign policy and were pro-Israel and pro-Strong US foreign policy no? Hmmm shouldn’t they be called neo-dems or neo-libs?

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How do you figure this? Is that success? Heroin production is the surrogate for government in most of the north, we control a couple cities, and the Taliban pretty much controls the south. Violence is increasing there, US forces are attacked almost daily (and quite ineffectually), aid workers are being driven out of large parts of the country, and control is slipping steadily away from the government. What part of that is good?

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US combat deaths have been just about the same the last 3 years (around 100) in Afghanistan. If US forces are getting attacked more than perhaps the aim of the enemy is getting worse? I think there are problems and challenges in Afghanistan but there is hope there, maybe I’m just not an eternal pessimist and like to think things could get better. I am sure you probably said the same about Iraq before it got better as well. I wouldn’t give up just because things get hard for a stretch or two. I do know one thing, if we do give up things will get a lot worse than even you think they are now.

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Unless you happen to be either American or a Sunni.

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Actually the last 4 months US casualties have declined dramatically (the same holds true for Iraqi casualties). So Ill still stand by my statement that things are better. Not to say they can’t get worse again but I am hopeful things will continue to get better, for everyone’s sake.

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Beats me, I've never been unemployed, and I don't drink.

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But you do seem to blame the US for a lot the worlds problems, maybe you could use a drink or two to loosen yourself up :)

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What would you suggest, waving our fists, or a full scale assault on a country far larger than our own?

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I asked you first, what would you do if you had the power to do anything? I’m real interested in hearing what you have to say on this subject.

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The difference being that China claims Taiwan is part of China, a claim that is not actually disputed by the bulk of the Taiwanese. The Taiwan government was formed by the remains of the old Chinese goverment after the communist takeover.

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Iraq claimed Kuwait as part of its own as well for their justification for their invasion. So are you saying let China have Taiwan? Or Taiwan and their sovereignty is not worth getting into an entanglement with China over because they are really Chinese anyway?

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True, but most of the people I have heard and read say that Afghanistan was attacked because W couldn't have gone to Iraq otherwise. The Afghan war was prosecuted mostly by the Northern Alliance with special forces and air support from the US. We had few boots on the ground, which allowed Osama and others to escape from Tora Bora.

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I thought Osama was pretty much a figure-head and I think I remember you saying that taking him out wouldn’t really mean much. Could have been someone else but I think it was you.

X

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Originally Posted by Xanith

You are the one that brought up the crash in 1987 as an example of how the end of Reagan’s term was bad. Now you are saying Reagan had nothing to do with it and how “bizarre” it is. What’s bizarre is how you can attribute the crash to Reagan and his policies than dismiss the more than doubling of its value (even with the crash) under his presidency. So which is it?

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My only point was that there was as much negative as positive. The Reagan administration had good economic points, and bad ones. I don't remember it as being strong, but rather mediocre. The problem with that is that the economy is a chaotic system. Despite the best attempts of economists to claim otherwise, there are certain implications of a chaotic system. One of those implications is that claiming the improvement in the economy was caused by anyone in particular is a pure guess. If I had to guess, I would say any benefit was due to Fed policy, or Gates and Jobs, rather than any president or congress. However, I recognize that it is just a guess, and would only put money on it because nobody can prove me wrong.

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I voted for a D just recently for Senate. I would have voted for JFK if I was around to do so. However today’s Democrats really do leave no choice when it comes to voting for conservatives.

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When you get right down to it, I feel that way about the Rs. You only need to go back to Nixon to find a time when the Rs were much more progressive on the environment. I'm not thrilled with the Ds, but the Rs have taken a position of removing all limits and full speed exploitation.

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Things are better! Most people realize that things are not perfect, but what is?

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They are better if you ignore the rationale, yet again. Bush never intended to invade Afghanistan, he wanted Osama. When Omar refused to give him up, we added Omar to the list. We failed to get either one, and the objective was changed to regime change in Afghanistan so that we could claim success. The stated reason for the surge in Iraq was to give the government time to organize. There has been less than no progress on that front, the government is becoming more corrupt, more dependent, more sectarian. The surge is meaningless if it has to be perpetuated forever. Deaths might be down, but the end hasn't gotten any closer because of it.

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One of the top of my head was the fall of the Roman Empire and their appeasement of the Barbarian hordes, they attempted to placate them with offerings and attempted to keep them fighting among themselves all to no avail. Of course by this time this was probably the only option left up to the Romans as they didn’t have much of an army left. But again the attempt to appease didn’t prevent the fall of the Empire.

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But by your own admission they had no alternative. Furthermore, they had been doing the same thing all along. If your read Julius Ceasars "Conquest of Gaul", you will see that they were basically doing the same thing all along. As long as they had an army that could overwhelm opponents their borders remained inviolate, though their frontiers were in constant battle. He claims to have conquered Gaul, but he never actually stopped fighting, so their only hope was to maintain an army strong enough to win those constant battles. No appeasement there, once they lacked the force to impose their will, they were doomed, since the hordes were attacking them continually.

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In a sense you are correct if you look at it a different way. The I’s and the II’s were used in training but were not exclusively training tanks as they were used in theatre until about 1942, they were the main battle tank Germany used until the III’s and the IV versions of the Panzer were rotated in as their replacement. While you say fake armor I would say lightly armored. I think we are arguing semantics, we really mean the same thing but we are just saying it differently. I do love talking about the different Allied and German equipment of WWII, typing it all out you can’t seem to tell everything you want however without writing a super-long post.

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Fair enough. I called them training tanks because that's the reason they were developed according to the sources I cited. Since they were actually used extensively, it would be fair to say that they were more than training in fact, if not in intention.

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You would be surprised what you can learn from a computer game they are really accurate as far as equipment and all of the different battles that were fought.

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Care to recommend one? The dated one that I liked won't run anymore, and the one I recently got kind of sucked (men could throw grenades almost as far as tanks could shoot).

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Regime change? Wasn’t that the stated policy of the Clinton administration for Iraq?

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Not forcible regime change anyways.

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Unless the Clinton administration was made up of these “neo-cons” as you put it, although they might be “neo-cons” as I thought they were democrats who left the party because of the Democrats weakness on foreign policy and were pro-Israel and pro-Strong US foreign policy no?

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The neo cons are headed up by Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, and a bunch of others whome I forget. If they were Dems...well, they're old enough.

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I do know one thing, if we do give up things will get a lot worse than even you think they are now.

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True, and they'll blame us.

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Actually the last 4 months US casualties have declined dramatically (the same holds true for Iraqi casualties). So Ill still stand by my statement that things are better. Not to say they can’t get worse again but I am hopeful things will continue to get better, for everyone’s sake.

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Again, there has been no improvement where it counts. We are further from a stable unified Iraq than we were at the time of the election (when there was still hope). Once the parties have all withdrawn to ethnic enclaves, violence will be reduced, which may well be all that is happening now, but only a stable, capable government is a worthwhile end, and nobody over there, military, civilian, or otherwise, feels there has been forward progress in that area (backwards progress, perhaps, just not forwards).

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But you do seem to blame the US for a lot the worlds problems, maybe you could use a drink or two to loosen yourself up :)

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The US has a long history of meddling in other countries then pretending that it's all in the past. I believe our actions should meet our rhetoric. We are far from blameless in the problems we currently face, but there is a sector of the public who equates love for country with denying bad actions.

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I asked you first, what would you do if you had the power to do anything? I’m real interested in hearing what you have to say on this subject.

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I'd think about long term consequences of any decisions alot longer than I care to for a post on a programming forum. I would need to hear the arguments against any position before I would accept the position. There will be trade-offs to any decision, but I'd want to know what they are. I'm too old to believe that I know everything, or every side of everything. If the decision is mine, I'd want the evidence for and against.

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Iraq claimed Kuwait as part of its own as well for their justification for their invasion.

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Iraq was right. The borders of that state and Kuwait were decided by the British following WWII. There is no "historic" border to Iraq, so we were fighting to maintain an arbitrary line in the sand. We wouldn't have done that unless we stood to gain from it, and unless we had the power to fight for the position. Therefore, our argument was might makes right, just like everybody else's argument, we just couched it in stirring rhetoric. Others note that we only intervene when we have a dog in the fight, so they don't believe us when we say our position is righteous. If we are going to call ourselves righteous, shouldn't we act that way? We deposed one dictator while cozying up to another who was known for doing the same things (Uzbekistan, we needed them). We can ignore the hypocrisy, but it's asking alot to expect other to do the same.

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So are you saying let China have Taiwan? Or Taiwan and their sovereignty is not worth getting into an entanglement with China over because they are really Chinese anyway?

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You do realize that has nothing to do with what I said, right? You were suggesting that China might move on to Japan as if taking Taiwan would just be a first step. I was pointing out that the Chinese position regarding Taiwan is unlike their position regarding Japan.

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I thought Osama was pretty much a figure-head and I think I remember you saying that taking him out wouldn’t really mean much. Could have been someone else but I think it was you.

X

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That whole line started because you were replying to my quip about Bush's decisive action being that he attacked a country that had nothing to do with 9/11. Technically, neither did Afghanistan other than Osama. He is just a figurehead, but he was the reason for the attack on Afghanistan, yet that ball was dropped when we exchanged regime change for the actual objective.

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Fair enough. I called them training tanks because that's the reason they were developed according to the sources I cited. Since they were actually used extensively, it would be fair to say that they were more than training in fact, if not in intention.

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if you look into modern-day tanks, you will discover that they are heavily-armored in the front. the sides could probably survive armor-piercing rounds, but the backs are designed only for small-arms fire. It is a trade-off: protection vs manueverability. The same has happened in the Naval fleet. We don't use battleships anymore even though they could survive direct missile hits in the sides. Having been in the Navy, i can tell you that our destroyers would be swiss-cheesed under anything over a 50-caliber round. The goal nowadays is "don't let them that close" just as the goal with the tanks is "don't let them behind you".