Funny thing about History

[arnaldoabru 11]

Remember when Gen. Shinseki told Congress that it would take,"something in the order of several hundred thousand soldiers would probaby be required for post war Iraq"

He was publically dressed down by the Chicken Hawks in the Administration-"Shinseki's last year and half in office was a series of apparently calculated and intentional insults from the civilian leadership,especially Donald Rumsfeld."

Early on in the Civil War, William Sherman told the Sec of War that it would take 200,000 to secure the lower Mississippi Valley.......He was then relieved of commanding troops for suspecion of insanity for making the remark.

[AUTiger1 0]

Remember when Gen. Shinseki told Congress that it would take,"something in the order of several hundred thousand soldiers would probaby be required for post war Iraq"

He was publically dressed down by the Chicken Hawks in the Administration-"Shinseki's last year and half in office was a series of apparently calculated and intentional insults from the civilian leadership,especially Donald Rumsfeld."

Early on in the Civil War, William Sherman told the Sec of War that it would take 200,000 to secure the lower Mississippi Valley.......He was then relieved of commanding troops for suspecion of insanity for making the remark.

Ah now, come on! You aren't trying to compare what is going on in Iraq to the Civil War now are you? Why heavens me, and to think that you just said yesterday that to compare the two was crazy.

[arnaldoabru 11]

Remember when Gen. Shinseki told Congress that it would take,"something in the order of several hundred thousand soldiers would probaby be required for post war Iraq"

He was publically dressed down by the Chicken Hawks in the Administration-"Shinseki's last year and half in office was a series of apparently calculated and intentional insults from the civilian leadership,especially Donald Rumsfeld."

Early on in the Civil War, William Sherman told the Sec of War that it would take 200,000 to secure the lower Mississippi Valley.......He was then relieved of commanding troops for suspecion of insanity for making the remark.

Ah now, come on! You aren't trying to compare what is going on in Iraq to the Civil War now are you? Why heavens me, and to think that you just said yesterday that to compare the two was crazy.

Nope, all I'm saying is here are 2 Generals,150 years apart making honest statements and being basically ran out to town for saying it.

[TitanTiger 21,042]

I remember a bunch of far left foreign policy "experts" all but saying Reagan was insane and a madman for rejecting the idea of deténte calling the USSR the "Evil Empire" and telling Mr. Gorbechev to "tear down this wall." He believed the Soviets weren't deserving of such consideration and that they weren't able to sustain the arms race economically.

He was right. Less than two years after he left office, the Berlin Wall came down. A couple of years after that, the Communist regime in Russia disintegrated.

History is funny.

[AUTiger1 0]

Remember when Gen. Shinseki told Congress that it would take,"something in the order of several hundred thousand soldiers would probaby be required for post war Iraq"

He was publically dressed down by the Chicken Hawks in the Administration-"Shinseki's last year and half in office was a series of apparently calculated and intentional insults from the civilian leadership,especially Donald Rumsfeld."

Early on in the Civil War, William Sherman told the Sec of War that it would take 200,000 to secure the lower Mississippi Valley.......He was then relieved of commanding troops for suspecion of insanity for making the remark.

Ah now, come on! You aren't trying to compare what is going on in Iraq to the Civil War now are you? Why heavens me, and to think that you just said yesterday that to compare the two was crazy.

Nope, all I'm saying is here are 2 Generals,150 years apart making honest statements and being basically ran out to town for saying it.

pssst....pick up the sarcasm! It's been fun gentlemen, but some of us have to get up and go to work in the morning.

[arnaldoabru 11]

I remember a bunch of far left foreign policy "experts" all but saying Reagan was insane and a madman for rejecting the idea of deténte calling the USSR the "Evil Empire" and telling Mr. Gorbechev to "tear down this wall." He believed the Soviets weren't deserving of such consideration and that they weren't able to sustain the arms race economically.

He was right. Less than two years after he left office, the Berlin Wall came down. A couple of years after that, the Communist regime in Russia disintegrated.

History is funny.

One of the biggest falacies of the Reagan years was the Republican claim that he brought down the USSR.He Just happend to be President when history happened.Kind of like making Gullianni a hero just because he was mayor when 9/11 happened.

[Ranger12 53]

I remember a bunch of far left foreign policy "experts" all but saying Reagan was insane and a madman for rejecting the idea of deténte calling the USSR the "Evil Empire" and telling Mr. Gorbechev to "tear down this wall." He believed the Soviets weren't deserving of such consideration and that they weren't able to sustain the arms race economically.

He was right. Less than two years after he left office, the Berlin Wall came down. A couple of years after that, the Communist regime in Russia disintegrated.

History is funny.

One of the biggest falacies of the Reagan years was the Republican claim that he brought down the USSR.He Just happend to be President when history happened.Kind of like making Gullianni a hero just because he was mayor when 9/11 happened.

Fallacies? Are you kidding me? You actually think that Reagan had nothing to do with the wall coming down and the fall of the USSR? Who the heck do you think was responsible for it then? Please enlighten us since you seem to be such a great student of history.

FYI...Reagan was not "in office" when the wall came down and communist Russia dissolved. Bush Sr. was. So your comparison to that and Giuliani being in office during 9/11 is a bit flawed.

Reagan's foreign policy and making the Russians get into an arm race that he knew they could not win is exactly why the fell bro. Even some of the most liberal people I know at least admit that.

[Tigermike 3,651]

I remember a bunch of far left foreign policy "experts" all but saying Reagan was insane and a madman for rejecting the idea of deténte calling the USSR the "Evil Empire" and telling Mr. Gorbechev to "tear down this wall." He believed the Soviets weren't deserving of such consideration and that they weren't able to sustain the arms race economically.

He was right. Less than two years after he left office, the Berlin Wall came down. A couple of years after that, the Communist regime in Russia disintegrated.

History is funny.

One of the biggest falacies of the Reagan years was the Republican claim that he brought down the USSR.He Just happend to be President when history happened.Kind of like making Gullianni a hero just because he was mayor when 9/11 happened.

Yeah there is little doubt that if Jimmy Carter had been reelected he would have told Mr. Gorbechev to "tear down this wall." The real funny thing about history is the way leftists seem to always engage in revisionist history.

[arnaldoabru 11]

You asked for it so here goes......

After the death of Brezhnev in 1982 leadership passed to Andropov and Chernenko.Both old,sick men who died shortly after taking office.

Gorbachev was well aware that problems of all sorts plagued the Soviet Union. Elder leaders were also alarmed at the apathy and indefference the youth showed towards Communism.Gorbachev also recognized the Soviet economy needed fundamental reforms,as it had not posted positive growth in nearly a decade.

On Sept. 15,1985, Sheikh Ahmed Aaki Yamani,minister of oil,Saudia Arabia, declaraed the monarchy had decided to alter its oil policy radically.The Saudi's stopped protecting oil price.During the next 6 months oil production in Saudia Arabia increased 4 fold,while oil prices collapsed.As a result the Soviet Union lost approximatley 20 billion a year,money without which the country simply could not survive.

During the same time period the war in AAfgahnistan was costing 8.2 billion a year.Approx. 40,000-50,000 Soviet soldiers lost their life.Fax machines,a loser media, and surviving soldiers brought home the horrors of the invasion.

The Soviet leadership decided to adopt a policy of disregarding the problems.The Soviet Union started to borrow money from abroad.It borowed heavily from 1985-88,but in 1989 the Soviet economy stalled.

Gorbachev's programs of perestrokia and glasnost provided unforseen effects that brought the system down.Perestrokia was unable to reverse the collapsing economy,despite Gorbachev's best efforts.Corruption and beauracracy was far to entrenched in the economy.

Relaxation under glasnost resulted in the Communist Party losing its absolute grip on the media.Before long,much to the embarrassment of the authorities,the media began to expose several social and economic problems the Soviet govern. had long denied and actively concealed.

In all, the very positive view of Soviet life, which had long been presented to the public by the official media was being rapidly dismantled.This undermined the faith of the public in the Soviet system and eroded the Communist's Party social power base.

Gorbachev's decision not to use military force to put down revolutions in Eastern Europe further eroded the power of the Soviet Union.Despite efforts at containment, the upheaval in Eastern Europe inevitably spread to the nationalities within the USSR. The fall of the Berlin Wall and Communist governments thruout the old Soviet bloc generated demand for reform.

The rise of nationalsim under glasnost soon reawakened simmering tensions in various Soviet Republics,further discrediting the ideal of a unified Soviet people.Non-Russian minority groups thru out agitated for independance.

The tension came to a head in 1991 when a group of right wing military and KGB staged a coup.Gorbachev was forced to greatly influence the power of the Communist Party in order to prevent further attempts to seize power.Unwilling to consolidate his power by using force, Gorbachev was unable to re-establish real control over the nation.On Dec 1 1991 all non Russian republics declared independance.

In short Communism doesn't work.The whole system collapsed upon itself.The masses get tired of working their whole life to be rewarded by a washing machine that did not work.Once the strong man is gone then the system collapses. Same thing would have eventully happeded in Iraq.Revolutions start from within,not by invading armies.

[Ranger12 53]

Yeah, that sounds like your own stuff there. That looks just like the way you normally post on the board. :rolleyes

What revisionist site did you copy and past that from?

FYI...wherever you got this site from...they make several assumptions and opinions and also leave out some very crucial info. For example, they left out who was arming and even helping train the Afghani rebels when the Russians invaded and eventually driven out. Basically the article talks about all these things that happened in the 80s, while Reagan was president, but really does not detail why they happened.

At least one thing was right...communism does not work. Neither does socialism. However where other presidents failed to exploit the weaknesses of communism to usher in its demise, Reagan knew what was needed to be done and he gave the orders to execute those things. I wouldn't expect you to understand anything that you did not read in the newspapers or CBS though.

[arnaldoabru 11]

It comes from about 10 different sources.Sure our military spending helped to aid the downfall.It was one straw in the straw house.Another problem was just the enormous size of the USSR with its different nationalities.

After harsh rulers like Lenin and Stalin thank God for a person like Gorbachev who decided not to have blood on his hands.

[TitanTiger 21,042]

We know communism doesn't work. So did Reagan. The Soviets likely could have kept the degree of their economic woes under wraps for a lot longer than they did. What the Reagan Administration, through various intelligence sources, realized was just how close they were to being broken. The arms race in the 80s was the tipping point. He knew that if we ramped up our defense, the Soviets would run their fragile economy into the ground trying to keep up. They simply would not be able to sustain it.

They certainly could have dragged it out like N. Korea has done, even though their people are starving and the country is as backwards as any in the world in some ways. Except the Soviets wouldn't be trying to develop a nuclear arsenal like the NK's, they already had one.

No one is making the claim that Reagan's policies toward them, all by themselves, caused the collapse of the Soviet Union. But the policies accelerated their demise many times over. Reagan recognized something that none of the Dems of the time seemed to get. Carter's policies would not have brought this about. Neither would Mondale's.