How world condemns USA embargo on CUBA - Page 8 - U.S. Politics Online: A Political Discussion Forum

Slartibartfas · #**106** (**permalink**) 11-12-2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gort

No Slarti a war didn't break out, and do you know why it didn't break out or why the missles were puit there in teh first place? Or are you simply reacting to things you have seen and read here without thinking of them in the context of the timeperiod.

And had the Russians not tried to place the missles there in the first place none of this would have happened either. Well hell while we are assessing blame using todays hind sight lets go even further. Had the Russians not tried to starve the people of west Berlin into submission we may not have gotten to where we placed missles in Turkey. Had they not put down the Hungarian uprising as ruthlessly as they did in 1956 the Turks may have agreed when we suggested that the Jupiter missles should be withdrawn in 1961 since they were obsolete anyway. Now why might the Turks have wantd teh missles in the first place? In March 1945 the USSR indicated it would not renew the Treaty of Nonagression and Neutrality with Turkey with dated back to 1925. Clearly this told Turkey the USSR had some expansionist aims. The USSR also indicated it wanted bases on the Turkish Straights for joint defense of those Straights.

Yep Slarti all rational moves designed not to make anyone worry so far on the part of the Russians wouldn't you say? But wait there is more. The rational Soviets provided aid and arms to the two nations outside of the USSR that provided the biggest threat to Turkey at the time, Iran and Syria. When you add the fact that Greece was on the other side, an ally in name only at the time, and Turkey was surrounded. Yep all of these moves on the part of the USSR at the time were rational and only aimed at keeping the world at peace.

Slarti the strategic advantage at that time had nothing to do with the missles in Cuba or Turkey and had everything to tdo with in the late 50's the US had over 4,000 nukes, Russia around 400 and GB 15 or so. That was th strategic advantage. The nukes in Turkey had less to do with US security than it did Turkish security. And whoever said anything about evil communists? If I think something is evil Slarti I can identify that for myself, I do not need you to do it for me. So please lets stick to the issue and forget the hyperbole shall we?

Yep you can do that if you like, you wold be wrong of course, but hey everyone is entitled to their own opinions right or wrong.

Well, let it be as it is.

Cold war is over anyway, luckily. And if history would have been different who knows how the world would look like today.

PS:
I did not try to suggest that Russia were better than the US. If it looked like that I am sorry for that. After all I would be the last fan of Russia, after all what they stole from my country just to agree to leave it again... its just that many in American (not you probably) still have some sort of Commie-phobia that is a bit exaggerated.

PPS: If you are interested, have a look at my newly uploaded pictures in the newly again opened USPO pictures gallery. Just follow the link in my signature.

jpsartre12 · #**107** (**permalink**) 11-12-2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by Slartibartfas

Also, but those rockets were directed therefore on the Russian metropols, weren't they?

If you did so, why was it a reason to unleash WWIII if Russian does the same in the other direction. And the US would have started this third WW if not for the Russians to act so rational and reasonably.
You did not protect us with the Cuba crises. You risked our all heads for a total double measurement.

Dont you also see that? I dont say you had no right to threaten Russia. I said it was not understandable why you would have started WWIII if Russia would have done so too with you.

Obviously, the concept of MAD (mutually assured destruction) is lost on you.......even though it worked for several decades.

Gort · #**108** (**permalink**) 11-12-2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by Slartibartfas

Well, let it be as it is.

Cold war is over anyway, luckily. And if history would have been different who knows how the world would look like today.

PS:
I did not try to suggest that Russia were better than the US. If it looked like that I am sorry for that. After all I would be the last fan of Russia, after all what they stole from my country just to agree to leave it again... its just that many in American (not you probably) still have some sort of Commie-phobia that is a bit exaggerated.

PPS: If you are interested, have a look at my newly uploaded pictures in the newly again opened USPO pictures gallery. Just follow the link in my signature.

Slarti, If you thought I was mad at you, like you sometimes I get a little intense over things. I lived through most of the cold war and remember things like the duck and cover drills. (like hiding under wooden desk in a classroom was going to protect us from a nuclear blast.) I remember the doomsday clock which for most of the formative years of my life seemed to be perpetually set on 10 seconds or less to midnight. That is one reason why I do not get as concerned over terrorism as some people do, especially the younger people who weren't alive or don't remember the days when it wasn't a little radiation here or there that was of concern but the end of humanity. Don't get me wrong I think we should fight back against terror, but what the terrorists promise is a far cry from Mutually Assured Destruction. Anyway when I see people trying to understand events without looking at the context in which those events happened I do get a little incensed. We are all guilty of that though to some degree when discussing events based on a history text. I do it when I talk about France and England before WWII and I know it. Its hard not to do that when you have no personal connection to the events themselves.

I think we need to learn from history, and to do that you indeed do have to re-examine. However to simply criticize the people making the decisions at the time, unless you have clear evidence that they knew better, seems to me to be trying to revise history and that we shoud not do.

By the way cool pictures of Wien. I will be in San Diego, Cleveland, Chicago and I think Des Moines and Annapolis as well over the next 30 to 45 days. I Will take some pictures from these various locations to give you a flavor. I will try to get more of the neighborhood shots as opposed to the downtown shots since we spend very little time other than work in most of our cities, with some exceptions of course.

jpsartre12 · #**109** (**permalink**) 11-12-2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by enigma2

Come onnnnnnnnn! You couldn't really believe that! LOL

Not only do I believe it, but so did the rest of the world. That's how MAD works.

Quote:

The US also made a point during this period of targeting their missiles on Russian population centers rather than military targets. This was intended to reinforce the second strike pose. If the Soviets attacked first, then there would be no point in destroying empty missile silos that had already launched; the only thing left to hit would be cities. By contrast, if America had gone to great lengths to protect their citizens and targeted the enemy's silos, that might have led the Russians to believe the US was planning a first strike, where they would eliminate Soviet missiles while still in their silos and be able to survive a weakened counter attack in their reinforced bunkers. In this way, both sides were (theoretically) assured that the other would not strike first, and a war without a first strike will not occur.

This strategy had one major and possibly critical flaw, soon realised by military analysts but highly underplayed by the US military: Conventional NATO forces in the European theatre of war were considered to be outnumbered by similar Soviet and Warsaw Pact forces, and while the western countries invested heavily in high-tech conventional weapons to counter this (partly perceived) imbalance, it was assumed that in case of a major Soviet attack (commonly perceived as the 'red tanks rolling towards the North Sea' scenario) that NATO, in the face of conventional defeat, would soon have no other choice but to resort to tactical nuclear strikes. Most analysts agreed that once the first nuclear exchange had occurred, escalation to global nuclear war would become almost inevitable.

So, while official US policy was that nuclear weapons were "weapons of last resort", the reality was that the lack of strength of conventional NATO forces would force the US to either abandon Western Europe or use nuclear weapons in its defense. Official NATO doctrine had been critically flawed from the outset and nuclear war would have been a very real possibility had actual conflict occurred.

This major flaw, although largely ignored by the military community, quickly gathered public interest and many movies and books were based upon this and several other weaknesses in the policy of mutually assured destruction.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_warfare

jpsartre12 · #**110** (**permalink**) 11-12-2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by enigma2

Gort, it was also my understanding that they were also there as a deterrent against a US invasion. Now I can't remember the exact time-line re Bay of Pigs, but it makes more sense than JP's statement did.

Yeah! yeah! But if JP can state that the nukes in Turkey were the only thing 'protecting' western Europe from the Evil Empire then please give my assertion some 'screen time'! LOL

My bad, I was thinking of the short-range nukes that NATO had deployed throughout Western Europe.... which also included Turkey, not the Jupiters. West Germany had the most and they were there to prevent an attack by USSR overwhelming NATO's much smaller conventional forces.
If you think that Western Europe's protection against a Soviet invasion was conventional weaponry, then you are sadly misinformed. NATO maintained a nuclear deterrence to a Soviet invasion, not a conventional one. The USSR would have rolled through West Germany like a hot knife through butter.

Quote:

Given the enormous attention paid to nuclear weapons, it may come as a surprise to most people that until now we have had only fragmentary information about where, when, and under what circumstances the United States deployed nuclear bombs overseas.

But now, an important historical document has been provided to the authors in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. The document, titled History of the Custody and Deployment of Nuclear Weapons: July 1945 through September 1977, is a lengthy narrative complete with charts and appendices that documents the growth of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. [1] It also includes what were--until now--some of the U.S. government's most closely guarded secrets: the deployment of nuclear weapons in such sensitive places as Japan, Greenland, Iceland, and Taiwan.

The entire document will be a valuable source of information for historians of the Cold War. Due to space constraints, however, we have limited the focus of this article to only one section, Appendix B, titled "Chronology Deployment by Country 1951-1977." Appendix B includes an alphabetical list of the localities where U.S. nuclear weapons were deployed, including the types of weapons systems deployed and their entry and withdrawal dates. After an extensive declassification review, the Pentagon provided the names of nine places where bombs were located--Alaska, Cuba, Guam, Hawaii, Johnston Island, Midway, Puerto Rico, Britain, and West Germany. The names of 18 other locations were blacked out, but because the list is alphabetical it is not terribly difficult to identify them--with the exception of one mystery country listed between Canada and Cuba.
http://www.thebulletin.org/article.p...nd99norris_024

jpsartre12 · #**111** (**permalink**) 11-12-2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by enigma2

There were many 'truths' in the murky world of the Cold War. Although I'm not a post-modernist, (or Foucauldian) by any means, it was one of the tools used to explain it all. In post-modernism each 'truth' has validity.

I doubt that the missiles had anything to do with 'protecting' Europe, but more to do with an American hubris and one-up-manship. As has been pointed out, these missiles were trained on cities in the USSR. Why is it not sauce for the goose as well as the gander? However, when the safety of the world was hanging by a thread, it was the USSR which acted reasonably.

That is a 'truth'.

You are truly clueless! You know only enough about the Cold War to be dangerous.

Do you remember the Berlin Airlift? The Russian squashing of democracy in Hungary in 1956? Who do you think was applying the pressure to stop the Warsaw Pact's agression? And with what? Your revisionist history is not only wrong, it's laughable!

Ianmac37 · #**112** (**permalink**) 11-12-2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by laca

This big Mac and Coke Disneyland freedom works only in case of USA moronic zombie gun mentality majority. We are much more educated and sophisticated and on such civilised level that is very difficult for us to be hypnotised with such cheep seductions.

Is that why so many Cubans brave the dangerous sea and try to float a raft to the US every year? Beyond that, many Cubans defect to other countries whenever there is an opportunity.

People do not flee a free nation. They are free to leave if they desire.

jpsartre12 · #**113** (**permalink**) 11-12-2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ianmac37

Is that why so many Cubans brave the dangerous sea and try to float a raft to the US every year? Beyond that, many Cubans defect to other countries whenever there is an opportunity.

People do not flee a free nation. They are free to leave if they desire.

He's clearly trolling now. Cuba must be the best-educated starving third world country on earth. They aren't "seduced" by materialism because they don't have a pot to piss in.

O'Sullivan Bere · #**114** (**permalink**) 11-12-2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ianmac37

Is that why so many Cubans brave the dangerous sea and try to float a raft to the US every year? Beyond that, many Cubans defect to other countries whenever there is an opportunity.

People do not flee a free nation. They are free to leave if they desire.

That's true. It is not just massive flight to Florida, but other nations too. There is a large community of Cubans living in the area around Shannon Airport in Ireland. Aeroflot, the once-Soviet and now Russian airline, has always stopped at Shannon to refuel for their trans-Atlantic flights. Cubans on flights to Moscow repeatedly hopped off the plane at Shannon to claim asylum so they could escape living in the 'socialist paradises.'

enigma2 · #**115** (**permalink**) 11-13-2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by jpsartre12

You are truly clueless! You know only enough about the Cold War to be dangerous.

Do you remember the Berlin Airlift? The Russian squashing of democracy in Hungary in 1956? Who do you think was applying the pressure to stop the Warsaw Pact's agression? And with what? Your revisionist history is not only wrong, it's laughable!

JP I am older than you, and if I was a male I probably would have been conscripted re Vietnam!

I was alive, just, when the Berlin Airlift occurred. As for the 'squashing' of the 'freedom fighters' in Hungary (as they were then called) quite a few came to Australia. Quite a few become well-known to the police as well. Hmmm! the Warsaw Pact aggression. lt is MY history, JP.

I was never as paranoid about the USSR using nuclear weapons or 'aggression' as you seem to be. Mainly because my memory remembers Guatemala, Korea, Malaya, etc and if you look it up,but not on wiki something more reputable, you will see that the aggressor was not the USSR.

I took history as an elective, JP. Fortunately, it wasn't just the 'official story' but an actual analysis of the Cold War. Believe me, the high moral ground cannot be claimed by the US!

Calvin X · #**116** (**permalink**) 11-13-2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by laca

Well this is how they justify aggressive and gun mentality bully behavior towards others.

Laca, I asked you the question. Care to answer?

Calvin X · #**117** (**permalink**) 11-13-2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by danielpalos

Why should we believe all of the propaganda? How much our own government's propaganda would we have been better off ignoring, instead of reacting to it?

According to your logic, some of the ME could be considered justified in their use of terrorism, since the US has called some of their membership an "Axis of Evil".

We should be promoting the general welfare, not the general warfare.

Calling someone a mean name is not the same as stating that part of the way you define yourself is that you need to destroy someone else.

By my understanding of communism, communist states do exactly that. They are/were all offically dedicated to the "prolonged struggle" against capitalism.

Despite a few replies to my original question, no one has actually answered me on whether my understanding is correct, if Cuba has ever tried to renouce this ideology, or why we should be nice to someone who is dedicated to destroying us.

enigma2 · #**118** (**permalink**) 11-13-2006

Oh! for heavens sake! The whole reason d'etre of your military, government et al was the destruction of the USSR. Now you are allies. As if Cuba could ever do any harm to the US!

Have you ever heard of rhetoric? The Cold War is over isn't it time for that whole them/us thing was also ended?

jpsartre12 · #**119** (**permalink**) 11-13-2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by enigma2

Oh! for heavens sake! The whole reason d'etre of your military, government et al was the destruction of the USSR. Now you are allies. As if Cuba could ever do any harm to the US!

Have you ever heard of rhetoric? The Cold War is over isn't it time for that whole them/us thing was also ended?

You're wrong...again. The raison d'être of the US military is to protect American and Allied interests. During the Cold War, that was accomplished through the policies of containment and MAD. It wasn't until Reagan's Presidency that the goal of dismantling the Soviet Union was proposed.
By contrast, it was the USSR's goal to destroy the US from, at least, the early 1960's when Khrushchev appeared before the UN, banged his shoe on the table and exclaimed "Мы вас похороним!", translated: "We will bury you!"

We took his threat seriously, as we should have, and as a result, buried them.

Slartibartfas · #**120** (**permalink**) 11-13-2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gort

By the way cool pictures of Wien. I will be in San Diego, Cleveland, Chicago and I think Des Moines and Annapolis as well over the next 30 to 45 days. I Will take some pictures from these various locations to give you a flavor. I will try to get more of the neighborhood shots as opposed to the downtown shots since we spend very little time other than work in most of our cities, with some exceptions of course.

Thanks.

I am looking forward to your pics. You can use the photo gallery for that. It even scales down the pictures to a nice format automatically