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Originally posted by Joss Weatherby This was the right decision, full stop. If anyone wants to argue the technical merits of this then by all means try me. I am obsessed with anything regarding nuclear weapons, ICBM, and ABM. First please read this article in Newsweek though and come back to me: http://www.newsweek.com/id/215620

This is the correct response.

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Originally posted by Brahman The idea that Iran is considering launching missiles at the NATO alliance is absolutely absurd. That would be national suicide. Like us thinking about preemptively launching missiles at Russia. No way in hell we'r going to do it. There is ZERO need for a missile defense system in eastern Europe. It's bullshit. Is it no wonder Russia is so vehemently against it? They aren't idiots, they know.

That's not the point. Our real allies in NATO and eastern europe feel totally underminded and betrayed. A perfect example is this: when the Czech Republic signed their end of the missle shield deal in July, suddenly their gas supply from Russia got cut 50% over night. Russia can and will exert control over those countries to keep them within their sphere of influence without any balance the U.S. provides them.

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Actually the lesson is Russia won't take it up the ass.

Russia won't take it up the ass? lol... they continue to get what they want and do what they want, with no concessions. Should be a two way street.

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Cuba can do whatever they want in their territorial waters.

You're changing the subject. Someone challenged the fact that Russia is not drilling 45 miles from Cuba, and I provided evidence otherwise.

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Originally posted by Joss Weatherby How come when I am right none of the conservative members of this forum respond. I kick arse.

Some of us don't live in the forum 24/7 man. It takes a few days to go back through and read the posts.... for some of us at least. Anyway, your opinionated rebuttals don't hold a lot of water... when did you become a military expert and nuclear technology savant?

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Originally posted by The17sss That's not the point. Our real allies in NATO and eastern europe feel totally underminded and betrayed. A perfect example is this: when the Czech Republic signed their end of the missle shield deal in July, suddenly their gas supply from Russia got cut 50% over night. Russia can and will exert control over those countries to keep them within their sphere of influence without any balance the U.S. provides them.

So you admit this whole "we got to protect Europe against Iran's shitty missiles" is total bullshit? Russia seems justified then in being against it.

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Russia won't take it up the ass? lol... they continue to get what they want and do what they want, with no concessions. Should be a two way street.

So Russia should accept US bases surrounding them along with "missile defense shields" which are blatantly aimed at them. This has nothing to do with Iran.

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You're changing the subject. Someone challenged the fact that Russia is not drilling 45 miles from Cuba, and I provided evidence otherwise.

No I'm not. Your mad that Cuba is hiring Russian companies to drill for oil in their own waters, which is completely within their rights. Are you mad it isn't Exxon Mobil doing it?

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Originally posted by The17sss Some of us don't live in the forum 24/7 man. It takes a few days to go back through and read the posts.... for some of us at least. Anyway, your opinionated rebuttals don't hold a lot of water... when did you become a military expert and nuclear technology savant?

Since I turned 7 and found out about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and my dad decided that it would be good to sit me down and make me watch The Day After. He thought it would scare me straight, it just made me horribly obsessed.

They are opinionated because it is an opinion, politically at least. From a strategic and logical point of view it is all fact. Aegis and SM-3 works, is deployed, and can be readily expanded. It also suits the current threat more than anything else.

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Originally posted by Brahman So you admit this whole "we got to protect Europe against Iran's shitty missiles" is total bullshit? Russia seems justified then in being against it. So Russia should accept US bases surrounding them along with "missile defense shields" which are blatantly aimed at them. This has nothing to do with Iran.

Read my sig.


You guys aren't looking at the big picture. Obama capitulated to Russia in the same disheartening fashion in which he supported Castro, Chavez, and Ortega in selling out Honduras... stick it to fledgling democricies trying to make it on their own in support of the powers who favor dictatorial power, communism, and oppressive rule. And for what? Do we really want our allies publicly saying the U.S. has sold them to Russia and stabbed them in the back, as Poland did?

If Ukraine, Poland, Hungary, et. al... our allies... are undermined by Obama's desire to prove he's not George Bush, that will only embolden those who, trust me, do NOT have American's interests at heart. You think Russia, China, Iran, etc. are content with sharing influence with America? Russia controls the energy that flows into Eastern Europe... and they have shown with alarming predictibility they aren't afraid to cut them off for their own ends. And why does everyone keep discounting Iran? They just repeated again the other day that Israel's days are numbered. As I said... we have Neville Chamberlin in the white house.

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Originally posted by The17sss Read my sig. You guys aren't looking at the big picture. Obama capitulated to Russia in the same disheartening fashion in which he supported Castro, Chavez, and Ortega in selling out Honduras... stick it to fledgling democricies trying to make it on their own in support of the powers who favor dictatorial power, communism, and oppressive rule. And for what? Do we really want our allies publicly saying the U.S. has sold them to Russia and stabbed them in the back, as Poland did? If Ukraine, Poland, Hungary, et. al... our allies... are undermined by Obama's desire to prove he's not George Bush, that will only embolden those who, trust me, do NOT have American's interests at heart. You think Russia, China, Iran, etc. are content with sharing influence with America? Russia controls the energy that flows into Eastern Europe... and they have shown with alarming predictibility they aren't afraid to cut them off for their own ends. And why does everyone keep discounting Iran? They just repeated again the other day that Israel's days are numbered. As I said... we have Neville Chamberlin in the white house.

Yea, but a multibillion dollar boondoggle that helps no one is not the way to go supporting them.

I do not get you conservative types, you will be totally willing to spend billions on a foreign countries defense against a former and now semi-dormant foe, but god forbid we spend that money here at home trying to fix health care.

Are your priorities with the people of the US or the Czechs and Poles?

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Originally posted by Joss Weatherby Yea, but a multibillion dollar boondoggle that helps no one is not the way to go supporting them. I do not get you conservative types, you will be totally willing to spend billions on a foreign countries defense against a former and now semi-dormant foe, but god forbid we spend that money here at home trying to fix health care. Are your priorities with the people of the US or the Czechs and Poles?

Is it really that black and white to you? A semi-dormant foe? We are placating Russia at the expense of our allies, bottom line. As long as Russia perceives America as weak, they will continue to exert control over the neighboring countries who have been trying to get out from under their influence for decades. Mark Steyn gives some good perspective on the matter:

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Diplomacy used to be, as Canada's Lester Pearson liked to say, the art of letting the other fellow have your way. Today, it's more of a discreet cover for letting the other fellow have his way with you. The Europeans "negotiate" with Iran over its nukes for years, and, in the end, Iran gets the nukes, and Europe gets to feel good about itself for having sat across the table talking to no good purpose for the best part of a decade. In Moscow, there was a palpable triumphalism in the news that the Russians had succeeded in letting the Obama fellow have their way. "This is a recognition by the Americans of the rightness of our arguments about the reality of the threat or, rather, the lack of one," said Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the Duma's international affairs committee. "Finally the Americans have agreed with us." There'll be a lot more of that in the years ahead. There is no discreetly arranged "Russian concession." Moscow has concluded that a nuclear Iran is in its national interest – especially if the remorseless nuclearization process itself is seen as a testament to Western weakness. Even if the Israelis are driven to bomb the thing to smithereens circa next spring, that, too, would only emphasize, by implicit comparison, American and European pusillanimity. Any private relief felt in the chancelleries of London and Paris would inevitably license a huge amount of public tut-tutting by this or that foreign minister about the Zionist Entity's regrettable "disproportion." The U.S. defense secretary is already on record as opposing an Israeli strike. If it happens, every thug state around the globe will understand the subtext – that, aside from a tiny strip of land on the east bank of the Jordan, every other advanced society on earth is content to depend for its security on the kindness of strangers. The Europe Putin foresees will be one not only ever more energy-dependent on Moscow but security-dependent, too – in which every city is within range of missiles from Tehran and other crazies, and is, in effect, under the security umbrella of the new czar. As to whether such a Continent will be amicable to American interests, well, good luck with that, hopeychangers. In a sense, the health care debate and the foreign policy debacle are two sides of the same coin: For Britain and other great powers, the decision to build a hugely expensive welfare state at home entailed inevitably a long retreat from responsibilities abroad, with a thousand small betrayals of peripheral allies along the way. A few years ago, the great scholar Bernard Lewis warned, during the debate on withdrawal from Iraq, that America risked being seen as "harmless as an enemy and treacherous as a friend." In Moscow and Tehran, on the one hand, and Warsaw and Prague, on the other, they're drawing their own conclusions.

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Originally posted by The17sss Is it really that black and white to you? A semi-dormant foe? We are placating Russia at the expense of our allies, bottom line. As long as Russia perceives America as weak, they will continue to exert control over the neighboring countries who have been trying to get out from under their influence for decades. Mark Steyn gives some good perspective on the matter:

I have long argued on this forum that the missile shield Bush wanted to establish in Poland posed absolutely no threat to Russia ... but let me get this straight. Despite the facts on the ground, you want us to spend billions on an ineffective weapons system designed to counter a threat that doesn't exist (ICBMs) and ignores a threat that does exist and is growing (SRBMs and MRBMs) and this ineffective and more costly weapons system will be deployed at a later date than a more effective, proven standard missile 3 system because of marginal geo-political reasons?

A) The US could simply reaffirm article 5 of the NATO treaty which covers Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, and the Czech Republic
B) While the US is not sending THAAD interceptors to Poland it is still sending patriot missile batteries administered by US forces
C) Instead of a billion dollar missile boondogle the US could simply establish a base in Poland and accomplish the very same effect

In other words why are you proposing an expensive and retarded military solution to achieve a geo-political solution when any number of alternative and more effective solutions are available to us? Hey, why don't we revive a Reagan-esque star wars ABM system at the cost of TRILLIONS of dollars and base the janitorial staff in Poland not because we actually care about nuclear deterrance but ummm yea so Poland won't get attacked??? FFS no wonder why the GOP is so out of touch with reality. Talk about black and white ... it's like they have no concept of Realpolitik at all.

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Retro ...

Last edited by occrider on Sep-20-2009 at 07:31

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Originally posted by The17sss Read my sig. You guys aren't looking at the big picture. Obama capitulated to Russia in the same disheartening fashion in which he supported Castro, Chavez, and Ortega in selling out Honduras... stick it to fledgling democricies trying to make it on their own in support of the powers who favor dictatorial power, communism, and oppressive rule. And for what? Do we really want our allies publicly saying the U.S. has sold them to Russia and stabbed them in the back, as Poland did? If Ukraine, Poland, Hungary, et. al... our allies... are undermined by Obama's desire to prove he's not George Bush, that will only embolden those who, trust me, do NOT have American's interests at heart. You think Russia, China, Iran, etc. are content with sharing influence with America? Russia controls the energy that flows into Eastern Europe... and they have shown with alarming predictibility they aren't afraid to cut them off for their own ends. And why does everyone keep discounting Iran? They just repeated again the other day that Israel's days are numbered. As I said... we have Neville Chamberlin in the white house.

So you want us to spend billions, (I thought you were against our debt-ridden government), on an ineffective missile system so we can stick it to Russia? Gotta love the Neville Chamberlain (just another way to compare Obama to Hitler) metaphor.

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Originally posted by Joss Weatherby Since I turned 7 and found out about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and my dad decided that it would be good to sit me down and make me watch The Day After.

Good ol' Lawrence, Kansas! Aside of the 'Hawks basketball, that was quite a strange way to put us on the map.

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Whence September dusk grows crisper still,
with leaves all crimson conquered,
I yearn to shout,
and dance about,
and stick pickles in my honker...