Political Crossfire Forums

http://www.rense.com/general32/americ.htm

How many of you believe this stuff? I can say that I agree to some of the speculations mentioned above.

We tend to believe the United States is the country that won the Cold War but what if by winning against Soviet Union we actually lost much more important battle against internal foe? Maybe we should have taken a different stance against communism from the very beginning in order to avoid conflicts? At least now we are doing fine with communist China. Was it possible to sustain good relations with USSR as well?

On the other hand, blaming foreign countries for our own mistakes is a sign of weakness and internal corruption. American government is considered to be our #1 problem by millions of fellow Americans. What makes some of us believe the state was undermined by the actions of Soviet spies? I do not believe that communists, being officially haunted by the government, could find a way to shape American domestic and international policy.

What do you guys think?

1. Marxism and other forms of teutonic absolutism continue to mess up American intellectual life. Used to be only religious fanatics were so sure of things...we should reject it as an academic curiousity and move on.


2. We totally could have been buddies with the Commies. We showed time and time again we could work well with the Commies. I mostly blame idealists at home and the Europeans for the fact we didn't work well with the Commies (America! help us invade Russia. America! help us keep Vietnam. etc).

All I have to add is that we decided that Islamic extremism was preferable to communism.

How's that workin' out?

My point is that the all-consuming obsession with fighting "communism" has led to immeasurable casualties.

We fought a proxy war vs. the USSR in Afghansitan in the 1980s by backing, with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, jihadists that otherwise would have been wiped out. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan continue to be the #1 and #2 exporters of Islamic terrorism worldwide. Once the USSR was defeated, the jihadists then turned their focus to... us.

We supported endless, atrocious dictators around the world but particularly in the Middle East simply using the criteria that they were not communist--creating generations of people who hated us for it, which continues to this day.

We did the same thing in South America.

We went to Vietnam as part of the War on Communism.

The whole era of McCarthyism wouldn't have happened without a War on Communism.

We say we won the Cold War, but did we? Ultimately? Sounds like a Pyrrhic victory to me, considering where we are now.