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Undertoad · 03-02-2003, 10:05 AM

Jesus, don't work so hard. I saw the assistant secy of state admit it during a congressional hearing. Then he said

"I fought against that policy at the time, because I don't believe the enemy of our enemy is our friend. We learned that our friends need to have more than a common enemy... we need to share values."

That was a hard lesson.

Is it helpful to recall context? This was part of a global effort to prevent WW3 on the basis of Soviet expansion which, had it extended to the middle east, would have changed things immensely. In the 80s the USSR was suffering terrible economic collapse. The US turned up the heat on them by increasing its military budget. This left them unable to compete and maintain their empire. If they had expanded to the middle east who knows what would have happened. Is it helpful to recall that in Stalin's purges there were 20 million estimated killed. Nobody knows exactly how many because the USSR was a secret, and yes, an evil empire.

We had no clue at the time; in fact many of my college compatriots in the early 80s were starry-eyed about the beautiful USSR and its wonderful central planning. 20 million dead and they all thought Stalin was just misunderstood. Another lesson never to forget.

03-02-2003, 10:05 AM	#2
Undertoad Radical Centrist Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Cottage of Prussia Posts: 31,423	Jesus, don't work so hard. I saw the assistant secy of state admit it during a congressional hearing. Then he said "I fought against that policy at the time, because I don't believe the enemy of our enemy is our friend. We learned that our friends need to have more than a common enemy... we need to share values." That was a hard lesson. Is it helpful to recall context? This was part of a global effort to prevent WW3 on the basis of Soviet expansion which, had it extended to the middle east, would have changed things immensely. In the 80s the USSR was suffering terrible economic collapse. The US turned up the heat on them by increasing its military budget. This left them unable to compete and maintain their empire. If they had expanded to the middle east who knows what would have happened. Is it helpful to recall that in Stalin's purges there were 20 million estimated killed. Nobody knows exactly how many because the USSR was a secret, and yes, an evil empire. We had no clue at the time; in fact many of my college compatriots in the early 80s were starry-eyed about the beautiful USSR and its wonderful central planning. 20 million dead and they all thought Stalin was just misunderstood. Another lesson never to forget.