<p>‘And? Do you have a substantive criticism besides “that’s consistent with a slogan”?’</p>
<p>Sure I do. Personally, as a conservative I wish we’d never gone into Iraq. Despite the good it has done, and it is remarkable, some harm has also come of it, domestically and internationally. War is like that. History will judge the overall merit of the exercise. However, we are there - now - for the period of time it takes to get the Iraqi government to control their own country. I want that to be as soon as possible. I want our troops home and out of the line of fire as soon as is practicable. I support our government and especially the troops, but it’s time for the Iraqis to step up and handle their own affairs.</p>
<p>Once done, however, a stable and democratic Iraq will be a blessing for the area in my view. </p>
<p>But that’s only part of the problem - a fairly small part. Terrorist activity will have to be dealt with and endured by the US for years - regardless of Iraq. A number of radical clerics have spoken and written that the only peace they will accept is when the US is a part of the world-wide Caliphate. They have threatened Israel with destruction - a veritable rebirth of the Final Solution. I personally refuse to let that happen again. The rhetoric of anti-war Democrats is not a help to this issue, it does more harm than good. </p>
<p>Other than that, I want Florida State to play better football. ;)</p>
<p>Right, I agree with you. But who pressured the USSR to keep spending money? Who pressured the USSR to make human rights reforms? who pressured the USSR to do glasnot and perestroika?</p>
<p>The US did all of that either through the arms race or defense spending or the Jackson Vanou Amendment etc</p>
<p>“But who pressured the USSR to keep spending money? Who pressured the USSR to make human rights reforms? who pressured the USSR to do glasnot and perestroika?”</p>
<p>A lot of this pressure toward glasnot and perestroika came from within the Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc countries. Lech Walesa and Poland, for example, get a lot of the credit. Or do you really think they were all just sheep waiting on America to liberate them?</p>
<p>And the US certainly didn’t demand that the Soviet Union exert the kind of control they did over the Eastern bloc countries. That’s what drained the exchequer, the foreign adventuring.</p>
<p>ETA: And a lot of the economic pressure came from disastrous domestic spending issues made by the Soviet leadership. The failed policies of the 5-year plans had everything to do with not understanding economics and next to nothing to do with outside forces.</p>
<p>So you feel, had the US not taken the role it did, the USSR would not have fallen because that would be very interesting and contrary to most historian’s, economists’ etc opinions.</p>
<p>Sorry, that was a little harsh. I am still kind of touchy from the time that you tried to claim that because I currently live in a small, Southern town, I didn’t care if the terrorists attacked Boston or New York. (It may interest you to know that I work in a high rise building in a major metropolitan area, by the way).</p>
<p>Be that as it may, I think you’ll find that few, if any, historians would support the idea that the collapse of the USSR was all from external pressure from the US (which is the only causative factor you seem to mention) and that none of the internal forces I mentioned played a role.</p>
<p>So we are in agreement. I never disputed that internal factor played a role, I just merely said that it was the US that pushed them over the top, in fact so much that the US can be credited with winning the cold war, which they credited with by most people.</p>
<p>And if the US makes the same bad decisions that the USSR did, we can expect the same fate. I think this is where we part company. You are advocating for the US to make some of the same decisions that doomed the USSR (specifically, spending hundreds of billions on foreign adventuring), and I am advocating for them not to.</p>
<p>You must know that we don’t even have the money we are spending on the war; we’re borrowing it all. If the US could afford to blow hundreds of billions of dollars on foreign adventures, the Government Accounting Office wouldn’t be warning that we are on the verge of economic disaster.</p>
<p>And not even included in those hundreds of billions ($600 billion so far) is the long term financial cost of supporting and rehabilitating all the veterans disabled by the war, supporting the families of those killed, etc. In this country, there are 200,000 homeless veterans. We don’t even have the economic capability to deal with that effectively, and it would cost far less than the war in Iraq.</p>
<p>What is this about the Government Accounting Office?</p>
<p>Our debt is shrinking extremely fast, and much faster than this administration or the democrats anticipated. The economic boom that the tax cuts have given this country can go a long way. GDP is rising, we are pretty much at full employment, wages are rising, inflation is in check. </p>
<p>200,000 homeless vets is not an economic problem but a beuracracy problem for this administration.</p>