Why Is It Ok For Usa & Uk To Have Wmd?

[MagicNakor]

It's unfortunate that you've been spoon-fed pablum, which becomes blatently obvious the more you attempt discourse. Perhaps you ought to read up on Communism and Hitler before you go saying I'm "full of shit." Don't worry though. I'll use small words for you.

Now, way way back in 1991, the USSR dissolved into fifteen seperate countries. Before you go saying the USA destroyed the USSR, you really should look into the basis of Soviet Russia. But, apparently you want me to spoon-feed you more. So, here goes. A horribly brief and shallow overview of the USSR (which is an acronym for Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, by the way), and unhappily cutting out the meat of the subject. After the Bolshevik Revolution, the government adopted socialism, gradually moving towards communism. It was destined to fail from the beginning, since the Soviet Russians underestimated the degree to which the non-Russians would resent Russian rule. Consider that the non-Russians comprised more than 50% of the USSR. Secondly, their economic planning failed to meet the State's needs, due to the arms race. This, of course, led into economical decline, forcing a need for reform. And since people are not machines, the ideology of communism never really captivated the people, and eventually lost its influence.

In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev came into power. He was the last leader of the Soviet Union. The State was in ruins financially, and political turmoil was rampant. He brought in a two-tiered reform system. The two tiers were glasnot and perestroika. Freedom of speech and rebuilding. He didn't realize that giving complete freedom of expression to people who had decades-old pent up emotion would be so powerful. His rebuilding policy didn't have the results he promised. The Soviet people were able to openly criticize Gorbachev. And the non-Russian areas of the USSR began to revolt, Estonia being the first. This was 1987. Soon after, Lithuania and Latvia demanded their own independence. Gorbachev can't crack down on them; it goes against his policy of glasnot, but if it runs its course, it'd spell ruin for the rest of the USSR. Then the Armenian people (in the south Soviet Union) demanded to join the Republic of Armenia. Denied. Violent protests eventually spilling into war. This continues until present day.

Afterwards, Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, Byelorussia, and the Central Asian republics all begin nationalist movements. This weakens the central State, as it can no longer trust its own people in the republics. And because of glasnot, nothing can be done. In August of 1991, some hardline Communist kidnap Gorbachev and go on television saying that he will no longer be able to govern, due to illness. Mass protests occur in Moscow, Leningrad, and most of the other major cities. The hardliners bring in the military to quash them, the military rebells and says they will not fire on their fellow countrymen. Three days later, the hardliners surrender, as without the support of the military, they have no hope in governing the State.

After these protests, it becomes obvious that the population will accept nothing but democracy. Gorbachev concedes. In January 1992, the Soviet Union no longer exists.

If you want to fill in the gaps, take your history again. Or read some books. The Soviet Tragedy is particularly good. Regretably it's late. So I'll have to finish this later on.

[ShockAndAwe^i^]

Oh man what a bunch of bull shit

Your a Condecending Asshole with Dillusions of Superior intellect!
Gorby had no choice and he never planned for it to go as far as it did
The whole thing you just wrote is your opinion with dates and names that are correct.
It looks like history but it's only your opinion.
Your ability to write and form your opinion is better than me but that don't make you right.
I am not pavlov's dog.
I would submit that you are.
Your version of history leaves out much and I will not respond to you again.

[Barbarossa]

Originally posted by Spindulik@15 May 2003 - 19:32
The difference is, the USA and UK know how to humanely handle and use weapons.

Tell that to the kids that are getting badly maimed from unexploded cluster-bomb remnants.

[j2k4]

Originally posted by ShockAndAwe^i^@16 May 2003 - 05:22
Oh man what a bunch of bull shit

Your a Condecending Asshole with Dillusions of Superior intellect!
Gorby had no choice and he never planned for it to go as far as it did
The whole thing you just wrote is your opinion with dates and names that are correct.
It looks like history but it's only your opinion.
Your ability to write and form your opinion is better than me but that don't make you right.
I am not pavlov's dog.
I would submit that you are.
Your version of history leaves out much and I will not respond to you again.

Shock-

You make it extremely difficult for those who may agree with you (to whatever extent) to do so.

You'd have to go a bit to find ANYONE as conservative as this correspondent, but to forecast the end of the Free World and the success of the Thousand-Year-Reich (absent the U.S.'s efforts), is going a bit far.

Several of the members here who are steeped in history (as you say you are) believe the world would be a far different place had not the USA 'interfered' at critical junctures; to leap, though, to YOUR conclusion is a bit of a stretch.

I made a point in another thread re: the U.S.'s support and sponsorship of Israel: Had we not been at least a vicarious presence in the mideast for the last 50-plus years; had we demonstrated a post-WWII determination to return to Wilson's brand of isolationism instead, what would have prevented the USSR from having, in effect, 'annexed' the entire region, along with it's (oil) resources?

I am reasonably sure this would have happened, but again, how long might this have prolonged the lifespan of Communist Russia? No one can say; as has been pointed out here, the USSR was on the road to ruin already.

My point(s), then:

This is a GREAT place for debate; I have found none better.

It is a DANGEROUS place to 'pronounce'.

Flaming will get you NOTHING.

Watch your spelling and punctuation, now-we are particular about such things-and please pay special attention to your USE OF CAPS.

[ShockAndAwe^i^]

I agree with some of what your saying.
People like Magic Nakor are intellectually dishonest.
His whole rant was a personal attack on me disguised as some kind of politically correct history lesson
Granted he is better at writing than me but that does'nt subtract from his dishonest and erroneous version history.
I can't wait for my history lesson about weapons of mass destruction Before we were a glimmer in England eye.
Thankfully It's statements like these that expose him.

[Rat Faced]

WMD is another name for NBC (Nuclear Biological Chemical)

Granted Nuclear weapons are very recent; both Biological and Chemical weapons have been used throughout history.........from the 1st time a tribesman pissed upstream of another tribe, and disease ridden corpses were catapulted over the walls of beseiged cities.



The artillery has always been looked at as 'mass destruction' and thats been around for Centuries.

And so has burning or smoking your enemies out in woodland/savannah.



And modern (at the time) tactics and Rifles were certainly classed as WMD against Spears and daggers in Africa or even against the North American Indian (Before they had rifles themselves)



You are a product of your times, so to you WMD means Nuclear.


I wonder what will be classed as WMD in 1000 years time.

They'll probably laugh at todays Nuclear in the same way you'll laugh at the above.

[ShockAndAwe^i^]

Your flat out wrong.
Weapons of MASS destrution.
The key word here is Mass.
The ability of man to wipe out mass populations with weapons did'nt exist until the 20th century.
It's not even arguable.

[Rat Faced]

Maybe you should read up on your History again..........

There have been whole Cities wiped out through disease because of these tactics; often it spread further than the City under attack (Disease = Biological)




But even without the above: WMD is subjective to the times in which you live.

Rifles wiped out entire cultures.......ie MASS destruction

Read the last part of my previous post again.

J2k4..........maybe you could explain 'subjective' to ShockAndAwe.....

[clocker]

Originally posted by ShockAndAwe^i^@16 May 2003 - 00:43

Don't forget about arrows now!
Go back to BOOKWORLD and readup on your history and come back when you find some WMD in the middle ages.
Fuckin' idiot!

The Battle of Agincourt

Read 'em and weep...

[MagicNakor]

I wasn't going to revisit this thread, mainly because it's getting to be repetitive. However, I also didn't expect j2k4 to agree with me (partially, at least).

As for ShockAndAwe, there really isn&#39;t anything to say to you. You obviously don&#39;t have the sense that God gave a goat. <--(This is a personal attack.) (This is not.)--&#62; If you want to call an extremely understated overview of the last years of the USSR a "politically correct rant," go ahead. But it will be you that is being erroneous. In fact, to your statement that I left out much, I acknowledged that even before I started. If one was to go into great detail about Soviet Russia, it would fill pages and pages. It would become, oddly enough, book-length. Strange that there&#39;ve been copious amounts of books and essays dedicated to that very subject. Perhaps you should read some of them. Amazon.com has well over 26,419 for your perusal. However, I wasn&#39;t in Russia during the time of the collapse of the USSR, so I have no first-hand anecdotes for you (which seem to be all that you will accept). If you care to open an encyclopedia, or perhaps visit any of the numerous websites dedicated to the USSR, you&#39;d find that my "politically correct history lesson" is, indeed, historically sound. I am not given to being "intellectually dishonest," especially not on a medium where it is stupidly simple to double-check facts.

Since you&#39;re likely to believe that Columbus discovered America in 1492 (although there is evidence showing it was 1485, and discounting Leif Erikson and some recent, rather dubious information regarding Zheng He, and yet again disregarding the Indians), we&#39;ll use that date. England came under Roman rule around 59 AD. Around 409 Roman rule ended in England, who basically abandon the frontier area to move back in-land, and some time thereafter the Roman Empire collapses in on itself. The Vikings come over around 865. It&#39;s not until 1066 that England gets a somewhat stable government, after William the Conqueror&#39;s win at the Battle of Hastings. William the Conqueror came from Normandy, by the way. If one wanted to, the asumption that England-as-we-know-her wouldn&#39;t exist without the French may not be far off. I&#39;m not going to get into the litany of kings that England&#39;s seen through her time. That would be such a longer post than a complete recounting of Soviet Russia that it would be silly. The first sucessful British colony in North America was in 1587, eventually spreading, and those colonies won their independence in 1782. To sum up, England as a stable country is 1066. The first British colony in North America is 1587. There are 521 years of history between when England was "formed" and when she began colonizing North America. If you want to be pedantic and use 1492, there are 426 years of history. No matter how you look at it, it&#39;s a lot of history.

Rat Faced already made the point about weapons of mass destruction. It doesn&#39;t have to come with a blinding flash of light and a large mushroom cloud. Biological and chemical weapons are nothing new. The earliest recorded use of biological warfare is in 6 BC, when the Assyrians poisoned enemy wells with rye ergot, and Solon using hellebore during the siege of Krissa. In 1346, the Tartar army threw plague-infected corpses over the walls of Kaffa. It forced the defenders to surrender, and it&#39;s believed that people infected with the plague who left the city may have triggered the epidemic throughout Europe (1347-1351), in addition to the ill-fated boats from Messina. Considering that it killed 1 out of every 3 people in Europe, 25 million people, I would consider that "mass population." Variola-infected clothing was "gifted" to the South American Indians in the 15th century by Pizarro, smallpox-infected blankets were given to the Indians at Fort Carillon by Sir Jeffery Amherst. Greek fire (673 AD) was very similar to napalm. Fortunately (or unfortunately), the recipe for this mixture is long lost (in the middle 700s), and attempts to recreate it have been unsucessful. As Rat Faced already said, rifles killed off whole cultures. Perhaps two of the best examples of this would be the Pizarro conquering of the Inca, and Cortez conquering the war-like Aztec. The Beothuk were completely eradicated through a combination of European disease, European weaponry, and European slavery. The last Beothuk, Nancy Shanawhdit, died in 1829 of tuberculosis. One could argue that swords could be a weapon of mass destruction, if you consider the razing of entire towns to constitute "mass destruction." Though I doubt it, so I&#39;ll let it rest.