Bush es el diablo, - dijo Chavez

[DroppinScience]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americas/09/20/chavez.un/index.htm

I'm really not sure what to make of Chavez...

[b i o n i c]

this is what you make of him: he's a fucking dirty gorilla operating under the guise of populism while he's in it for himself.

[Pres Zount]

You beat me to the punch, droppin.

Saying the stand smells of sulfur; that's pretty funny.

[sam i am]

You beat me to the punch, droppin.

Saying the stand smells of sulfur; that's pretty funny.

I don't know if he was trying to be funny or had just imbibed some tequila. It would have been REALLY funny if the next speaker at the podium had joked about THAT.

Jon Stewart would have....

[DroppinScience]

Democrats condemn Chavez's remarks

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/09/21/chavez.ny/index.html

[freetibet]

A latino retard on a to-remove list, next to Lukashenka and Ahmadinejad.

[Pres Zount]

Democrats condemn Chavez's remarks

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/09/21/chavez.ny/index.html

Lame.

"If there's any criticism of President Bush, it should be restricted to Americans, whether they voted for him or not," Rangel said at a Washington news conference.

"I just want to make it abundantly clear to Hugo Chavez or any other president: Don't come to the United States and think, because we have problems with our president, that any foreigner can come to our country and not think that Americans do not feel offended when you offend our chief of state," Rangel said.
What a fuckwit. This person goes on to call Chavez an "everyday thug", so I guess it is ok for Americans do have opinions about other world leaders, but not vice versa.

[STANKY808]

"Do as I say not as I do" - I think sums it up.

Anyone seen "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised"?

[Bob]

If there's any criticism of President Bush, it should be restricted to Americans, whether they voted for him or not

you hear that iraq?! shut up! you don't get to criticize!

[Pres Zount]

"Do as I say not as I do" - I think sums it up.

Anyone seen "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised"?

Yes.

[zorra_chiflada]

What a fuckwit. This person goes on to call Chavez an "everyday thug", so I guess it is ok for Americans do have opinions about other world leaders, but not vice versa.

exactly. this is the point that everyone is missing.

[valvano]

exactly. this is the point that everyone is missing.


its too bad chavez doesnt let the citizens of his own country have opinions that differ from his...

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1030

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5755-2005Mar27.html

[Bob]

its too bad chavez doesnt let the citizens of his own country have opinions that differ from his...

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1030

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5755-2005Mar27.html

venezuelan president hugo chavez restricts freedom of speech. therefore shut up about america

is that right?

[DroppinScience]

You know how you may say bad things about your drug-abusing brother all the time, but when somebody calls him out, you have to defend him because only YOU can talk bad about him, not outsiders?

I think Bush is Rangel's coked-up brother that only HE can criticize. ;)

[sam i am]

...so I guess it is ok for Americans do have opinions about other world leaders, but not vice versa.

The BIG difference is that if Bush or some other American went to Venezuela or Cuba or Iran or any other third world, tinpot dictatorship country, they'd be shot or killed for doing so.

Because the US is good enough to host the UN, we consent to putting up with this crap from other world leaders where the US has no standing to do so in their countries.

Damn, remember when Khruschev pounded his shoe on the desk at the UN?

Imagine a US Senator or President going to the USSR to do the smae thing....talk about WWIII starting...

[STANKY808]

So, the UN is located in the NYC simply because the US was nice enough to play host? I seem to recall reading in James Bamford's book that the US lobbied hard to have it located there in order to be able to keep tabs on those pesky Russkies.

And as far as Bush or someone else going to another country and doing the same seems disingenuous since nowhere else is there an equivalent to the UN in which a similar event may occur.

[sam i am]

So, the UN is located in the NYC simply because the US was nice enough to play host? I seem to recall reading in James Bamford's book that the US lobbied hard to have it located there in order to be able to keep tabs on those pesky Russkies.

And as far as Bush or someone else going to another country and doing the same seems disingenuous since nowhere else is there an equivalent to the UN in which a similar event may occur.

It's not disingenuous. The UN doesn't have extraterritorial rights in the US (look it up).

Therefore, it is exactly the same.

[STANKY808]

That's not what I mean - not anything about extraterritorial rights, just that there is no other body in the world that is the same as the UN. And I didn't realize that the UN charter includes a clause requiring member nations to be nice to the hosts.

But anyhow, what about the desire of the US to have the UN located within their borders so as to be able to spy. I seem to recall that the US was caught (maybe just accused) of spying on members leading up to the vote on the Iraq resolution.

[guerillaGardner]

"Do as I say not as I do" - I think sums it up.

Anyone seen "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised"?


Yes, I've seen it. Absolutely brilliant. I'd recommend this to anyone.

Also very, very worth seeing - though nothing to do with Chavez - The Coconut Revolution.

Rob Newman's take on Chavez in his one man show - Rob Newman's A History of Oil - is brilliant.

Is support for Chavez the kind of thing you admit to on a message board? Guaranteed way to get on the CIA's Christmas card list.

[Schmeltz]

Damn, remember when Khruschev pounded his shoe on the desk at the UN?

Imagine a US Senator or President going to the USSR to do the smae thing


Remember when the USA invaded the USSR's airspace with thousands of reconaissance flights attempting to gather data in support of their radically paranoid ideas about Soviet military capabilities and intentions? Jesus, sam. Can you imagine the reaction if the USSR had flown even one U-2 over your country, let alone hundreds over a period of four decades?

Poor Americans. Shoe pounding and inflammatory speeches. CIA interventions around the globe can't possibly hold a candle to that.

[sam i am]

Remember when the USA invaded the USSR's airspace with thousands of reconaissance flights attempting to gather data in support of their radically paranoid ideas about Soviet military capabilities and intentions? Jesus, sam. Can you imagine the reaction if the USSR had flown even one U-2 over your country, let alone hundreds over a period of four decades?

Poor Americans. Shoe pounding and inflammatory speeches. CIA interventions around the globe can't possibly hold a candle to that.

You are really making this argument?

The Soviets spied like hell on the US. Their was a DOCUMENTED Red movement in the US throughout the 1920's-1960's.

The Soviets flew over the US innumerable times : via satellites. They also built the US Embassy in Moscow, which was wiretapped up the gills.

I can imagine the "reaction" : when the USSR launched Sputnik and exploded their first nuclear device, the US overreacted greatly, encouraging it's citizens to build bombproofs, practice "drop and cover" in schools, air raid sirens and drills, a huge increase in military spending to combat the perceived Soviet strengths in Eastern Europe, fomenting a "Space Race" and a huge nuclear arms buildup. The US couldn't match the Soviets' ability to field large armies in the field, so the US invested in technology and nuclear capabailities to ensure "Mutally Assured Destruction."

Eventually, we won the Cold War : mainly because we bankrupted the Soviets and the Afghanis punctured their "invicibility" with our profligate assistance.

No need to ponder the "what ifs," we have history to show us what happened.

[Schmeltz]

The Soviet program of espionage and foreign intervention wasn't nearly as aggressive or as large-scale as that of the United States (and it certainly never had any direct contact or provided any material support to any Red American agitators from the 20s to the 60s). Not to say the Soviets were positively angelic, but they certainly didn't give as good as they got.

Anyway, the point is that your country's foreign policy over the last few decades has yielded a tremendous amount of harm in many places around the world. To complain about blowback as low-key as an insulting speech or an offensive gesture is pretty bitchy.

[sam i am]

The Soviet program of espionage and foreign intervention wasn't nearly as aggressive or as large-scale as that of the United States (and it certainly never had any direct contact or provided any material support to any Red American agitators from the 20s to the 60s). Not to say the Soviets were positively angelic, but they certainly didn't give as good as they got.

Again, you are factually incorrect.

Documented Soviet espionage in the United States, western Europe, Asia, Africa, etc., et al. is well-documented and available readily.

The Soviet Union absolutely had direct contact AND provided material support to "Red American agitators" throughout the 1920's-1960's.

They gave far more than they got from the US and the West : remember Cuba, Angola, Naimibia, Vietnam, Greece, Turkey, Iran, etc. et al. throughout the timeframe we have been discussing.

Face it, you are just plain wrong on this subject and should acknowledge your shortcoming and move on.

[Schmeltz]

According to William Blum's meticulously researched and critically acclaimed Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions since World War II, the Soviet Union was nowhere nearly as closely involved in many Cold War points of American intervention as is commonly believed. Nor did the Soviets actively support Communist parties in many parts of the glove, including several places on your list. How could they? Their nation was twice savaged by the Germans immediately before the Cold War and their ideological program arguably made many of their severe crises even worse, especially in the interwar years. I do "remember" those cases; it's you trying to make them out to be something they aren't that's the problem.

Of course the USSR had a vigourous and active espionage program that reached at times even into fairly high levels of Western governments - your cherished Israeli buddies have an even bigger one. The point is that the USSR, for all its obvious shortcomings and flaws, was much more benign in its foreign policy than your country has been, and you perhaps ought to take that into account when bringing up the past shortcomings of other world leaders' behaviour.

[bilbo]

Typical knee-jerk reaction by the moronic right, and some gutless dems. The correct response would have been to laugh and shrug it off.
Having said that, if Bush doesn't like namecalling, he should have kept his mouth shut about evil doers and whatnot.
For the most part, Chavez made arguable points in his speech.
His comments the next day about Bush being an alcoholic feebleton were not without warrant.

[sam i am]

According to William Blum's meticulously researched and critically acclaimed Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions since World War II, the Soviet Union was nowhere nearly as closely involved in many Cold War points of American intervention as is commonly believed. Nor did the Soviets actively support Communist parties in many parts of the glove, including several places on your list. How could they? Their nation was twice savaged by the Germans immediately before the Cold War and their ideological program arguably made many of their severe crises even worse, especially in the interwar years. I do "remember" those cases; it's you trying to make them out to be something they aren't that's the problem.

Of course the USSR had a vigourous and active espionage program that reached at times even into fairly high levels of Western governments - your cherished Israeli buddies have an even bigger one. The point is that the USSR, for all its obvious shortcomings and flaws, was much more benign in its foreign policy than your country has been, and you perhaps ought to take that into account when bringing up the past shortcomings of other world leaders' behaviour.

This is all conjecture and your opinion.

"...meticulously researched and critically acclaimed...?" Are you selling this book for commissions?

I peruse the bookstore twice a week at least, always looking in the history, military history, current events, etc. sections and never once have I seen nor heard of this author you are touting.

Wonder if he (or you) have an agenda...like denouncing the US for some reason?

I'd hazard to guess that the vast majority of serious historians of the Soviet Union would be on my side of the argument, both for Soviet actions pre-WWII and post-WWII.

BTW, your assertion as to the weakness of the Soviet Union post-WWII is just plain laughable : the Soviets established puppet regimes throughout Eastern Europe, actively supported pro-Communist rebel factions in Turkey and Greece (remember Truman's Doctrine of Containment?), fomented and funded Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam (remember Dien Bien Phu and the Vietnam War?), armed and advised the Chinese Communists (remember when they took power in 1949 - POST WWII?), armed and advised the North Koreans (Korean War 1950-53 - POST WWII), invaded Afghanistan (1979 - waaaay POST WWII), etc. et al.

Your ridiculous attempt to revise history to meet your criteria for US-bashing is a thin veneer of obfuscation and chicanery.

[Schmeltz]

Your reply betrays your sheer ignorance of Cold War history. In fact the Soviets did not provide any support to Communist factions in Greece, Ho Chi Minh (like Castro) turned to Communism only when his repeated appeals for partnership with and assistance from the United States were ignored and received little to no assistance from the Soviets during Dien Bien Phu or during the colonialist war that your country's government lied to start, were quite distant ideologically and militarily from the Chinese throughout the majority of the Cold War, and invaded Afghanistan decades after WWII - when they had sufficiently recovered as a society in order to be able to do so.

What I remember about the doctrine of containment is the paranoia and rabid power-grabbing ideology that lay behind it, along with its total lack of substance or basis in fact. You are seizing on flashpoints of the Cold War as evidence for some kind of Soviet conspiracy to take over the world when none existed. It's your politically motivated attempt to rewrite history as some kind of great moral crusade against the evil Communist plot to dominate the globe that's really laughable here.

And if you think that there's no reason to denounce American policies during the Cold War, all I can say is that you're either totally unfamiliar with them or are completely blinded by your obnoxious Republican party-line devotion, as with your opinions on Iraq. In either case, I suspect further discussion with you is a waste of time.

[sam i am]

Your reply betrays your sheer ignorance of Cold War history. In fact the Soviets did not provide any support to Communist factions in Greece

Really? --->>>http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/greek.htm

, Ho Chi Minh (like Castro) turned to Communism only when his repeated appeals for partnership with and assistance from the United States were ignored and received little to no assistance from the Soviets during Dien Bien Phu or during the colonialist war that your country's government lied to start

Really? ---->>>http://www.fff.org/freedom/1296f.asp

were quite distant ideologically and militarily from the Chinese throughout the majority of the Cold War

Which doesn't discredit my statement that they helped the communists come to power in 1949.

and invaded Afghanistan decades after WWII - when they had sufficiently recovered as a society in order to be able to do so.

We agree. The Soviets invaded Afghanistan.

What I remember about the doctrine of containment is the paranoia and rabid power-grabbing ideology that lay behind it, along with its total lack of substance or basis in fact.

Really? ---->>http://www.11thcavnam.com/education/containment&doctrine.htm

Seems there was plenty of substance, fact and rationale, from those much smarter and well-informed on the topic at hand than you or I will ever be.

You are seizing on flashpoints of the Cold War as evidence for some kind of Soviet conspiracy to take over the world when none existed. It's your politically motivated attempt to rewrite history as some kind of great moral crusade against the evil Communist plot to dominate the globe that's really laughable here.

It's your politically motivated attempt to rewrite history as some kind of great American imperialism against the rest of the world that's really laughable here.

And if you think that there's no reason to denounce American policies during the Cold War, all I can say is that you're either totally unfamiliar with them or are completely blinded by your obnoxious Republican party-line devotion, as with your opinions on Iraq. In either case, I suspect further discussion with you is a waste of time.

I agree that there are reasons to denounce American policies during the Cold War. Agreements to prop up dictatorships instead of forcing such regimes to gradually shift to a democratic model was a great downfall when viewing history through hindsight. All countries and leaders make mistakes. I guess I judge those mistakes a bit less harshly than you do because the overall goal (I know, it's a bit of the ends justifying the means) was to stop communism from becoming the predominant political ideology worldwide.

Whether you agree or not that Soviet communism was dangerous, those who led the US and Western Europe at the time did NOT view it as benign.

I'll not apologize for being a conservative. My beliefs do not always jibe with the Republicans - just more often than not.

"In either case, I suspect further discussion with you is a waste of time..."

Sorry you couldn't stand the heat of differing ideas and opinions - not very open-minded of you, eh? :)

[Schmeltz]

Really?


Um... really. Your link mentions direct support from Yugoslavia and Albania, but these were countries who did not rely on Stalin for support, even if they were Communist, and owed nothing to him at all. Stalin had agreed with Churchill not to intervene in Greece but to leave it within the British sphere of influence, which is exactly what he did:


[Stalin] adhered strictly and faithfully to our agreement of October, and during all the long weeks of fighting the Communists in the streets of Athens not one word of reproach came from Pravda or Izvestia.
- Winston Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, 1954.



No, [the Greek communists] have no prospect of success at all. What, do you think that Great Britain and the United States... will permit you to break their line of communication in the Mediterranean? Nonsense. And we have no navy. The uprising in Greece must be stopped, and as quickly as possible.
- Stalin to Yugoslavian politician Milovan Djilas, Milovan Djilas, Conversations With Stalin, 1962.



Both the Yugoslav and Albanian Communist regimes, which had come to power through their own efforts and were not Soviet puppets, supported the KKE fighters, but the Soviet Union remained ambivalent. It was not part of Stalin's strategy to conduct a war against the Western Allies in Greece, and the Soviets gave little direct support to the KKE campaign. Certain historians believe that Stalin's only object in Greece was to test the determination of the western allies.
- Wikipedia: Greek Civil War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_civil_war)



Really?


Uh... really. Wow, is that link ever rotten. You ought to know better than to link to such an idealist, heavily politicized site in the middle of a serious argument. More to the point, your link contains nothing at all about Ho Chi Minh or the Gulf of Tonkin incident, so maybe you'd like to try with something both less ideologically toxic and more objective, not to mention at all relevant to the point at hand.


Which doesn't discredit my statement that they helped the communists come to power in 1949.



Ever since Stalin's credo of "socialism in one country" won out over Trotsky's internationalism in the 1920s, the Russians had sided with Chiang more than with Mao, advising the latter more than once to dissolve his army and join Chiang's government. Particularly in the post-World War II years, when the Soviet Union was faced with its own staggering crisis of reconstruction, did it not relish the prospect of having to help lift the world's most populous nation into the modern age. In 1947, General Marshall stated publicly that he knew of no evidence that the Chinese communists were being supported by the USSR.
- William Blum, Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, 1998



Later in the year Chiang Kai-shek came to the painful realization that he lacked the resources to prevent a CPC takeover of Manchuria following the scheduled Soviet departure; he therefore made a deal with the Russians to delay their withdrawal until he had moved enough of his best-trained men and modern material into the region.
- Wikipedia: Chinese Civil War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_civil_war)


Chinese Communism existed almost completely independently from Soviet Communism (although the Wikipedia article does make mention of the donation of captured Japanese weaponry by the Soviets to the Chinese Communists, that sounds pretty token, especially in comparison to the hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of troops given by the Americans in support of the Kuomintang) and its eventual dominance of China owed much more to the corruption and incompetence of the Kuomintang than to any purported Soviet aid. This is the same story I've found everywhere I've looked, though I'm sure you can find some far-right think tank with a self-proclaimed revisionist agenda to support your conspiratorial interpretation of history.


Really?


Uh... really really. Your link is a nice definition and summary of containment and the Truman Doctrine, but it doesn't really deny that there was a degree of paranoia and mistrust behind it. The most recent interpretation of the Cold War, in fact, stresses the irrationality, paranoia, and suspicion that characterized both sides in its initial phase, with Stalin harbouring resentment toward the West for "allowing" Germany to virtually destroy his nation (and subsequently taking over the Baltic states in order to create a buffer zone between his country and the Germany that was rapidly being rebuilt into an economically and politically sound nation), and Truman harbouring resentment and suspicion toward the Soviet Union for breaking its promise to allow free elections in Eastern Europe (even though Stalin and Churchill had simultaneously agreed that Eastern Europe should fall within the Soviet sphere of influence irrespective of how such elections might turn out).

But doubtless you're aware of that already... somewhere beneath your fervent nationalism.


Agreements to prop up dictatorships instead of forcing such regimes to gradually shift to a democratic model was a great downfall when viewing history through hindsight.


What about forcibly removing democratically elected leaders and installing dictators in their place? Because that's the course of action American foreign policy actually took in many places. It's amusing to see you try to sugarcoat it, though - as though American leaders were interested in promoting actual democracy instead of their own interests, which is what the Cold War demonstrated time and time again, at the expense of millions of innocent people. But hey, that's why pencils have erasers, right? Ah ha ha ha.


Sorry you couldn't stand the heat of differing ideas and opinions


It's not the fact that they differ from my own that makes them unpalatable, it's their complete detachment from reality that gives me pause as to any consideration of their worth. Seriously, for somebody who claims to have a background in history you think about the past in a very, very bizarre way.

[Pres Zount]

Sam, your fatal mistake is to accept "communist" as a blanket statement. If there are Chinese 'communists' and Greek 'communists', they must be in the same boat as the Russian 'communists'... right?

[sam i am]

Sam, your fatal mistake is to accept "communist" as a blanket statement. If there are Chinese 'communists' and Greek 'communists', they must be in the same boat as the Russian 'communists'... right?

Absolutely not. Nationalist bents certainly created rifts and disagreements. I'm not arguing that communism was monolitihic, just that the Soviets supported and financed global communistic movements throughout their history.

Here's some "better":rolleyes: links to address both you and schmeltz :

http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft9806/reviews/hollander.html

http://www.ibiblio.org/chinesehistory/contents/03pol/c05s04.html

http://www.ibiblio.org/chinesehistory/contents/03pol/c05s03.html

http://www.reason.com/0404/cr.gg.fools.shtml

This one's a bit dense, but supports all of the points I've made in excruciating detail : https://www.cia.gov/csi/books/princeton/index.html

Care to offer a retraction?

[Schmeltz]

FIRST THINGS is published by The Institute on Religion and Public Life, an interreligious, nonpartisan research and education institute whose purpose is to advance a religiously informed public philosophy for the ordering of society.


Yeah, really nothing "better" about that link, is there?

Your links on Chinese history essentially confirm everything I've been saying; did you even bother to read them? You'd have us think that the Chinese Revolution was somehow Stalin's brainchild, simply another step in the grand Soviet conspiracy to dominate every country in the world, when the situation was actually vastly more complex.

Your last link is as rotten with far-rightist neocon triumphalism as the first one and those from the first page in this thread. If you think that such heavily politicized grandstanding is what passes for objective assessment of the past, it's small wonder you entertain the fantastic positions on history that you espouse on these boards.

And of course we're all familiar with the CIA's assessment of the Soviet Union; it's the same assessment that led American governments to topple democratically elected governments around the world and replace them with vicious, oppressive strongmen who made life miserable for millions of people. The CIA are terrorists writ large - it's what Osama would do if he had the money. No thanks.

If you're so familiar with impartial and objective analysis of history, why don't you recommend some to me. All you can come up with are heavily opinionated websites rampant with ideology and political principle; nowhere do I see any rational, non-partisan assessments of history. I knew this was a waste of time - thanks for proving my point.

[Pres Zount]

And of course we're all familiar with the CIA's assessment of the Soviet Union; it's the same assessment that led American governments to topple democratically elected governments around the world and replace them with vicious, oppressive strongmen who made life miserable for millions of people. The CIA are terrorists writ large - it's what Osama would do if he had the money. No thanks.


And we're back to Chavez.

You get bush casually meantioning that he is a threat, or that his elections were rigged (they were, but not for Chavez) or that he hate's freedom, and suddenly he is a tinpot dictator that needs getting rid of.

[sam i am]

Yeah, really nothing "better" about that link, is there?

Your links on Chinese history essentially confirm everything I've been saying; did you even bother to read them? You'd have us think that the Chinese Revolution was somehow Stalin's brainchild, simply another step in the grand Soviet conspiracy to dominate every country in the world, when the situation was actually vastly more complex.

Your last link is as rotten with far-rightist neocon triumphalism as the first one and those from the first page in this thread. If you think that such heavily politicized grandstanding is what passes for objective assessment of the past, it's small wonder you entertain the fantastic positions on history that you espouse on these boards.

And of course we're all familiar with the CIA's assessment of the Soviet Union; it's the same assessment that led American governments to topple democratically elected governments around the world and replace them with vicious, oppressive strongmen who made life miserable for millions of people. The CIA are terrorists writ large - it's what Osama would do if he had the money. No thanks.

If you're so familiar with impartial and objective analysis of history, why don't you recommend some to me. All you can come up with are heavily opinionated websites rampant with ideology and political principle; nowhere do I see any rational, non-partisan assessments of history. I knew this was a waste of time - thanks for proving my point.

Alright - I'll list the texts that form the foundation for my historical background - fortunately, I'm a bit of a bibliophile and have just about every book I've ever read in my library or storage in my garage. I'll have it posted by the beginning of next week and you can peruse as you see fit. Fair enough?

[Schmeltz]

Well, you don't really have to go that far. I've only really pointed to a single text in this thread, Blum's book on CIA intervention and American foreign policy. I'm not lauding it as some unimpeachable, exhaustive, perfectly definitive account of every conceivable facet of the Cold War, but I do consider it a frank, straightforward, well-researched account of a side of the conflict that is (apparently, to judge from your own remarks) little known among the general public. I would consider it akin to, say, All The Shah's Men - which I also recommend.

If you have a comparable text that you feel similarly describes your position, then recommend it to me. I don't want a review from some far-right site with an obvious agenda, either - point me to a well-respected book with good research and authorship credentials and an objective point of view. One will suffice to get me thinking.

[sam i am]

Well, you don't really have to go that far. I've only really pointed to a single text in this thread, Blum's book on CIA intervention and American foreign policy. I'm not lauding it as some unimpeachable, exhaustive, perfectly definitive account of every conceivable facet of the Cold War, but I do consider it a frank, straightforward, well-researched account of a side of the conflict that is (apparently, to judge from your own remarks) little known among the general public. I would consider it akin to, say, All The Shah's Men - which I also recommend.

If you have a comparable text that you feel similarly describes your position, then recommend it to me. I don't want a review from some far-right site with an obvious agenda, either - point me to a well-respected book with good research and authorship credentials and an objective point of view. One will suffice to get me thinking.

OK. Start with Stanley Karnow's "Vietnam : A History." It details Soviet support for Ho Chi Minh and the Vietcong in detail - published 1983 by the Viking Press as a companion to the PBS series.

[Schmeltz]

Actually, I think I looked at excerpts from that book during my senior year of high school - a good portion of the 12th grade history curriculum was focused on the Cold War. But you don't have to prove to me that the Soviets supported Ho Chi Minh, and in any case their support for the North was hardly on the scale of that provided for the Americans in the South. I don't think the Soviets come off as badly as the Americans in that particular instance.

One thing I don't recall, however, was where that book provided some kind of pretext for the notion that American participation in the Cold War was some kind of grand moral crusade against the evil conspiracy of global Communism, and that this therefore excuses the many horrors perpetrated around the world under the banner of this idea. But maybe I missed that part.

[sam i am]

Don't just read the excerpts and you'll get a better picture of the overall menace.

Above, you argue for the weakness of the Soviet Union post-WWII, but I thought of some other examples you might want to "remember" : East Germany - 1953, Hungary - 1956, Czechoslovakia - 1968, support for the Italian Red Brigades from 1945-the mid 1980's, etc.

I still believe a pretty clear portrait can be painted of Soviet intervention, espionage, military strength, and worldwide support for Communist movements post WWII and until the 1980's.

Part of the problem, I'm beginning to understand, is the context of timeframe that you are growing up in versus the timeframe I grew up in.

As a child, the Soviet Union was still a very real threat. The deployment of nuclear missiles to West Germany in the 1980's was a bug deal. Afghanistan was a fresh Soviet threat. The Soviet support for Cuba and the missile crisis of 1963 was recounted copiously.

In your age group, you don't have the memories, firsthand accounts, and daily bombardments of information and, for lack of a better term, propoganda, that shaped the mentality of those who grew up in that era.

To your credit, you seem willing to discuss the issue, at least, but it may prove impossible for us to bridge our gap due simply to our differences in age and experience.

Hopefully, that won't be the case, but I fear it to be true.:(