> -----Original Message-----
> Behalf Of J. van Baardwijk
> At 22:33 24-5-01 -0700, Darryl Shannon wrote:
>
> >Yes, an invasion of America itself
> >was never seriously considered. But Soviet tanks were always ready
to
> >roll into Europe, if conditions were ever ripe.
>
> Just as NATO tanks were always ready to roll into Eastern Germany,
should
> the NATO generals deem it necessary. Nothing strange about that --
it's
> just basic military readiness.
Jeroen, you do understand that there was a big difference between NATO
forces in West Germany and Soviet forces in East Germany - that the
people of West Germany got to choose, freely, to have American troops
there, and could (and still may) freely ask them to leave at any time?
The people of East Germany didn't get to make that choice. Don't you
think that has a _little_ effect on the situation? Also I deny,
entirely, by the way, that NATO tanks were ready to roll into Eastern
Germany. Believe that if you choose - no person with any knowledge of
the military could look at the correlation of forces at any time after
1950 and say that this was ever even conceived by the NATO alliance.
For that matter, there was a time when the US _had_ the ability to do
that - shortly after the Second World War when we had the most
powerful military establishment in the world _and_ a monopoly on
nuclear weapons. Had we wanted to attack the Soviet Union, we
certainly could have done it then.
>
> I still doubt that the Warsaw Pact seriously considered invading
Western
> Europe, though. They knew very well it would be extremely difficult
and
> extremely expensive to win a war against NATO. Contrary to popular
> capitalist belief, communists aren't all that stupid. They have
different
> ideas, but they aren't stupid.
You know, invading France in 1914 and 1940 was difficult and expensive
too. So, oddly enough was invading Russia in 1940, and 1812 for that
matter. Countries do difficult and expensive things in wars all the
time. When someone _says_ they want to conquer the world, then builds
up a military that seems to be capable of conquering large portions of
the world, then _does_ knock off every country on their border that
can't defend itself, you start to wonder about their intentions. Now,
tell me if that last sentece referred to France in 1790, Germany in
1939, or the Soviet Union in the late 1940s.
> >Grenada was the first country that
> >endured a communist takeover to be liberated since WWII.
>
> Funny thing, that. When the Soviets invaded a country, it was called
> "communist aggression" and "takeover", but when the US invaded a
country,
> that very same aggressive act was all of a sudden called
"liberation"...
>
> Jeroen
First - let me point out the actual facts of what happened in Grenada,
since very few people remember, I think. A _socialist_ freely elected
President of Grenada was overthrown and executed by guerrillas who
proclaimed that they had established a Communist government and then
threatened the lives of several hundred American students who were
studying on the island. The United States then intervened, defeated
the guerrillas, _re-established_ the democratic government of Grenada,
and left the island. You can't see a difference between the behavior
there, and, say, the Soviet troops in Czechoslovakia, who occupied the
country, established a dictatorship, butchered democratic protesters
in 1968, and stayed in the country until 1991? Those two behaviors
are _equivalent_ to you?
So, when Germany invaded France in 1940 and the United States (with
Britain and Canada) invaded France in 1944 - those were the same thing
to you? I'm being honest - I'm not trying to be offensive - I just
really can't figure you out, at this point. It seems to me that if
you believe what you wrote above, then you should believe that too.
It seems to me that there are three possibilities:
1. You don't think that the Soviet Union was a dictatorship that
established dictatorships everywhere that its troops occupied. I find
this difficult to imagine.
2. You believe that the _United States_ was a dictatorship that
conquered all of the countries where its troops were stationed -
including your own - and established dictatorships in all of those
countries. I find this equally difficult to imagine. Or
3. You just don't think it makes a _difference_. Any use of force is
the same thing, and it doesn't have any effect on the moral situation
if the people in a country get to speak freely, get to vote on their
decisions, and want help from an ally or are forced to accept troops
at gunpoint. I find this third the _hardest_ to imagine.
So what is it?
********************Gautam "Ulysses" Mukunda**********************
* Harvard College Class of '01 *He either fears his fate too much*
* www.fas.harvard.edu/~mukunda * Or his deserts are small, *
* [EMAIL PROTECTED] *Who dares not put it to the touch*
* "Freedom is not Free" * To win or lose it all. *
******************************************************************
