> -----Original Message----- > From: Sam [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: 02 December 2005 22:32 > To: CF-Community > Subject: fun weekend reading
Ok, I'll bite. I don't comment on this subject very often but this article is supreme in its inaccuracies, as it blithely repaints world history in a way that suits the author. Hello? Biased article anyone? > There is no doubt President Bush is now a captive of the > press, which loudly proclaims he "is on the ropes." No doubt. I'm sure. > Katrina was supposedly mishandled; his choice of Harriet > Miers for the Supreme Court failed to win support; his Social > Security plan for personal accounts has been shelved; a > senior staffer has been indicted for perjury; even his > liberal plan for Medicare drug benefits is ridiculed. > > His personal popularity is quite low, at least according to the polls. > And perhaps most important, our soldiers continue dying in > Iraq. But except for the latter, these ranklings are petty > partisan attacks traditional for second-term administrations. I can't really comment on these items as they are internal American affairs and I believe we don't get half as much coverage of this as we should to be able to form an informed opinion of this in the UK. That said, I lived in Jacksonville, FL and Lexington, KY for a while so I did get a better insight into the American psyche than most Europeans have. My personal opinion FWIW is that President Bush, even before he was President scared me, I thought he was a man with an itchy trigger finger... Although provoked by the terrivble acts of 9/11, I believe that the response that America and her allies has taken since then has been misjudged, misguided and poorly executed. This is not to say that the forces of the countries involved are doing a poor job. In fact I believe they are performing an exemplary job (and coping with a few bad apples does not help the task that they have). It's just a shame that the respective administrations of the forces that are deployed are making such a hash of the politics. > But the important aspect of these attacks is that, in > coordination with left-wing Democrats, including former > President Clinton, the media have created a maniacal > Bush-bashing aimed at having America lose the war, and with > it our traditional ability to guide the world toward a better future. Wow, that is one of the most arrogant statements I have ever read. I hate to say it but the "American way" is not always the "best" way, and before anyone starts, no I am not America or Bush bashing..... Have we not learnt anything from history??? We have to be so careful that we as the western world do not get mired down in the sort of infighting and agenda promoting behaviour that retrospectively lead to both World War 1 and World War 2. Lets face it, none of the problems were solved that caused either war, and at the end of both, the "victors" got to dictate the terms on which half of Europe and quite a lot of the rest of the world got to live. In Europe, we are still recovering from the effects of these two major wars especially in areas like the balkan states which after the breakdown of the dictatorship that held several of these together during the cold war fell back into the same race/religion based fighting that initially started WW1. We as the western world are still making the same mistakes and whilst we are reading and producing documents that have the attitude that is so blatantly on display in this single paragragh, we are doomed to carry on making them. This is why hundreds, thousands and eventually 10's of thousands of our soldiers will die in Iraq. As far as I can remember from my history lessons and from what I see today, we have made very little progress in the way our world has developed in the last century. Some of these political cartoons from 100 years ago wouldn't look out of place in the major national press of today. It's sad, but true. http://newman.baruch.cuny.edu/digital/redscare/IMAGES_LG/Old_Channel.gif http://history.acusd.edu/cdr2/WW1Pics/83831.jpg http://history.acusd.edu/cdr2/WW1Pics/81477.GIF http://dev.contactdesigns.com/teachushistory.com/htdocs/uploaded/tiedup.jpg http://www.authentichistory.com/images/ww1/cartoons/league_of_nations_11.jpg > Fortunately, history isn't written by typically impatient, > unwise and biased journalists. If history is a guide, their > opinions are nearly perfect contrary indicators of eventual reality. It's seems to me that history gets written by impatient, unwise and biased polititians. Looking back at the articles of their times that survive, they are insightful, accurate and generally unbiased. Afterall, an unbiased view of history is is what the historians try to preserve isn't it? It's certainly what I was taught to do in my document research and writings. > The reality is that America - and specifically President Bush > - is winning one of the great contests of all time, World War > IV, the fight by the civilized secular world against Muslim > extremism, the last repository of fascism. Come off it! This is a joke right? Have you not seen the carnage that is being wrought out there? Do you not see how much of a joke the rest of the world see's America as right now. It's not because America and her allies are in Iraq, it's because of the underhand way in which America, the UK and a handful of other countries forced this war through and the damn poor way in which it is being handled by the powers that be. The fallout from this whole debacle has yet to begin. > History continues to prove contemporary journalism always > wrong. It rated Harry S. Truman as a boorish Missourian > living in the shadow of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who won World > War II. Truman, hopelessly unpopular when he left office, has > since been re-evaluated by history into the upper tier of > presidents, having stopped the communists in Korea, and > created NATO and the Marshall Plan that saved Europe. I don't recall America doing this all by itself.... What mention of the Allied Invasion force that began the reclamation of Europe on D-Day? Or maybe the Royal Air Force that kept Britain free from German invasion when they were vastly outmanned and outgunned? Without this particular act, there would have been no "foothold" in Europe, no springboard from which to launch such a massive counter attack on D-Day. My Grandfather was a British paratrooper throughout the war. He was there on D-Day and within 3 months, he was fighting in Arnhem. I think it's fair to say that he played his part in the liberation of Europe without being a soldier in the US Army. > Ronald Reagan was another whipping boy of the press, > caricatured as an actor of no substance who slept at Cabinet > meetings. He even left office under the cloud of Iran-Contra. > > The historical reality? Reagan spread the word of democratic > capitalism and the free market, today the golden standard for > nation behavior, throughout the globe. And, of course, he won > the Cold War, actually Word War III. Today, Reagan already > resides alongside Truman in the pantheon of the greats and > near-greats of the American presidency. Ok, so who actually started the talking between the Soviets and the US? Oh yeah, Margaret Thatcher! She met with President Gorbachev (http://www.mikhailgorbachev.org/) and is famously quoted as saying "We can do business with this man" (http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0003/26/sun.04.html). The British involvement in this process was crucial and fundamental in brokering a relationship between the east and west. Please don't kid yourself that Ronald Reagan and the American policy brought about the end of the Soviet Union. President Gorbachev knew the economic engine of the communist regime had been plundered over the years by corrupt officials. He knew that there wasn't much time to save his nation and those that made up the Soviet block. He knew it could all fall into civil unrest, civil war and eventually a continental war across Europe. He was the one that initiated the process of communication. No matter how much you believe that American policy, CIA and other organisational involvement were instrumental in the fall of the Soviet block it is not true. The greed of the Soviet elite is the main factor in the fall of the Soviet block. End of story. > World War IV is the final worldwide conflict that must be > resolved in the West's favor, with America - unfortunately - > forced to carry the major burden while Europe sleeps. Hello? What about the Polish, British, Italian, Ukranian, Georgian, Romanian, Danish and Bulgarian troops? And lets face it, France can't fight for toffee and even Google had a swipe at them http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/images/blpic-frenchmilitaryvictories ..htm, so do you really want their help? As for points 1 though 9 and the use of "World War IV" thoughout the article - quite simply, all I have to say about that is ..... What a load of old b0ll0x! 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