Obama, Cronkite, Kennedy: Soviet collaborators/US traitors

[_Droopy]

I prefer to think of Cronkite as someone who realized what a joke the threat from the Soviets was.

He certainly didn't realize any such thing. He was a sympathizer and believed their propaganda.

As did sooooo many intellectuals of "the chattering classes" of his generation, and, as we can see, many still have not relieved themselves of and come to terms with to this day.

I'm rather convinced that it has only been the grace and mercy of Christ, and his influence working through those believers in peace, liberty, individual human self determination and dignity and liberal democracy who held the line and provided the decisive intellectual and moral leadership within the West during these times that held the La Truhison
des clercs at bay.

Those same forces are still dominant within most of the key institutions of society (and indeed, are in full control of government at the present moment, from the legislative, executive and judicial branches respectively) and in particular within academe and the mainstream news media, where they resided in Cronkite's day and which resulted in the loss of several Southeast Asian countries to communism (long after North Vietnam (a client state of the Soviet Union at the time) had already been decisively defeated militarily in the field) and rule by gulag, terror and genocide in those nations.

[_The Nehor]

Since you are apparently quite well read on Soviet history, the history and philosophy of Marxism, Marxism/Leninism, and the history of the Cold War, please give us some of your educated analysis of the Soviet Union's ideology, foreign policy goals, view of the world and their place in it, and military capabilities (conventional and nuclear) during the Cold War period and the period immediately prior, when Stalin was already planning a long term confrontation with the United States within the context of what he foresaw as the socio/political conditions arising out of the conclusion of WWII.

The Soviet Union's foreign policy goal was to protect and foster communism waiting for Marx's predictions to succeed. They saw themselves as the guardians of this new order. Their victory was inevitable but the sooner the better. Stalin was planning long-term for a war with the West. Funnily enough, the reverse was also true. Patton was campaigning for a war with the Soviets before the ink was dry on Doenitz's surrender.

Describe your understanding of the Popular Front program in the 30s, the nature and purpose of the concept of Wars of National Liberation and the Brezhnev Doctrine. I would appreciate it if any sources you give for your claims were intellectually serious (not Chomski, Zinn, Susan Sontag, The Nation, Walter Cronkite, Phil Donahue etc.).

I'm not doing homework for you but but the Popular Front was a collection of leftist politicians who got control of France for about a year and nothing much came of them and the Brezhnev Doctrine was the Soviet equivalent of the Monroe doctrine. It was intended to keep the Eastern bloc powers from throwing off communism. It was also thrown about verbally to defend other communist groups but nothing ever really came of it outside Eastern Europe.

How much recent scholarship have you acquainted yourself with since the fall of the Berlin Wall? Do you understand the meaning and value of Venona?

Yes, a code-breaking operation that exposed several Soviet spies. Yes, the fact that the Soviets used their intelligence agents to acquire information about us proves how dangerous they are and how vile.....except that our intelligence community did and still does the same thing.

By the mid-1980s, the Soviets outnumbered us in conventional military equipment, from tanks, armored reconnaissance vehicles, high performance jet fighters, combat helicopters, surface battleships, attack submarines, and aircraft carriers in numbers ranging from 3 to 6 to one (not to mention the truly huge disparity between the number of nuclear warheads fielded by the Soviets relative to American at the height of the Cold War, and the fact that the Soviets had large numbers of ground mobile launchers that the United States completely lacked).

Yes, but unlike the U.S. the Soviets had a bad habit of not retiring old equipment. These counts included mortars, tanks, artillery, etc. left over from World War II that would have been almost useless in a military engagement (and most likely not used). Their fighters and combat aircraft were inferior to anything in the west, superiority in battleships (no one has built a battleship since World War II) meant almost nothing at this point, and their aircraft carriers were mostly ASW forces. They had no equivalent to our carrier that provided a full range of aircraft support from interceptors to attack craft.

Given that the USSR had no natural enemies and that no one had any intention of invading and conquering it, what was the purpose behind this colossal conventional militarization, in which, when we were spending around 6% of GDP, they were spending anywhere from 16% to 24% and perhaps at some points, up to 30% of GDP on their military?

Let's see, they shared a border with Mao and they knew that if it came to a war with the west they would have to fight alone against the United States, Britain, France, West Germany, and the rest of Western Europe. And again, Patton (a U.S. military leader) wanted to invade. Is it possible that they were as paranoid about their enemy as you still seem to be?

Yes, they spent more of their GDP but the simple reality is we had more GDP to spend. We still had a massive qualitative edge.

What was the Comintern Nehor, and what was its purpose?

A communist organization bent on converting the world to communism. And?

Why did the Soviet Union break virtually every treaty agreement it made with the United States during the Cold War period, from Salt I and Salt II, to the ABM treaty and the MAD doctrine, and simply go ahead and construct a conventional and nuclear capability that substantially outnumbered what America and NATO could field?

Fear.

The MAD doctrine wasn't a treaty either.

Was there a Soviet threat? Yes.

Were these people you listed traitors? No.

Is there still a threat? No, and not in the immediately forseeable future.

Are you a right-wing nut still trying to win a conflict that ended in the 80's? Yes.

[_Droopy]

Move along, nothing to see here.

Just as I expected: abysmal ignorance of the history and scholarship done over the past half century at least, on the history of communism, the Cold War, and relevant national security issues, most of which - as I suspected yet again - appears to have been lifted wholesale from books by Chomski, Zinn, Turkel, and CNN documentaries.

Once again, Nehor displays no concern whatever for having any actual substantive education or serious intellectual background in these areas.

He has his well honed adolescent moral hubris, his emotional and psychological feelings toward these subjects, his belief in the moral equivalence of the United States and the communist world that he has absorbed unquestioningly from the liberal pop news and entertainment culture around him, and his head filled with depressingly ahistorical and easily falsifiable assertions derived from the groupthink saturated leftist (and always Soviet (and especially Castro) friendly) echo chambers of the late 20th century mainstream media, sources of information which he has apparently never bothered going beyond.

Nehor, unfortunately, is the wave of the future. Generation X creates Generation Y, and both move on to become Generation S - Generation Serf.

Rush Limbaugh has always been right about one thing: about 10% of the population is pulling forward the other 90%, intellectually, socially, morally and economically.

I suppose in any free society in the throws of the kind of advanced intellectual and moral decadence that the United States finds itself confronting (and with respect to which Western Europe is well advanced in relation to America), the drones always become the clear majority and come to dominant influence in the core institutions of society.

It has, perhaps, always been so.

Nehor's breezy ignorance and rejection of serious intellectual engagement in these areas is of the carefully nurtured and tended variety that makes educability little more than a misty fantasy.

[_The Nehor]

Move along, nothing to see here.

I agree but you made the statements. I'm excited to see the rebuttal of my points.

Just as I expected: abysmal ignorance of the history and scholarship done over the past half century at least, on the history of communism, the Cold War, and relevant national security issues, most of which - as I suspected yet again - appears to have been lifted wholesale from books by Chomski, Zinn, Turkel, and CNN documentaries.

Actually it comes from reading real histories on the subject. I eagerly await a substantial rebuttal. Any second now.

Once again, Nehor displays no concern whatever for having any actual substantive education or serious intellectual background in these areas.

Standard insult, hopefully we can soon get into the issues we were discussing.

He has his well honed adolescent moral hubris, his emotional and psychological feelings toward these subjects, his belief in the moral equivalence of the United States and the communist world that he has absorbed unquestioningly from the liberal pop news and entertainment culture around him, and his head filled with depressingly ahistorical and easily falsifiable assertions derived from the groupthink saturated leftist (and always Soviet (and especially Castro) friendly) echo chambers of the late 20th century mainstream media, sources of information which he has apparently never bothered going beyond.

I despise communism. This does not mean I have to tell lies about what the Soviets did to make myself feel morally superior. I'm not McCarthy and I'm not Nixon.

Nehor, unfortunately, is the wave of the future. Generation X creates Generation Y, and both move on to become Generation S - Generation Serf.

The COMMIES are coming! The COMMIES are coming! Oh wait, they're not. Still waiting for a rebuttal.

Rush Limbaugh has always been right about one thing: about 10% of the population is pulling forward the other 90%, intellectually, socially, morally and economically.

Typical elitist hogwash, still nothing about what I said.

I suppose in any free society in the throws of the kind of advanced intellectual and moral decadence that the United States finds itself confronting (and with respect to which Western Europe is well advanced in relation to America), the drones always become the clear majority and come to dominant influence in the core institutions of society.

Ummm......my worldview is not the dominant influence. I have mentioned I lean towards being conservative right? That I think you're insane and that your perceptions are distorted has nothing to do with what I believe.

It has, perhaps, always been so.

Nehor's breezy ignorance and rejection of serious intellectual engagement in these areas is of the carefully nurtured and tended variety that makes educability little more than a misty fantasy.

I'm guessing I'm more educated then you'll ever be and more well-read then you'll ever be. However, I am still prepared to debate the danger the Soviets posed if you're up to it. I assume this inane insulting drivel is only the precursor to a devastating counterargument.

I'm ready.

[_Droopy]

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ ... were-right

http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airc ... /cady.html

http://meria.idc.ac.il/journal/2000/issue4/jv4n4a5.html

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/libra ... 89/SMS.htm

http://books.google.com/books?id=4dDzQv ... &q&f=false

http://frontpagemag.com/2010/03/23/the- ... deception/

http://frontpagemag.com/2010/04/29/the- ... communism/ (very enlightening)

You might also try The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire, by Brian Crozier, The Grand Strategy of the Soviet Union, by Edward M. Luttwak, New Lies for Old and The Perestroika Deception, by Anatoliy Golitsyn, Soviet Hypocrisy and Western Gullibility, by Sidney Hook, Vladimir Bukowski and Paul Hollander, and you might look at The Secret World of American Communism and The Secret World of Soviet Communism for further education on the larger long term goals, aims and perspectives of the Soviets and their supporters in the West.

There is a huge corpus of writing, debate, roundtable discussion and interview at Frontpagemag.com involving leading scholars, journalists, ex-Soviet/East European dissidents, and American leftists deeply involved during that era, on both sides of the Cold War, on the issues discussed here. Its probably the best and most accessible clearinghouse on the Internet on the history of the Left and its connection to Cold War and Soviet issues.

Nowhere online in any serious historic or military sources, nor in any of my own scholarly or investigative journalistic books on the Cold War (at least those written from a realist, non-leftist, ideologically unsympathetic perspective), U.S. Soviet relations, or serious analysis of Soviet capabilities so I find any statements to the effect that in the sixties, seventies and eighties, the Soviets were using WWII era equipment, nor that the known technological gaps between the two were anywhere near large or important enough to be decisive given the vast quantitative advantage they Soviets had in both air, land, and sea forces, as well as nuclear warheads.

You can say what you will about McCarthy and his obnoxious personality and overreaching of authority, but the fact remains that we have now known for quite sometime that he was correct about the substantial majority of the people he accused and, in point of fact, underestimated the degree of penetration of the Untied States government by Soviet agents and indigenous sympathizers working in its behalf.

I'm not sure why you bring Nixon into this, but he was exactly and unambiguously correct about Hiss.

Note: The Soviets did not fear us in regard to the sovereignty of their own nation. They knew very well, as we did, that the only reason our conventional and nuclear forces were present in Europe was to protect western Europe from them and our own country from nuclear blackmail. Everybody in Europe whom they had conquered, terrorized, subverted and enslaved feared them (or the people under the heel of their puppets in Cuba, Angola, Ethiopia, Nicaragua, North Vietnam, North Korea etc.).

A major difference between the militaries of the Soviet Union and those of America, even if all other things were equal between them technologically and qualitatively, is that our forces were purely defensive in nature, while theirs were created specifically as a offensive force of intimidation and aggressive threat to all of Europe and, through its proxies and nuclear reach, to much of the rest of the world (I asked you what "wars of national liberation" were, but you did not answer that question).

Khrushchev followed Stalin, and Brezhnev followed Khrushchev in the program of subversion, proxy war acquisition of puppet and client states, nuclear domination, and the fomenting and funding of international terrorism all the way from the end of WWII to Afghanistan, which was the last gasp of the Soviet imperialism before its disintegration.

[_Droopy]

inane insulting drivel

This defines your entire argument and the abyssal absence of actual knowledge or education as to the subjects upon which you so self righteously pontificate.

I just don' t know how may more useful stooges our society can absorb and contain; I don't know what our society's "carrying capacity" is with regard to those like you would bare its throat to its enemies (and the throats of all your fellow citizens) in a heartbeat, in the name of "peace".

Given that your views of our present war on global Islamism is pretty much the same as your reliably Sixty Minutes derived views on the Cold War, it would appear that it may take reality "biting" you close to home, as it on many occasions bit the Nephites, as they ran to and fro in their comfort, security and decadence while ignoring their watchtowers, to finally bring you to your senses. When finally someone decided they had perhaps better climb up one and take a look, it was already too late.

We are on the verge of precisely such a situation now, were on the verge of such in the past with the Soviets.

The problem with this kind of naïve, morally castrated pacifism, of course, is that the innocent will eventually have to suffer for the hubris and fecklessness of the guilty who bring upon all the same sufferings.

There are those who will rise to the call of defending the great blessings we have been given as a nation and a people, and those who will slink away gently humming Imagine.

[_The Nehor]

This defines your entire argument and the abyssal absence of actual knowledge or education as to the subjects upon which you so self righteously pontificate.

Your puerile adolescent appraisal is misinformed and reveals a disturbing level of ignorance.

See! I can put buzzwords together too.

I just don' t know how may more useful stooges our society can absorb and contain; I don't know what our society's "carrying capacity" is with regard to those like you would bare its throat to its enemies (and the throats of all your fellow citizens) in a heartbeat, in the name of "peace".

Wait, what? Did you know that I think Reagan's gearing up of the military in the 80's was a prudent move? The difference is that I don't have the self-righteous need to paint our enemies as monsters in order to justify doing anything it takes to beat them. I don't have the level of black and white thinking necessary to hold your views, ready and willing to divide the world into good guys and bad guys as if life is as simple as a Saturday morning cartoon.

Given that your views of our present war on global Islamism is pretty much the same as your reliably Sixty Minutes derived views on the Cold War, it would appear that it may take reality "biting" you close to home, as it on many occasions bit the Nephites, as they ran to and fro in their comfort, security and decadence while ignoring their watchtowers, to finally bring you to your senses. When finally someone decided they had perhaps better climb up one and take a look, it was already too late.

Case in point. You assume I am opposed to what our leaders did to build an effective defense in the Cold War because otherwise I don't fit into your neat little boxes. Obviously if I support defensive measures against a real enemy I must support an unprovoked invasion to put down a local (anti-communist and anti-socialist by the way) dictator.

Don't bare your weak understanding of the Book of Mormon to shore up your argument. The Book of Mormon is clear that the only defense against one's enemies is righteousness, not weapons. Captain Moroni built up a prudent defense system. However, if you remember the great Mormon for whom the book is named after swore not to help the Nephites again when they decided that the only way to stay safe was a preemptive strike. Then they died.

We are on the verge of precisely such a situation now, were on the verge of such in the past with the Soviets.

You seriously believe that we are under the threat of global nuclear war?

The problem with this kind of naïve, morally castrated pacifism, of course, is that the innocent will eventually have to suffer for the hubris and fecklessness of the guilty who bring upon all the same sufferings.

I'm not a pacifist. Again, you feel the need to ascribe all the 'bad' political attributes to me. You're either with Droopy or you're a moral degenerate pinko-commie traitor. The voice of Droopy is the voice of God.

There are those who will rise to the call of defending the great blessings we have been given as a nation and a people, and those who will slink away gently humming Imagine.

By defense you mean what exactly. Supporting prudent military defense? I'm there. If by that you mean invading sovereign nations seeking safety in some kind of Stalinist realpolitik attempt to be 'safe' then I'm against you.

I'm not willing to give up my liberty or my life or the lives of my friends in the military because you are scared. We will never be safe. God didn't intend for there to be any safety outside of his gospel and then only spiritual safety. Feel free to invade every nation on the planet and you still won't make America safe by preemptively attacking our enemies as the Book of Mormon (the book for our day) vehemently and clearly condemns.

Feel free to dismiss what I say without rebuttal with your usual 'street preacher' condemnation (and competence) suggesting that you have answers but you won't deign to give them.

[_moksha]

Cronkite failed to see the Soviets through the wild eyes of Glenn Beck.

Did you mention anything about the entrepreneurship of Cleon Skousen? Now that's a guy who knew the marketability of a good conspiracy theory when he saw one.

[_The Nehor]

Cronkite failed to see the Soviets through the wild eyes of Glenn Beck.

Did you mention anything about the entrepreneurship of Cleon Skousen? Now that's a guy who knew the marketability of a good conspiracy theory when he saw one.

I served with Skousen's grandson. He said the stuff he put in his books was mild compared to what he talked about with family and friends.

[_bcspace]

We are on the verge of precisely such a situation now, were on the verge of such in the past with the Soviets.

Or perhaps the French before Hitler invaded. We are leaderless with no one willing to defend the prize.