Posted on 04/25/2009 10:28:15 PM PDT by AfterManyASummer
The men, decorated veterans of more than 40 tours of duty in Chechnya, said not only suspected rebels but also people close to them were systematically tracked, abducted, tortured and killed. Intelligence was often extracted by breaking their limbs with a hammer, administering electric shocks and forcing men to perform sexual acts on each other. The bodies were either buried in unmarked pits or pulverised.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
Russia gets praise, apologies, concessions, and a "restart button" from the Zero administration, while they demand the Inquisition for the entire Bush administration for waterboarding and caterpillars.
can’t say I agree with you....ours is expanding only due to immigration, mostly illegal
and Russia lives in a very very tough neighborhood...how would you deal with maniacs like Chechens or the Beslan school massacre just for starters?
you let terrorists come in on our own soil here en masse and kill as wantonly as they do there and I bet your own noble appetite will diminish too Ansell
white Russians are aborting like crazy just like crackers here , that’s what’s wrong there.....growthwise...same as here
Ansell, with all due respect...we killed what? half million or so Japanese civilians with two bombs... to save the lives of our troops...rightfully
We firebombed the crap out of German Industrial cities to make a point even after it was sort of pointless...granted we did protest a bit but Winston insisted
We are willingly to kill buttloads of non combatants when we think it;s in our best interest and nobody winces over it and nor should they
Now you want me to believe that torturing folks who purposely engage in horrific barbarism against our own civilians like the Muslims and some separatists do in SW Russia is something we would not engage in to stop it?
we have always tortured if we had to, it's silly to think we can't if the stakes are high enough
retribution killing of civilians is frowned on and has been rare but it has happened...that does separate us but then again...we can kill pretty damn forcefully if we feel we are up against the wall....women and kids, the whole nine yards...it's the state of humanity...we're just more restrained than most would be with our power...maybe too restrained lately
Your comment is why I fear the United State's days in the limelight are numbered. You seem to feel that America has some sort of magical ability to always be the best, while Russia has some sort of generational curse that ties them to perpetual failure. You feel that America will always expand and grow, and that no matter what the US will always end up on top.
Well, the thing that you are missing out on is that the ONLY REASON the US has been the City on a Hill that it has been is due to the AMAZING people it has had, a people who believed that anything (be it defeating the Axis, or putting a man on the moon, or the audicity of believing Smallpox could be eradicated, and a whole HOST of other aspects and facets that firmly cemented the US as the, without exception, best and highest achieving nation in the globe). A people who had a set of laws that ensured that your hard-earned work and sweat equity would not be stolen from you, and that it made sense to invent something new (compare that with the former Soviet Union, where many of their scientific geniuses ...people who had in many cases come up with concepts and theories that were decades ahead of their contemporaries - eg stealth concepts ....but in many cases ended up being thrown in prisons, or their work relegated to some dusty tome by superiors who were more interested in departmental politics than scientific advancements. For instance, the lift fan of the JSF was due to the work that had been done by Yakolev, a maker of Soviet-era STOL planes, which had the work purchased by LM). America also has a constitution that is so beautiful I bought myself a copy to keep (I can probably quote more of the US constitution verbatim than 99.9% of American citizens). I wish more Americans knew just how fortunate they are.
However, most important is the (traditional) American psyche of having a 'can do' attitude, and not only believing anything is doable BUT ALSO HAVING THE WORK ETHIC to make it so. Without work ethic, a can do attitude is simply day dreaming. And without a can do attitude, a work ethic simply makes you an efficient drone. Both have to go together.
Now, there are some that, due to the IMMENSE success of the USA over a long period of time, start to be complacent and believe that it is some right that Americans should always be the best. That you are exceptional ....when the truth of the matter is that the only reason you are exceptional is because you have always had exceptional people of exceptional will and exceptional purpose willing to do exceptional things! It is like an Eagle thinking that because it has wings it can fly, when the truth of the matter is that it flies only when it uses those wings.
Nation-states undergo atrophy and rot from within ...that has been the fate of all empires, ranging from the ancient Egyptians, to the Greeks, Romans, Mongols, Ottomans, the British, etc! Once atrophy sets in, sooner or later the 'greatness' that empire had starts to fade, and if not sorted out rusts and rots! Look at the US today ...there are literally millions of patriotic Americans who still espouse the strong will and ethic of prior generations, but there are also millions who are the exact opposite (pure and unabated anathema) to EVERYTHING that America used to be (infact I also say that the average 1960s Democrat was more conservative and more of a patriot than the average Republican today).
You think America is unique because it is America ....I say America is unique because of Americans, and the moment Americans are not unique then the country stops being unique.
The current America would never have had the heart to win WW2. The current America faces a China that has a strategy of simply sinking a major USN capital ship and waiting for public hue and cry back in the US mainland to tip things to their favor. The current America has already forgotten 9-11. The current America votes using their feelings and on nice themes ( 'yes we can'). The current America is very different from the America of Ronald Reagan, even though Ronnie was president a mere 20 years ago.
During the elections I remember reminding FReepers who thought Obama could NEVER win because they knew no one who was voting for him that their basis was flawed ....that FreeRepublic was a closed-loop system where everyone though the same, and their friends also thought the same, and thus they would probably not know anyone who would vote for Obama. I also told them to look at who had been nominated by the Republican Party (McCain), which showed that even in the Republican party we were the minority. Some disagreed, but I was proved right. In FR even non-Americans (like myself) are more patriotic than even some Republicans (let's not even mention Democrats), and that makes us think the entire country is like that. Well ...I learned that's not the case when I was trying to get people to register to vote during GW's first election, and here I was (a foreigner!!!!) trying to tell college students who would not give a d@mn to sign up!
America is a great nation ...no doubt about that. However, it is great because AMERICANS (the PEOPLE) are of great minds and will, and do great things and acts, and are standing on a great constitution and rule of law. Take that out, and the (country) America is simply another great nation staring down the same precipice as a number of other great nations of yore. There is nothing stamped on the land that makes it special ....apart from people who are ready and willing to be special. Take that away, and you stare into the abyss.
As for Russia ...same thing. There are few countries with as much sheer potential, but leadership and vice have hobbled it for decades on end. Russia is what America can become, and America is what Russia can become.
Go on thinking that America is exceptional and immutable ....I say that America is exceptional because it has been blessed with a people that decide to be exceptional, have exceptional goals, are supported by an exceptional system of governance and leadership, and are willing to take exceptional effort. If those people decide to satisfice rather than excel, if apathy takes root, if they lose sight of true and real goals, and if they compromise and become complacent ....this is what will happen: America will be defeated economically, and be defeated militarily.
My asbetos-fiber flame-retardant inner-wear is on, so I really don't care what anyone says (and I totally believe every single word I've stated in my post). As long as Americans (the people) are great, America (the country) will CONTINUE to be the BEST NATION ON THE PLANET. Bar none! However, the moment Americans (the people) go down from what they used to be, then America (the country) will probably suffer the fastest meltdown in world history (and with all the leverage used - and I am not talking about economic leverage - that downfall will be spectacular).
Mock Russia as much as you want ....it is fun to do so (France too). Just know that unless your offspring, and your offsprings' offspring (and, ofcourse, all of their friends and the extended community and country) still espouse the same beliefs that you and your forefathers did, then America will go down the same precipice as other great nation-states went before.
I see America as a beautiful and strong human, filled with vigor and vivacity, and a paragon of perfection above all her peers. However, if that person's organs get sick, get cancerous, and her system turns septic; then that beautiful and strong person WILL die. The important thing is to ensure that those organs remain healthy ....not doing so would be like a terminal patient looking at photographs of how she looked when she was young and beautiful, and waxing poetic about those photographs while the EKG monitor next to her bed beeps ever slower and fainter!
Americans make America great, and that is the only reason America is great. Take away great Americans and all you have left is a formelly great country waiting to implode.
I'm not a biblical scholar, but some always question why America is not mentioned in the end times. Maybe something happened ....and that something depends on whether the citizens of your great nation continue to be great, or if they decide to just rest of their laurels and ride on the momentum of their nation.
As JFK (yes, I know ...a Democrat, but one who in my opinion was more American, for all his faults, than many of the people who ran for president on the Republican ticket) said ...ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. How many Americans think that way these days?
You say that Russians suck and everything they do fails ...and that Americans don't have those problems. Well, let more Americans forget who they are, and then wait and see.
(Just in case a straw-man comes up ...no, I am NOT Russian. Kenyan ...and no, I do not know Obama, I am not one of his many siblings, nor do I have his birth certificate)
The Russians do indeed play for keeps and historically that's been for both good and ill, but either way it's a fact. Every nation that survives plays for keeps. America played for keeps up through WWII. Since then it's been a mixed bag.
I've told this story before, but growing up in the 1960s I often heard discussions about Pearl Harbor. It had happened a quarter of a century earlier, but people were still angry about it. I had an uncle who wouldn't buy anything made in Japan because he was still furious with them, even though by then they had long since become our ally. It's interesting that they became such a good ally after we nuked two of their cities and firebombed Tokyo to ashes. In other words, they respected us and considered losing to us to be an honorable defeat at the hands of a determined foe.
I have a Chinese student worker, and one day WWII came up in discussion. She said in the 1930s & 40s Japan invaded China, Korea, Burma, and other places but then, “BOOM BOOM, you guys drop two bombs, end all that!” The way she said it was cute, but that's how people outside of the sissified West see war and aggression. They respect a power that kicks butt.
Compare that to 9/11. People today don't want to talk about it. People were still talking about Pearl Harbor 25 years later, and were still mad over it. Within two weeks of 9/11 I heard people saying it was time to put it in the past and move on. Within seven years of it we had elected a guy named Hussein, with a Muslim father, to the presidency on a platform of making the world love us by being more passive in the face of aggression.
And even George Bush rushed to the mic to declare Islam a religion of peace. Would FDR, a Democrat, have done something like that regarding the Japanese or the Germans?
I don't think we need to go to the bloody level of the Russians, but we've clearly lost our national survival instinct. The fact that our nation is ripping its garments and wallowing in ashes over waterboarding some murderous terrorists, a procedure that is very uncomfortable but physically undamaging, is a sign of nation that would rather die than live.
>I don’t think we need to go to the bloody level of the Russians, but we’ve clearly lost our national survival instinct. The fact that our nation is ripping its garments and wallowing in ashes over waterboarding some murderous terrorists, a procedure that is very uncomfortable but physically undamaging, is a sign of nation that would rather die than live.<
You are right on. I think it is more of suicide wish....or in the case of the hard left, a case of euthanasia.
Good post.
Excellent points to ponder,for those born too recently to have lived in U.S.A’s golden years!
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