Soviet Collapse Ruined the U.S.

The Moscow Times ^ | 04 October 2010 | Alexei Bayer

[jerry557]

Not really. We ruined our society and culture by tossing God out.

The country was designed and built by men, not God. And the country is currently being destroyed by men.

[Ben Ficklin]

mark

[GonzoGOP]

Destroying your enemy is never a bad thing. But as the Japanese proverb states, "At the end of the war, tighten your helmet straps". There will always be another enemy. America failed to appreciate that. We dismantled out military, embarked on grand social spending programs and lived large assuming that it would be a century before anyone would challenge us again. Well it only took China 20 years.

With the full manpower of the cold war military combined with the firepower or the twenty first century we could have simply overrun Iraq and Afghanistan. But with the much smaller force available in 2001 we could never hope to occupy every single town. So insurgency always had a safe base of operations. Technology is great, but wars don't end until a grunt with a flag stands atop the fallen foe and says "this is mine now". A predator drone just can't do that. And the American army of the twenty first century can't put enough boots on the ground, because they buy their boots in China.

[reagan_fanatic]

I get tired of people trying to write the obituary of the United States. We’ll come back from our current troubles, and we’ll continue to be a major player on the world stage.

And for the record, LIBERALISM is responsible for our current decline, not some flea-infested cave dweller in Afghanistan.

[jerry557]

They will never give it up. The left will continue to fight the war on capitalism until the end of humanity. They fully and 100% believe that communism must occur for human civilization to advance. They consider it superior to capitalism. And they consider communism the final destination in social-economic evolution.

You collapse a communist country, they simply move on to the next world power. You defeat them at the ballot box, they find a way to retool their propaganda (ie: hope and change) and will soon enough end up back in power eventually.

You just cant get rid of these people.

[pieceofthepuzzle]

“You just cant get rid of these people.”

Perhaps not, but you can most certainly defang them and marginalize them.

[mad_as_he$$]

I do not specifically agree with the author there is the boggeyman factor. Democratic types of government do well when there is a common threat. The problem for the US is that there was really now large threat after the USSR. Clinton tried to use the WOD as the evil but it could not absorb enough resources to be effective. OBL is really just a side show for Islamic takeover. Since the government cannot demonize Islam due to oil they are stuck with no real boogeyman.

[nwrep]

Does anyone out there know what our national goals are? I don’t.

Sure. I do know what our national goals are. One of our national goal is "to reduce dependence on foreign oil by restricting all means of domestic energy production and turning the US into an impoverished third world economy."

Another national goal is to "increase funding of education regardless of results and force everyone to attend public schools."

[Elwood P. Doud]

This guy does seem to have a good take on what was wrong with the Soviet Union, but he’s still too “Russia Centric.” Just because it’s still geographically the world’s biggest country doesn’t mean the rest of the world orbits around it.

[mountainlion]

Don't make the mistake to think that Obama and Osama represent any country or major group of people.

[FlyVet]

I beg your pardon, but at the end of the first gulf war, it was GHW Bush who proclaimed the New World Order, and was all for the "peace dividend". That's when the reductions in force started, I remember it well.

While the liberal democrats are more destructive, the Republicans can share in plenty of the blame. They may have temporarily slowed down the expansion of gov't post-1994, but expand, it did. They talk a good fight, but when it comes to delivering....oh, well.

[vanilla swirl]

good rebut

[dfwgator]

There has been and always will be wars between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’, only the uniforms change.

[Riodacat]

Osama bin Laden may be history’s greatest military strategist.

Ummm, no. But our actions since 9/11 has made Bin Laden look like a great strategist.

[pieceofthepuzzle]

“There has been and always will be wars between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’, only the uniforms change.”

You are so right.

[equaviator]

Right...It’s not as though we could’ve had a Space Race with an al Qaeda or the Taliban!

[Roy Tucker]

Thanks, I was hoping to get a little feedback from vertolet on his posting choices.

[Roy Tucker]

Does anyone out there know what our national goals are? I don’t.

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Maximum Personal Liberty.