Youngsteve: your instinct towards appeasement blinds you to the moral realities of the cold war. You offer a diffident demurral from the “USSR’s sins” – but then you attempt to justify them by putting them in what you would describe as historical context.

Stalin’s brutal campaign to extinguish liberty throughout E. Europe after WWII is excused by you as an understandable “buffer against the West.” Never mind the hundreds of thousands who were shot or imprisoned, and the millions cowed into subservience though such political terror.

Yet, as you bend over backwards to understand Soviet motivations, you extend no such tolerance to the Americans who feared the real threat of communist subversion. At worst, Joe McCarthy and HUAC stymied the careers of a few hundred people in showbiz, many of whom had communist links. But you seem more outraged by this than by Soviet crimes.

Excuse me, Steve, but I consider mass murder and political repression at gunpoint to be far more serious than the Hollywood blacklist.

You accuse me of believing in a “black and white world.” I readily plead guilty as far as the struggle between Marxism and freedom goes. A system founded on the forcible negation of individual rights, is indeed black. And no effort on your part to justify the unjustifiable will change that.

Anatoly Shransky, who spent 9 years in a Soviet Gulag for the ‘crime’ of seeking emigration to Israel, tells a story that exemplifies the moral difference between freedom and communist tyranny:

“In 1983, I was confined to an eight-by-ten-foot prison cell on the border of Siberia. My Soviet jailers gave me the privilege of reading the latest copy of Pravda. Splashed across the front page was a condemnation of President Ronald Reagan for having the temerity to call the Soviet Union an "evil empire." Tapping on walls and talking through toilets, word of Reagan's "provocation" quickly spread throughout the prison. We dissidents were ecstatic. Finally, the leader of the free world had spoken the truth - a truth that burned inside the heart of each and every one of us.”

Ted Lapkin has not even attempted to answer my argument that if you want to understand the dynamics of any conflict, you have to try to understand the motivations, not only of your own side, but of the other side too. Today, this applies most obviously to the Middle East situation. Those Israelis and Palestinians who are able to step into the shoes of the "other side" are very thin on the ground. As long as this remains so, this insane and bitter conflict will continue, egged on by the likes of Ted.

Easytimes is still insisting on looking in Iraq for nuclear weapons when there is a real threat of nuclear attack from North Korea. He'd rather we address non existent threats before actual ones (No, I won't be told any more that Iraq had WMDs when it was invaded.)

Easytimes blames the hippies and greenies for North Korea's free run. I don't think George Bush listened to hippies when he bogged the US military down in Iraq for four years!

The coalition has not achieved any strategic goal in the war on terrorism, and Easytimes meekly responds "we are doing what we can."

How pathetic! We are not doing what we can. Osama bin Laden is able to conduct his campaign with impunity. Rather than being angry with these repeated failures, Easytimes seeks to shift responsiblity away from the governments involved and make excuses for politicians. The rest of us expect results.

People are realising that the US has failed in Iraq and it is costing us success elsewhere. This view is correct and those with their heads in the sand are the government apologists.

As an oldie who in retirement has a great interest in history and philosophy which my religous grand-daughter tells me makes me an unbeliever, can indeed agree with Ted that we do owe much to the Reagan era for getting us out of the Cold War.

Certainly what helped was Reagan's policy to get away from trying to keep a power balance between the US and the Soviets as was the advice from political philosophers to prevent an atomic catastrophe. But as it happened, with Reagan getting the whip out to his war factories, the Soviets being pretty well broke, gave in, helped much by feelings in Eastern Europe, where a more neutral type of Communism was on the go with Gorbachev the Soviet leader probably all too interested.

But Ted, I guess you know very well, that America in international relations has so often been called schizophrenic by political historians. So much like in the Wild West with a Bible in one hand and the other hand on a holstered gun butt. Similar to what is happening now in Iraq, with the President still talking freedom with his Bible always in his brief-case and the Vice-President with nary a thought about religion, but more about his new oil derricks and the use of half the US occupation force to guard them.

No need to say much more, Ted, it is so interesting that MASH is still on the go, and I still love to watch it, but now most anything to do with more recent US military exploits, many of us have lost interest.

Why, Ted? - many political philosophers can tell you, and it hurts, mate, because there must be some truth in it.

America's successes in foreign policy historically, I think speaks for itself.
Korea was left with a crook in charge,is one that comes to mind, Then there is all the other successes in Latin America and Vietnam, Cambodia laos, Africa not least.
Iraq is just another in a long list of stuffups.
I'm thinking of running a "book" on any further attempts to save the world.
I'm willing to to offer very good odds on Iraq not joining the list of failure.
fluff

David Latimer stop putting words in my mouth! I believe that Iraq had the potential to produce nuclear weapons just like Iran does I never said that we should still be looking for them today!

N Korea HAS nuclear weapons now all we can do is try some sort of containment! .

The North Korea scenario is what we avoided with going into Iraq and we hope to avoid by dealing with Iran in a suitable manner.

“Osama bin Laden is able to conduct his campaign with impunity” What a joke! Osama is in some dark cave some where in the Himalayas thinking “is today going to be the day they get me” He is like a scared rabbit unable to operate because of the threat of his own death or capture.

The campaign in Iraq has not gone totally to plan but it is better to make an attempt at changing the world and be moderately successful then to do nothing.

Bushbred – is it bad that the US wants to fashion the Middle East like the United States? Which scenario is better for both the west and the people of the Middle East? Which civilization is more successful? You are obviously anti American and sure the Americans have made some mistakes but American foreign policy will benefit everyone in the long run.