silver Loc: Santa Monica Ca.

Some nutty people dont want facts or the truth, they just want to make nasty comments about Mr Obama.

RixPix Loc: Miami, Florida

Political and economic traditions? Are you referring to the "Good O'l Boys" that should have retired years ago and the economic tradition of mercenary profiteering at the expense of the citizens. If so we are in complete agreement.

CatMarley Loc: North Carolina

Mike, I am always open to a correction and grateful for it. I am always happy to learn something, and I learned how to spell "Malaysia". Mama would be proud of me. I also don't mind at all the sometimes lame attempts at wit and the name calling. Peoples' posts stand for themselves, and if they think name calling earns them any respect, well bless their hearts, they are welcome to think so. I am a big girl and I have been playing with the boys for a long time.

idaholover Loc: Nampa ID

"

One of these days I'll learn to keep my mouth shut. All that intelligent discourse down the drain.

idaholover Loc: Nampa ID

As an American citizen, how in the hell do you keep from slashing your own throat? Good God man get a grip on it!

CatMarley Loc: North Carolina

No I was thinking more of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. I see you are of the Karl Marx school.

idaholover Loc: Nampa ID

By the way, how is the "blood diamond" business these days?

CatMarley Loc: North Carolina

Hey Idaho, you don't have to go all ad hominem on him. He's just not too quick on the uptake. Give him time, maybe he'll come up with something a bit more salient.

CatMarley Loc: North Carolina

Did you ever read "Das Kapital" ? Most boring read ever! Can't understand how he ever got such a following. They must have brought out a comic book version!

wj cody Loc: springfield illinois

fair question.

what we could have done, and didn't, was believe Michael Gorbachev when he stated he wanted to invoke fundamental change in the then Soviet Union. Margaret Thatcher, interestingly enough, counseled him against reuniting Germany - she believed it would eclipse Great Britain as leader of western europe.

in the United States, our political establishment, at the time, sought to capitalise on this for political ends. hence the "we won the war" mantra. we ignored the fact of the third greatest revolution taking place bloodlessly. we ignored the opportunity to build a Marshall Plan for Russia and the old Warsaw Bloc nations and instead sought to marginalise Russia and expand NATO into post Soviet countries. even though NATO was explicitly formed to defend what was no longer western europe against the soviet union, which no longer existed. it is interesting to note that every missile in every european country is still pointed at Russia.

the effect on Russian society and their political establishment was profound - and negative. Vladimir Putin is not unreasonable when he demands respect from the West. he is not unreasonable when he secures Russia's strategic interests in taking Sebastopol (the only warm water port for Russia's black sea fleet) from Ukraine.

nor is he unreasonable to ask for a buffer between his country and the rest of western europe with all its missiles pointed at his country. he's thin skinned and he does take this personally.

another way of putting this would be our going to war over soviet missiles in, oh let's say, Cuba.

it should be noted when Ukraine was separated from the Soviet Union, it was done so under not very salubrious circumstances.

it was done by fiat, by Nikita Kruschev after a night of drinking (it is said he was dead drunk), to prove he could do anything. Poof! no more Ukraine as part of Soviet Union(hic).

so, we could have supported Gorbachev, we could have supported Yeltsin and we could have gained the respect and trust of the Russian people. we could have treated Russia as partners, but chose to treat them as an un-nation, not worthy of being considered.

on our part, we had no thinkers in government, or universities, at that time, who thought of possibilities. we were defined by the atom bomb, cold war, assured mass destruction. beyond that, there was not much left over.

okay, and on to the arabian peninsula. this problem begins in August 1919 at the Paris Peace Talks ending, let's say, the first world war. Georges Clemenceau, David Lloyd George and Woodrow Wilson, respectively leaders of France, Great Britain and the United States, look at a map of the peninsula, and let me oversimplify here, grab a pencil and say, let's make this Iran, Iraq, Egypt (that was fairly easy - it had pyramids, everyone knew what those were), Libya, and everything else.

simply in the case of Iraq: anyone who put Mosul, Baghdad and Kirkuk in the same country should have been taken away by the men in white. the borders of all the countries were drawn with an imperial design. France got some to "administer" and Great Britain got their share. and now we are seeing the results.

the arabian peninsula, for better of worse, will become what it will be. no one knows what that is, including the protagonists. anyone who thinks they know, has an adgenda they are not telling you. history is always messy, cruel and bloody. there seems to be no helping that.

we, in the United States, in our geographic isolation are fortunate in that way. we had only one civil war, though we still have not resolved that.

RixPix Loc: Miami, Florida

You're insane. Exactly how many voices are there in your head?

venturer9 Loc: Newton, Il.

Well, that ought to make her feel better,,,,looking back at the success the intelligence community have been having in the last few years..

Mike

idaholover Loc: Nampa ID

Reason for one!

toma1940 Loc: Silicon Valley, CA

In all due respect, I don't think so. My original query was to better understand your comments.

RixPix Loc: Miami, Florida

You must not listen to that one as none of your comments contain any sense of reason or rationality for that matter. You're obviously haunted by some trauma that has caused this ugly, angry, defected personality that you show to those of us on this board. Did you serve in Vietnam? You have all the signs of PTSD.