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(6) made human rights the central focus of his foreign policy.
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My god, where will it all end! I can't stand it when a President puts not only mine, but others human rights before going to wars. Disgusting.
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(24) communism was on a rampage worldwide. In an unrestrained country-capturing spree, communists took over
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I thought communism was an economy policy and way of life?
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The Soviets for years (38) consistently spent 15% of their GDP on defense; (39) in 1980 we spent under 5%. As a percentage of our government's spending, defense was lower than before Pearl Harbor. No wonder a Republican, Ronald Reagan, had to vastly increase defense spending to help us win the 45-year-old Cold War and relegate the USSR to the ash heap of history — an astounding feat no one (except Reagan) believed possible.
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Wow, cause it couldn't have been that poorly run communist countries fell apart under their own weight. Or that Before Pearl Harbor, our defense budget was low, because, you know, we weren't at War with every single country on the planet. Yet, I doubt anyone would say we were 'weak on defense' during the period previous to Pearl Harbor. And comparing percents, what a daring move for people who have no attention span. Others though, would probably remark that the US GDP at 5% was still probably twice as great as Russian GDP at 15%.
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Reagan (40) inherited from Democratic management a 12% inflation rate (highest in 34 years), (41) 21% interest rates (highest since Abraham Lincoln was president), (42) a depleted military and (43) a serious energy crisis.
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Because we all know Carter didn't have any of that trouble himself when he stepped into office.
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(49) Kerry seemed to constantly advise retreating, giving up and handing our enemies what they wanted — a recipe for us to lose every war.
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Anyone could "view" Kerry as "seeming" to do whatever the fuck they believed. Either way, this is probably a damn simplistic view of what he was hoping for anyway.
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(52) Showing no vision, Democrats mockingly called it Star Wars.
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Which, after 100 billion dollars toss into it, it's worked so well for us 26 years after the fact, right? And how is this another point anyway? What does them calling something have to do with anything? Just yelling at the writer of the article.
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58) not peace through weakness and accommodation. With his steadfast determination and perseverance, the communists were kicked out of Grenada and defeated in Nicaragua, Ethiopia and Afghanistan
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Wasn't Grenada considered a horrible failure on our part? And Woooh! We kicked ass, maybe? in Ethiopia... that's awesome, considering maybe Communism isn't going to work in the first place in the single poorest country on the planet. Afghanistan? Didn't they kick out the Russians with help from Chechnya to pound the Russians some more? Man, if anything, this just shows that the apparently STRONG on Defense Russia is losing their own battle.
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Reagan (59) never quit exerting pressure on the Soviets. In Berlin, he demanded that Gorbachev "tear down this wall," and in time the Berlin Wall fell. In the end the communist Soviet Union dissolved. The Reagan-Bush administration had won the Cold War.
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Won a fake war, eh? That's pretty fake sweet. And like us saying anything to Gorbachev can be logically related in anyway/shape/form to Berlin falling is a bunch of shit. It wasn't like Germany was trying for the past decade to rid themselves of the communist party. Nope, it was our glorious, strong on defense, Mr. Reagan! Even though, according to this article, there was never any direct threat on the country whatsoever. Just country's angered by our presense in their countries. It's a good thing we stopped doing that, right?
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(64) Democrats from Dukakis to Gore to Kerry all said this would be impossible and that missile defense would never work. They were all wrong. Reagan was right.
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Because of one missile, right? No explainations about the fact that possibly thousands of tests failed, results are in no way homogenous, can be duplicated with relative ease, etc. But since one worked, DA PR()GRUM IS A SUCES! WHO!O!
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(66) The first bombing of our World Trade Center on Feb. 26, 1993, killed six people and injured 1,000. Terrorists hoped to kill 250,000.
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Well, according to this article, Mr. Clinton didn't do anything as of Feb. 26th 1993 to reverse what Reagan had done, so apparently after 8 years of apparent strong defense, terrorists broke through anyway? That's sweet.
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(69) Philippine police discovered Ramzi Yousef, mastermind of the World Trade Center bombing, had a plan to blow up 12 American airliners over the ocean and fly a plane into CIA headquarters. They informed Clinton's government of the plot.
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Well, since this didn't happen, I guess you could say it was Clinton's strong defense that kept us safe? This is a ridiculous argument anyway, because how many times would Reagan or Carter or whomever have been 'threatened' with something but it never came to fruition? It doesn't show a lack of effort on our side at all.
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(70) tried to buy weapons-grade uranium to develop a weapon that would kill on a mass basis — like Hiroshima.
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Tried, so apparently he didn't succeed? So how is this lessening the Democratic defense position at all?
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(74) Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri issued a fatwa declaring "war on America" and making the murder of any American anywhere on earth the "individual duty" of every Muslim.
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This is pretty sweet until you remember that there are about a billion Muslims that are actually quite sane and have no desire to go to war with the planet.
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the raid was called off at the last moment by CIA Director George Tenet and others worried about possible collateral damage and second-guessing and recrimination if bin Laden didn't survive.
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Wait, the same guy who had to resign during a Republican president's term in office?
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Somehow forewarned, bin Laden and his terrorist leaders all left — no terrorists were killed, but U.S. ineffectiveness was on full display.
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This may be true, but it doesn't disprove we were weak on defense, since we did in fact GO AFTER THEM. How is this a sign of weakness again?
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told the 9/11 Commission "opportunities were missed due to an unwillingness to take risks and a lack of vision and understanding
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What kind of opportunities? Maybe the administration had complete understanding, and were sure of the consequences of failure. Also, seriously, how many opportunities have we had in this current administration? We've failed every time, maybe, perhaps, for the same reasons?
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1) (86) Iran's nuke-bound terrorists; 2) (87) al-Qaida and other terrorists; and 3) (88) North Korea and its nuclear weapons.
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It's a good thing our current administration is focusing so much on all three of these... right?
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from taking on the North Koreans to ultimately firing the popular Gen. Douglas MacArthur for insubordination.
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Taking on the Koreans? Wtf? He pulled troops from the country, when MacArthur wanted to finish them off! How is this strong on defense again? You know, with all those North Korean nukes people worry about these days, maybe if this action wasn't averted upon by Truman, we'd be in less trouble. And seriously? Ending WWII? While probably the most emotionally involved action of any President ever, it had to be done. This definitely isn't a fair comparision at all.
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In 1952 we produced 93% of the oil we consumed. Now we depend on the Mideast and others for 66%. Democrats have been largely responsible for this because they have blocked all efforts to drill in Alaska and certain offshore areas estimated to contain 10 billion to 20 billion barrels of crude.
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Maybe because they were hoping that we would look for other sources of energy and NOT HAVE TO DEPEND ON FOREIGN OIL. Which is stupid anyway, since we EXPORT a god damn lot of oil.
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This helps the enemy and undermines our troops in the field.
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How?
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And in many cases, they have unintentionally but materially increased the danger to our national security and the safety of all Americans.
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Yeah, because Roosevelt didn't wait two years to join in WWII, and only after Japan hit us, and because Kennedy was so successful in Cuba and Vietnam, and Nixon, he was the king, right? Moving the war outside of Vietnam when we couldn't even advance there? That was successful, right? Or Reagan, with as many failed experiences as wins? And it looks like he did so much work to clean up Carter's apparent failures (which they may have been, I'm just pointing out the stupidity of this dude's argument). No mention of Bush the First doing anything either. And it seems to me that while Clinton and Carter were in office, while not starting any huge, costly wars, they kept human rights a priority, to everyone, without discrimination, and did their best to actually worry about consequences of their actions, perhaps thinking that an apparent win would, in the end, do more damage than originally thought. And woH! They cared about civilian casualities. They're monsters in my book. You know, letting the people in other countries actually view us as good guys, and maybe take it upon themselves to rise up against their own governments, and make a change for themselves.
God forbid.
Right after posting, found this nifty article summary + quote.
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Their faith in the power of forgiveness led them to invite the widow of the non-Amish killer, Charles Carl Roberts IV, to the funeral for four of the slain girls.
"I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice."
-Abraham Lincoln
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Weak defense, right?