Soviets Might Be Around if Kerry Had Led - Cheney (...)

[sonicx]

FARMINGTON, N.M. (Reuters) - The Soviet Union might still exist and Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) might dominate the Persian Gulf if Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry (news - web sites) had been president in recent years, Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) said on Saturday.

Cheney told supporters that Kerry had run for the U.S. Senate in the 1980s on a promise to do away with many of the weapons that U.S. President Ronald Reagan (news - web sites) used to end the Cold War.

"So if John Kerry had been in charge, maybe the Soviet Union would still be in business," President Bush (news - web sites)'s running mate said on a campaign trip to the swing state of New Mexico.

He also suggested that a Kerry presidency in the 1990s might have allowed former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to remain a global threat.

"In 1991, John Kerry voted against sending troops to expel Saddam Hussein after he invaded Kuwait. So if John Kerry had been in charge, Saddam Hussein might well control the Persian Gulf today," Cheney said.

more: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=584&ncid=584&e=5&u=/nm/20041023/pl_nm/campaign_cheney_dc

[Minstrel Boy]

1. And the Nazis might be around if Bush had led

in World War II.

Oh, wait a tick - they are.

[nine30]

40. Lest there be any doubt..

..under the pretext of liberators, we have now become occupiers. This is not an idictment of the brave people of the military, who are doing a fabulous job, but of the people from whom they take orders.

[NewHampshireDem]

2. And if your grandmother had balls, she'd be your grandfather ...

Nothing like some idle speculation to make your case ... is nothing too low for these facist mother fuckers?

[specter]

3. Whats

all the hype about Ronnie Raygun winning the "Cold War". I was my understanding that the Soviet Union went bankrupt and collasped from within. Funny how the rightwingers try to rewrite history every fuckn chance they get.

[WCGreen]

58. Also from a growing threat by militant

Muslims in the southern republics which, by the way, is a major reason they invaded Afganistan, to stop the spread of militant Iranian style Islam into the southern reaches of the USSR.....

Of course RR helped to bankrupt the Soviets but, at the same time, he almost bankrupted our country as well......

[sally343434]

4. What a laugh

Cheney himself voted the same as Kerry did.

[DoYouEverWonder]

5. Gee whiz, maybe 9-11 wouldn't have happened

And maybe we wouldn't be paying over $2.00 for gas. And maybe we wouldn't be stuck in a quagmire in Iraq. And maybe we would still have a surplus. And maybe the sun will come out tomorrow.

[cornermouse]

6. This is really starting to get ridiculous.

I think they must be desperate. I wonder what their private pollsters are telling them?

[Sean Reynolds]

7. I think Cheney needs a history lesson.

As a man that has researched the hell out of the Soviet economy I can tell you that in no way shape or form would the USSR of made it past the 90s. Hell some even believe that Reagan's push of the Cold War boosted the morale of the Soviets to the point where he prolonged the Union for a few years. The fact that the USSR was in economic shambles, its people disgusted with the right-ward Soviet government and the horrid state of the nation was enough to realize that the USSR was on its last legs heading into the 1980s.

Just research its economy, you'll see it bottomed out in the late 70s...before Reagan even took office.

[Ilsa]

28. Nah, Cheney doesn't need a history lesson.

He's counting on all the kool-aid drinkers needing one, though.

[Zorra]

38. Here is a brief, informative, pictorial history lesson for Dick:

They say a picture is worth a thousand words....

class dismissed.

Any questions?

[Ilsa]

39. Haaaaaaaaaaaa! hahahahaha!

Sunzabiches thought we forgot about that one.

Where's M. Moore's pic of the Taliban meeting with Bushco in Houston?

[kcwayne]

29. I read an article in 1983 about the Soviet Union that I wish I had saved

It was written by a doctor who was part of an organization that was working with the Soviets on their health care system as part of an initiative by the Soviet government to correct their huge manufacturing productivity problem. He was predicting that the Soviet government would fall within 5 years.

I remember telling friends about this article and no one believed it was possible that this would happen. When the Berlin wall fell, and the same friends (all Repukes) were going gaga about Reagan's great victory, I reminded them of the discussion we had years earlier, and of course they couldn't remember it.

His premise was well thought out and based on observe facts about the poor health of the population, low life expectancy, the levels of alcoholism, the incredibly low levels of productivity in their factories, and the complete lack of funding for any infrastructure.

His group had been working and collecting data since the 60's and the trends were accelerating downward at a rate that was alarming. He concluded that there was systematic failure in all of the Soviet institutions, and unless the Western world would start to look at the Soviet Union as a third world country that needed massive financial and humanitarian aid, the Soviet government would collapse. Since at that time the West viewed the Soviets at the "evil empire", he saw no chance of that happening, and concluded the Soviet system would collapse from within. He was dead on correct.

[Art_from_Ark]

54. You are right

Back in the '80s, two of my professors from two different schools, who were both USSR specialists, were predicting the collapse of the USSR. A third professor who had taken an Intourist tour of the country in the late-'70s, came back and said that he didn't know how the USSR could survive in its current form another decade (for example, there were lines to buy everything, even bread and toilet paper, and the USSR was just opening to the West).

Surprisingly, the republic of Georgia had it relatively well off during the Soviet regime, and my coworker from Georgia says that a lot of his countrymen think of the Soviet era as "the good old days".

[LiberalAndProud]

62. Do you think the Chernobyl disaster had anything to do with it?

On April 25th -26th, 1986 the World's worst nuclear power accident occurred at Chernobyl in the former USSR (now Ukraine). The Chernobyl nuclear power plant located 80 miles north of Kiev had 4 reactors and whilst testing reactor number 4 numerous safety procedures were disregarded. At 1:23am the chain reaction in the reactor became out of control creating explosions and a fireball which blew off the reactor's heavy steel and concrete lid.

[Strelnikov_]

63. I Took A Course In Soviet Economics circa 1980

You are right on. From what I remember they were already in an economic death spiral by then.

My question for 'Dick' would be, then, why are they repeating the Soviet's mistakes?

- Unsustainable defense spending.
- Unsustainable spending to maintain 'empire'.
- Lack of access to foreign capital/investment markets (coming soon to a Treasury near you).

[madaboutharry]

8. They are sounding like cartoon characters.

This crap is going so over the top, only someone with an IQ not quite room temperature would take it seriously.

[cubsfan forever]

11. Yes, certainly room temperature IQs

Storage room temperatures in Alaska.

Professor 2

[RebelYell]

9. Oh, STFU already, Cheney n/t

[UpInArms]

10. and how many innocent people would still be alive

and well and thriving today if you had done your job as head of terrosism for this country, you nasty piece of crap?

[KC21304]

12. And if Bush and Cheney had paid attention to the Hart-Rudmann

report, Clinton and Sandy Berger's warnings, their own intelligence briefings, we might still be enjoying the peace and prosperity of the Clinton years.

[cornermouse]

15. Peace? Maybe. Prosperity. No way.

They were hellbent on spending every penny they could find before they walked through the White House door.

[Art_from_Ark]

55. And when Saddam hit the USS Stark with an "errant" missile

back in 1986, guess who said "No problem, good buddy!"

[AntiFascist]

13. How desperate is Cheney?

If Bush, the self-proclaimed war president, were in charge at the time we probably would have bombed the Soviet Union with devastating results. The Soviets probably would have ultimately won!

[aquart]

18. Cheney doesn't need to be desperate.

No one would put a man that ill in jail.

[otohara]

14. Left Out Detail About...Who Was Supporting Saddam Hussein 80's

during the Reagan/Bush/years? Who sold weapons of mass destruction to insane dictator in Iraq?

[maddezmom]

34. no fooling, where is that photo of Rummy and Saddam?????

[Inland]

42. Rummy's winning smile while shaking hands with Saddam--here's the link

http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/

[maddezmom]

43. Rummy headed a G.D.Searle and Co....wonder what kind of pharma

they produced???

~snip~
Soon thereafter, Donald Rumsfeld (who had served in various positions in the Nixon and Ford administrations, including as President Ford's defense secretary, and at this time headed the multinational pharmaceutical company G.D. Searle & Co.) was dispatched to the Middle East as a presidential envoy. His December 1983 tour of regional capitals included Baghdad, where he was to establish "direct contact between an envoy of President Reagan and President Saddam Hussein," while emphasizing "his close relationship" with the president . Rumsfeld met with Saddam, and the two discussed regional issues of mutual interest, shared enmity toward Iran and Syria, and the U.S.'s efforts to find alternative routes to transport Iraq's oil; its facilities in the Persian Gulf had been shut down by Iran, and Iran's ally, Syria, had cut off a pipeline that transported Iraqi oil through its territory. Rumsfeld made no reference to chemical weapons, according to detailed notes on the meeting ~snip~~

[maddezmom]

44. PS: thanks for the link and the info

:)

[farmbo]

16. The WTC and the west wall of the Pentagon would still be around

...if Dick Cheney and his sidekick Bush had shown one ounce of leadership.

[henslee]

17. Why don't you clam up and run on your recrod, crashcart?

[liberalpragmatist]

19. And if Bush were president during the cold war... we wouldn't be around

Can you imagine Bush during the Cold War?

Can you imagine him showing restraint during the Cuban Missile Crisis, for example.

Thank god we had more level-headed leadership.

[onenote]

24. oops

didn't see your post until after I added mine. Great minds and all that...

onenote

[oly]

20. Cheney lives in an alternate reality.

[Gregorian]

21. Vikings might still be invading, if Jimmy Carter had....

Thanks DICK! You're a regular standup comedian.
You know, I could almost tolerate another four years, just for the humor.

[w4rma]

22. President Carter took down the Soviet Union. Reagan simply followed

President Carter's lead and kept doing what President Carter was doing (with much less humility about it).

[sandnsea]

46. Economic downfall

Already well underway in 1980. All Reagan did was start a bunch of proxy-wars all over the world, the remnants of which are today's terrorists. Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, brought to you by Ronald Reagan. Wish somebody had the balls to run that ad.

[onenote]

23. none of us would be around

if Bush had been president back then. His theory of "preemptive war" would've started WWIII and we'd all be bye-bye...

onenote

[Merlin]

25. If Kerry had been President in the 60s, there wouldn't be 55,000 names...

on the wall.

[alcuno]

26. "Alex, I'll take revisionist history for 100."

Let's continue play, Dick, and imagine 9/11 without you. See where this is going, Dick?

[FlyByNight]

27. And the aliens from Independence Day may have...

invaded and brought us to the brink of extinction. Sounds silly, right? About as silly as Oil Slick Dick's statements.

Cheney associates himself with people who've done business with the worst tyrants in the post war period. This current batch of statist reactionaries rarely met a dictator they didn't like (at one point or another). And, Dick, it was your company doing business with Iraq after the first Gulf War. Fucking hypocrite.

[Ilsa]

30. My mother-in-law is buying into all the rw bullshit, though.

My husband is so disgusted with his mother that they had another fight about it today. All she hears is that Kerry said something nasty about Mary Cheney, and now he's the devil incarnate. She hasn't considered all the rest of the Cheney's BS, and she'll buy into this.

But here is the good news:
My mother-in-law has never voted once her whole life and she isn't about to start now.

[PATRICK]

31. Bush Cheney 1941

After Pearl Harbor would have joined Hitler in a Crusade against the USSR, sold them nuclear technology, started our own camps alongside the Japanese internments, gotten deals for Mideast oil once France and Britain were conquered, etc.

If Cheney was in charge during Vietnam the fiasco would have metastasized and been ruined SOONER. Had Bush I or II done anything about Russian nukes we would be much safer today. Nixon chewed them out for not doing ANYTHING.

I think in retrospect the neocons would have preserved their good old enemy Communism and all the power and cottage industries it guaranteed for tyrannies on both sides of the paper tiger.

Cheney would have been a horror show in any government at any time of history- and a terrible failure.

Cheney's vices are so inflexibly bad he is 100% predictable and a very major reason Bush will lose everything.

[Cocoa]

32. the world would be safer with Nelson Mandela still in prison

Cheney was one of the very few people with the vision to realize that.

[sunnybrook]

50. Awesome point!

This was my favorite part of the VP debate. Edwards bringing up that, as usual, these assholes were on the wrong side, siding with the white South African government.

[maddezmom]

33. Didn't the BFEE have a relationship with the Nazi Regime????

[Mountainman]

35. Hey, f..k you Cheney! Why not try telling the truth once in a while!

[bluedog]

36. I just wish one

time he'd get punched in the freaking mouth!

[pinkpops]

37. Funny how a system that was supposedly doomed to fail

under its own weight (communism) needed the US to nudge it along. Meanwhile, the tactics used by both sides to try to bully the other led to economic strains on both sides (the Soviets more, I hear) and , most importantly, several zillion tons of missing nuclear material.
So, great going, boys, and keep up the good work, patriots all, God bless, etc.

[lagniappe]

41. Bin Laden is still around. He is practically waving to us from the

border of Pakistan.

[NNN0LHI]

45. And what would be the drawback of the USSR still being around?

Russia is still there with enough nuclear tipped ICBMs to turn the entire USA into a cinder just like before. What has changed? Different name with the same nuclear arsenal as before. Am I missing something here?

Don

[teryang]

47. And he's still baiting the Russians

with their insane plan to dominate a Balkanized Asia.

[MisterP]

53. no arms merchants, no white slavery, no mobsters, no assassins,

no paramilitaries, maybe some cleanup of heavy metals
what would Cheney and his friends do there?

[Porcupine]

56. guards on nuclear stockpiles, no child porn, or brothel economics

yeah the fall of the Soviet Union was all for the good. As I recall the first Bush did not have a clue that the Soviet Union was coming apart.

I recall Bush the first refusing to deal with Yeltsin until waay after power had transfered.

[Ilsa]

48. "If Bush hadn't cheated in 2000, 9-11 tragedy wouldn't have happened."

Take that! You pompous corporate a$$hole Cheney!

[VegasWolf]

49. Do ya think Cheney is hitting those "hold on to reality pills" chimp

is being fed?

New Information Shows Bush Indecisive, Paranoid, Delusional

[kskiska]

51. Well, I've got news for Dickie. The Soviets are on their way back.

Maybe if the Chimp had looked at reality instead looking into people's souls, he could have seen that Pootie-Poot is busy consolidating power over there. He's already accomplished a cult of personality.

[many a good man]

52. This nation would still be a colony if Kerry had led

during the American revolution. And we'd all be speaking Farsi if he led during the battle of Marathon....

[0007]

57. What a stupid fucking lying thieving asshole.

[proReality]

59. Cheney needs a straight jacket

and a rubber room to bounce around in!

[CityHall]

60. The U.S. might NOT be around

if Bush had been President during, say, the Cuban Missile Crisis. And that's all that needs to be said about that.

[neuvocat]

61. Cheney has lost his damn mind.

[Tight_rope]

64. You took the words right outta my mouth...

These motherfuckers are so disparate that they are saying all kinds of crazy shit. I love it. Let the world hear what fools they've become!

[pdurod1]

65. Cheney's ten deferments and counting

1) Vietnam (5),
2) North Korea,
3) Iran,
4) Saudi Arabia
5) Pakistan
6) The new Soviet Union

keep it going people...!

[brooklynite]

66. Gee, probably forgot the "Chicken Kiev" speech

Bush Sr. gave when the Sovet Union started to fall apart, opposing the idea of independence for the satellite republics.