Just when you think Time can't get any dumber

[welsh]

Reagan? Please. He might be idolized by Republicans as the second coming of Jesus, but the guy was also a cocksucker who broke the law, "forgot about it" and is given credit for a deterrence strategy created by Democrats.

If you mean "Star Wars" it was actually vehumently opposed by the Democrats and the Liberal Left. They afvocated the "Freeze" strategy that relied on the US disarming and trusting the Soviets to do the same on good faith. (see; David Alpern's 1982 Newsweek article, "A matter of Life and Death").

Actually I was thinking more about the entire Iran-Contra affair, where he broke the law and Ollie North got hung to dry.

As for the deterrence strategy- deterrence was born out of the Truman Doctrine (a democrat) and containment was developed by George Kennan- a State Dept guy and realist who wrote a number of articles in Foreign Affairs establishing the policy. According to Kennan the basic idea was to contain the soviets and wait them out. Truman Doctrine, containment strategy- that's what won the Cold War.

Reagan entered office with the intent to replace Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) with the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) which granted, was given the name "Star Wars" only after the left attempted to lampoon the idea of SDI, then it backfired horribly for them. So yes, the name "Star Wars" is a creation of the "Democrats" but the Idea of SDI originated in the DoD, and was fielded by Reagan. Carter refused to hear anything of it by the way.

Unfortunately SDI was a fiction and part of Reagan's disinformation campaign with the idea of scaring the Russians into a new arms race they couldn't afford. Which was why when Reagan met Gorby in Iceland he was unwilling to give up SDI despite getting just about everything he wanted.

That said SDI was a fiction that ate lots of money- which went where exactly?

And you are giving Reagan the prize for winning the Cold War based on a strategy that was nearly 40 years old when the Cold War finally came down? Or are you giving him credit for the military buildup begun by Carter?

Ahmed Shah Massoud- a warlord leader in Afghanistan for 30 years does not stock up as man of the century.

How about a Civil Engineer (his trade and education) who fought Soviet, then Radical Islamist opression for 30 years in the name of freedom and Democracy, was totally backdoored and shunned by American Foreign policy and a gross mishandling of the supply effort to the Afghan Jihad by the US through Pakistan's rouge ISI (Military Intelligence agency)? Massoud is the "George Washington" of Afghanistan, and the people revere him as a National hero and founding father. His image is displayed everywhere. He was also by the way, a key ally in the US's Bin Laden tracking efforts, but a certain American president refused to authorize any more than slight logistical help, preferring to deal with Omar and the Taliban (Clinton).

Yes, except that Massoud also screwed the pooch when he finally got to be Defense Minister in Kabul and failed to take out ISI's favored warlord Hekmatyar (sorry, I can't recall the spelling) . As much as Massoud was anti-marxist he was also basically a fundamentalist, but a Tajik. Sure he got shafted by ISI but he also got hundreds of thousands from the US - even if he didn't blow that highway linking Kabul to the USSR. Yes, a successful warlord, but still a warlord- dealer in opium, got aid from France, England and Iran. See Coll's Ghost Wars for more.

You call him George Washington, fine. I kind of like the guy too. But good PR doesn't make him a George Washington- who was a pretty decent first president and not that bad as a general.

Too bad he got killed before 9/11 and was basically losing ground to the Taliban.

Yeah... an interesting figure in Afghan politics, but not much else. Sorry- not the person of the century. The guy did not win the War against the Soviets on his own? He didn't unify Afghanistan, nor did he manage to rebuild the country. If anything he helped hold on to a patch of land for the Tanjiks. Hell, there are warlords and rebel leaders throughout the 20th century that can claim that and more.

Mullah Omar? A dogmatic religious whacko who didn't understand why the world was pissed off for the destruction of a couple of Buddhist statutes("it's just stones") - dickhead.

Influential in the same way as Hitler.

Yeah, maybe, if you happen to be a Muslim fundamentalist whacko.

No, that's not true. Comparing Nazi Germany to Afghanistan is a bullshit analogy. World War 2 and the War against Terror?

Afghanistan- a country so failed that a bunch of religious whackos are able to take it over vs Germany, one of the major economic powers of Europe?

Come on. How much Republican bullshit do you swallow? The Germans were able to wage offensive war against the Soviets and the Democratic West at the same time. Afghanstan fell in a few weeks to a bunch of warlords supported by US airstrikes.

Mao- should have died in 49 and China would be a better place.

Agreed. Chaing Kai Shek would have made it that better place.

But where would modern warfare be without his treatise? It's the basis for Guerilla and Assymetrical warfare.

Maybe if it weren't so derivative of Sun Tzu. Chaing Kai Shek as a better leader? Are you kidding? Chiang Kai Shek? Buddy of the local mobsters in Shanghai? The same guy the Japanese sent running from China?

Seriously, if there was a Chinese leader who mattered against the Japanese it wasn't Chaing Kai Shek but Mao. Mao's guerrilla warfare seriously put a hurt on Japans military. Mao's problem was that he was an asshole egocentrist. The Cult of Personality thing and his confidence in Stalinism were all bad news. But Chiang Kai Shek was little more than a militant but largely ineffective strongman

Musharraf? What are you smoking?

I used to think he was a dick too, but then some reading showed that he never asked to be president. He got the position by default while on an Airplane during a coup. He is still in charge because the Paki military is so saturated with Islamist Radicals the loss of a moderate leader would be crippling to the government, and possibly lead to civil war. Or worse, touch off new conflict with India . One thing the world doesn't need is two Nuclear powers going at it.

And yet, the Pakistanis can still screw around with Kashmir and nuclear war with India. No, Pakistan has shown a history of rather ineffective leaders. If you want to give credit to keeping Pakistan and India from going to war, might as well credit Clinton's diplomacy between the two keeping them both from launching.

The guy is a too bit leader of a country with some seriously political issues. But has he really resolved anything? Not really.

Not a man of the century.

Sorry dude but a lot of the guys you want to nominate are players in Central Asia, but generally speaking largely insignificant to most of the world for most of the 20th Century.

Eisenhower? Besides D-Day what did the guy do?

The rest of the war in Europe? Coordinated a massive joint allied effort between over six nations to remove a scourge from the face of the European landscape?

As if the Russian military doesn't get most of the credit of defeating the Germans? Why not give the nod to marshal zukov instead. The guy did win Stalingrad- one of two turning points of the Second World War in Europe (that is if you count El Alamein.

Ok, you might say that Stephen Abrose says it was D-Day that turned the tide, which is true if, and only if, you drape yourself in the star-spangled banner and not historical fact.

As a president, Ike was not nearly as impressive as he should have been. Oh yeah, he turned a blind eye to McCarthyism? Dude, if you are US military, you defend US national security. National security is based on defending certain moral value- like life, property- and yes, also quality of life and value- like civil rights, democracy, free speech. In otherwords, not McCarthism?
Oh and then there was that military-industrial complex thing Ike mentions as he steps off the podium.

None of these people are nearly as important as Einstein. Fuck, I mean Einstein in probably more important than Ghandi or the Dalai Lama- who didn't even make your list.

Einstein was already mentioned. I didn't want to take any repeats.

I couldn't give a shit about the Dalai Lama. Sorry.

Anyway, it's all opinion.

Fair enough. The point of argument was do any of these jokers stand up to Einstein in terms of importance?

No.

And give the Dalai a break. He has kept the Tibet issue alive when otherwise it would have been cool, made Buddhism respectable, and helped a lot of folks think about life and the world in a more meaningful way. That should count for something. That whole "peaceful" thing doesn't work for you?

Hu Jinta o= a whole lot of not much on North Korea?
And I think giving the cartoonists a nod for stirring up religious tension for free speech would be like giving an award for "Now look at what you done, you stupid fucking drama whore."

Jintao has been very economically accomodating as I said. Not to mention putting the pressure on Kim Jong (Jintao's government threatened to cut off aid the the DPRK if they set off another bomb)

And again, opinion. The offended had better learn to respect Western Values if they want to emigrate and live in the West. If you emigrated to Qatar for some reason and were offended by a negative depiction of your culture; do you think they would pull that depiction from view and take action to politically appease you?

Well, as argued elsewhere- looking to China to save the US in Korea is just another example of how fucked up the US has gotten under W.
(of course Republicans don't want to admit that).

You want to give the prize to a Chinese? Why not Deng, or Chao En Lai, or Sun Yat Sen?

As for whether Muslims can't handle Western culture, yeah... So. I am not saying that Muslims are getting all victimized about this or that a better understanding of the word hypocracy might be in order.

But in terms of importance? No offense to the cartoonist but if they didn't anticipate this reaction then they are butt-fuck dumb. And if they did it anticipating the reaction, then they are a bunch of drama whore assholes who create a problem that they couldn't clean up.

That the Europeans have bent over to take Muslim cock to their ass might have to do with the fact that they have this largely unhappy muslim population they dont' really want to own up too, and so are willing to compromise on values because, well, intergration hasn't worked.

But then W is starting to pull the same shit with Latin/Hispanic workers as "visitors" - let's see if the US doesn't feel the pinch in a decade or two.

Wait a second, you blame the US for this and then are willing to bend over backwards for Hu Jintao? Dude, where are your standards?

I blame a certain president. Clinton. Who gave the DPRK 26 million USD as incentive NOT to make a nuke. Wonder where it went?

And I never said I'd bend over backwards for Jintao. Which standards do you mean exactly? Those I use to evaluate world "leaders"?

Ok, fair enough. I would agree that Clinton began a policy of being a pussy to North Korea and W has followed it by being the bitch in a gangbang. But you're saying here that we give Hu Jintao the award for doing next to nothing about a problem?

Let's not forget who North Korea's trading partners are? Which countries have sworn to defend North Korea? Whose armies have defended North Korea.

Sorry but if Kim's a Stalinist dictator forced to financial crime to keep his state alive, than its also China that gives him the life-support.

Which alone should have gotten him an honorable mention. But seriously.... Not that big a deal.

So a "leader" of a nation that seeks to manufacture nuclear arms and is a noted human rights abuser (see any of the UNs resolutions and warnings issued to Iran in the last couple years)? He is not terribly influential. He's just a puppet dick of a bunch of old, anti semitic, radical Islamist, men. But he gets enough press and blow jobs from the western media that he is a notable dick.

But still a dickhead drama whore.

Not a man of the year or a man of the century.

Seriously, this whole "lets talk to Iran and Syria" bullshit- fuck that.

That conversation equals- "America, you want us to help you must suck our cocks and like it."

Which is testament to how far the US has sunk of late.
Syria? Which regularly got its ass handed to it by Israel? Iran? Fuck.
But that's US power under Bush.

True that, but that still doesn't give us a worthwhile man of the year or an alternative man of the 20th century.

That was more of a defense mechanism. I was actually expecting a ration of shit of shit for (1) Being American (2) Being a soldier (3) Arguing with an Admin.

Regardless, it wasn't supposed to lable a man of the year, just to ensure the difference between the "good" and "bad" assholes was made.

Dude, you don't deserve a ration of shit for being an American, being a soldier or arguing with an Admin.

(1) Being an American is, frankly, the best fucking thing to be. OK, this is me being a nationalist, but even with that asshole Bush, I would rather be an American than any other nationality out there. Yes, the US has its problems and its smart to be aware of those problems. Things are getting worse. But this country is still the best fucking place in the world- in my opinion. While I think the whole "USA is the BEST!" crap you hear by a bunch of kids who were merely lucky enough to be born in the US gives the rest of us a bad rep, this place still is pretty damn cool. But personally I think a lot of that wave the flag bullshit is just more drama. I think the way to go is like Teddy Roosevelt says- walk soft but carry a big stick.

(where are the republicans like Roosevelt?)

(2) Being a soldier- well, that depends on what you want for a career and your motivation for doing so. But we got lots of military types here and I have plenty of military types as friends. No one should give you shit merely for being military.

(3) Arguing with an Admin? Fuck that. If you have a good argument, argue. I ain't Rosh. Good argument makes for a good forum.

So that's not why you should expect shit.

You should expect shit because you're arguments-

(1) are often pretty weak
(2) drips with Republican bullshit,
(3) show a painful lack of self criticism.

Seriously, think about some of the guys you've tossed into the mix?

Sorry.

Fair enough, I favor Democrats these days and am biased against W the dick, but I used to vote Republican (note I said nice things about Guilliani- not only a Republican but a New Yorker) and hope to do so again - should they offer a decent candidate.

But seriously, I mean what about-
Jonas Salk?
Picasso?
Nelson Mandela?
Elvis Presley?
Milton Friedman?
Henry Ford?
Charlie Chaplin?
Louis Armstrong?
Churchill?
Roosevelt (oops, forgot he's a Democrat!).

Note that many of your picks are warriors. But even Yoda knows, "Wars do not make one great."

Get some perspective dude.

That said, some of the other nominees are kind of fucked up.
Princess Diane? Madonna?
Fuck.
The lack of perspective thing is spreading like a bad plague.