Was the world safer during the cold war?

Growing pains.

Iraq, at the moment, can serve as the perfect microcosm for this.

The U.S.S.R. oppressed all of those former satellite states, like Hussein
oppressed all the various ethnic and religious groups in Iraq. When that
authoritarian or totalitarian oppression is removed then the various factions
all fight to dominate the country, like they traditionally did before they
were all "unified" by subjugation. The history of China amounts to the same
thing.

A solution... well, this is where you just disagreed with me in another post.
Hear me out. You and I can be from opposing political parties, different
religions, different states and cities, different races and ethnic backgrounds
but if put in a room together with a couple of beers we could probably find
something in common.: a rock band, a football team, a movie or tv show...
a book, a hobby, something in common. As "evolved westerners" or just
"evolved modern humans" we define ourselves by a million and one things.
We are not merely reproductions of our fathers, who are not allowed to
develop interests or attitudes beyond a very basic set of things. We, or
most of us, are individuals... it's in the fabric of America... very few of
us view ourselves as mindless followers who aren't making our own decisions.

For the violent factions in these countries, their lives are very limited. You
can find some very smart and tolerant people in every one of those places
who are stuck having to deal with a country full of lunatics who have only
their racial background or religion as a defining element, and anyone else
is less than human... the enemy, who it is okay to kill, rape and torture.

Actually, even in the west that still happens fairly frequently in lower-income,
lower-educated environments: the "soccer hooligans" of the UK who riot
and kill fans of the opposing team on a regular basis, or the gang members
who are intolerant of people from a different "turf."

These people don't have minds that are expanded enough to recognize the
pattern of similarity in human lives and gain sympathy from it. They aren't in
an environment where they can achieve anything as individuals, so they merely
behave as part of a mob. They're not ready for "liberal democracy," prefering
"mob rules" bullying and oppression. When I sense shades of this here I get pretty irate,
and I do see shades of it in this country sometimes.

I agree with something you said but not everything...

A solution... well, this is where you just disagreed with me in another post.
Hear me out. You and I can be from opposing political parties, different
religions, different states and cities, different races and ethnic backgrounds
but if put in a room together with a couple of beers we could probably find
something in common.: a rock band, a football team, a movie or tv show...
a book, a hobby, something in common. As "evolved westerners" or just
"evolved modern humans" we define ourselves by a million and one things.
We are not merely reproductions of our fathers, who are not allowed to
develop interests or attitudes beyond a very basic set of things. We, or
most of us, are individuals... it's in the fabric of America... very few of
us view ourselves as mindless followers who aren't making our own decisions.
Yes, we can say bluntly that we are poppets in the hand of the huge machine called :power!!

What if there is nothing that make us find a middle ground ? What if beside any effort, it is impossible to understand our differences?:dunno:
We try too hard to make people go to the pub, or have beer when they probably do not play and they are not drinkers!!!:no:

I firmly believe, now after everything happened, that the Cold War somehow had kept this kind of people at bay.... With the fall of comunism Russia is just a joke of what was once perceived as the second sueperpower..The world has screwd up, big time, by changing things......No more greater authorities to stop international threat, of any kind. We will crumble because of globalization which allow open market of everything.... :wtf:

Well, I also agree with some of what you're saying...

Certainly the Soviet Union, and the Cold War in general, were keeping those
kinds of people at bay.

However, it is a good thing that the Soviet Union is no longer around. It
was an oppressive government, "communism" is not a good form of
governance in actuality and I, for one, don't miss going to bed at night
worrying that someone would push the button and end the world.

The Russian people do have a little way to go to truly free themselves:
they no longer are oppressed by the Soviet Union but now by organized crime
and corrupt officials... they've gone from one end of the unfortunate spectrum
to the other. They need a strong, truly representational government to
clean things up in the "Wild, Wild East."

The extremist muslims were certainly focused on the U.S.S.R., for the most
part, instead of U.S. The U.S.S.R. was closer, physically, and as an
intolerant atheist entity was a direct threat to Islam. If you want to read
something interesting about the real facts behind the "Russian Invasion
of Afghanistan" I'll put it at the end of this post.

With the Russians out of the way, Bin Laden and others turned their
attention to "the other meddling superpower." Al Qaeda wants the U.S.
to pull out of the Middle-east, so that the Muslim Brotherhood can overrun
all the regimes there and establish a fundamentalist Islamic state. If
we weren't there that very well might happen... the people in the streets
probably feel they'd be better treated by that than what they have now.

Anyway, no... we can't make people find middle ground with others, and
be tolerant. Some people never will, but they have to be pushed to the
margins and sidelines by all of the other reasonable people. We have to put
the fear into them, and not the other way around.

Okay, about afghanistan...
http://members.aol.com/Bblum6/brz.htm

Thanks Oleo...

I am interested in the Cald War history a lot..

It can sound crazy, but i felt safer with America and Russia at each other throat,than now..At least the enemy had a face and for sure Russia knew the consequences of pushing any button...

Can you imagine if the arab world become our modern URSS, what trouble will be in???

People can think of them as oppressed, a minority that need education, opportunities like us, this is worring me as they sure are using these as a pretence to sneak inside our way of life totally violent and unable to tolerate anyone else....The price is too high to pay....

Well, Sherman, we in effect have another Cold War going on right now.
We call it the War On Terror. It doesn't work that differently, except as
you stated there's more to worry about...

Sting had a great song in the Cold War:
"Believe me when I say to you
I hope the Russians love their children, too!"

The Soviets were a state, a state run by a few but even those few had
children and hopes and dreams for them. If they did something drastic they
would face retaliation. They didn't want that, really.

The new terrorist menace is like a street gang that hides in shadows.
There is no permanent address to aim a missile at. Where is Bin Laden, again?

I do have to say, listening to projections of what would happen if we pulled
out of Iraq, when someone said "it would split into 3 sections, and the
Sunni section would immediately become a a center for the terrorists" I
immediately thought "great, then we'd know where they live and how to
get them!"

Right now they are anywhere!!!! The war on terror is totally different...It has not buttons to push and we are fighting an invisible enemy...If America still had all that nuclear power like in the 80's, probably we wouldn't have a 9/11...


Those countries were always ruled by aristocracy or dictators, i agree with that...Not my problem... Some countries have communism not democracy, that's the way it is/was even if i wouldn't leave there... And probably if i was born in China or USSR (once) i wouldn,t have known the difference and missed out anything i do not know....That'the beauty of the world...people got to live the way it supposed to be...

I don't think Gorby did them any favor, and i look at the political messes happening in East Europe and Russia today he did not help us either...It has affected everybody...It's not worth it, to free people just to let them cross a wall, take drugs, have corruption and Aids!!!!!:no: :thx:

Wow, so you think the Soviet empire was a good thing?

It was the same as the Islamofascist threat, but much more powerful.

Make no mistake, a maxim of communism was that the whole world had to
be communist in order for it work effectively. Competition from free
societies undermined the operation. They were planning on eventually
getting you, too.

It wasn't freedom. It was hell for the people who lived in those countries.
They didn't have the freedom to so much as log onto a site like this and
post an opinion without being sent to a Gulag. Actually, they didn't have
computers, or electricity for certain hours.

Cuba might be the one place where your average person is so much better
off than they were and it operates, like China, as a pseudo-capitalist
economy that most don't seem totally miserable, but I'm sure if they
could control their own destinies totally they'd be happier.

I remember my high school football coach/history and government teacher
saying once "freedom or safety: pick one."

It occurs to me that you're European. There's a slight difference between
Europeans and Americans. America is huge, and most people live in an
area of their town that was uninhabited 20 years ago. There's big cities
here that didn't exist 60 years ago. Americans constantly are drawn to
relocate to somewhere new. We don't necessarily stay geographically
close to our familes. We're a nation of people descended, for the most
part, from people who chose to leave someplace else and take a risk
here. ...and that continues in most of us. The most conservative among us
pines for a past era that was still pretty progressive and liberal in reality.
We're a country of "liberals" (not in the strickly political sense, drnaline)
who usually opt for freedom over safety.

Post-9/11 that's gotten a little off-track, but there's a visable change
happening. Americans don't sacrifice their freedom for long for little
payoff.

I do choose safety over freedom...But it is not that simple....I am a traditionalist, i like my country evolve but not at the cost of its own identity...

Freeing those countries made Europe a living hell like Babel tower..But i am not talking only about more criminals, the situation is much more complex, totally different from America situation...Thank God for you!

You see communist as an oppressive polital force but i do not, not in Europe at least....We needed it, to make sure that some people will be guarded closely and controlled...I really did not care if they couldn't cannot go out at night or go dancing or else...

Now they can do all that. They are free to whatever they want..Oh they did.. Wars!!!! USSR, Yugoslavia, Cech etc,.... Does it this means to be free??

I look at the big picture and in my opinion it has been a huge historical mistake....

In England for example We got to deal with a lot of internal disturbances and worse from people from those countries who see freedom as a way of parassite, steal and much worse...Like we di not have enough already!!

In addition the terorists threat situation we are in, it is absolutely dreadful..:eek: .

If I could go back i ll loved for Russia to keep the Middle East at bay even though would have meant to take back those country freedom.... Sorry mate, it 's just the way it is....

"As Marx saw the development of class conflict, the struggle between classes was initially confined to individual factories. Eventually, given the maturing of capitalism, the growing disparity between life conditions of bourgeoisie and proletariat, and the increasing homogenization within each class, individual struggles become generalized to coalitions across factories. Increasingly class conflict is manifested at the societal level. Class consciousness is increased, common interests and policies are organized, and the use of and struggle for political power occurs. Classes become political forces".

Like BABEL....:eek:

Marx, wow, you're getting heavy.

Strange that no one else is chiming in on this discussion. I know I'm much
more tolerant towards discussing communism than others here would be.
Surprised they haven't flamed in.

You know the class thing here in America isn't really hard to overcome?
Like I said, people usually move away from their families anyway... What
pegs you in a certain class in one part of the country has no meaning, or
might in fact make you interesting, in another place. No one holds anyone's
background against them. You really do write your own ticket here.

Even things like racial discrimination are easy to simply move away from,
to a more accepting place.

We're lucky in that regard. Andrew Sullivan, one of my fave "conservative"
writers, discussed how if, like him, someone were to come over from the
U.K. then regardless of who they were there they are instantly regarded
as being someone of an "elevated" status. Probably vice versa, too.

There were mid-western U.S. states that were pretty socialist in the 1940's
onward. They were places where all the european immigrants settled, and
they brought with them that expectation of government. They still are pretty
liberal places, and have a ridiculous level of education and affluence in the
people who live there these days, from people who came here as farmers
and factory workers.

It's not that simple, these people not only posses the right to freedom they also have something born in all of us, the urge for liberty. Yes we would be better off if irresponsible a**holes such as the ones that hijacked the planes and flew them into the WTCs, but they wouldn't be. That is the true mark of an evolved society, we respect their views and opinions more than many among them do. Why do you think they hate the bad bad west, they can't understand us, and in this they lash out, committing unforgetable atrocities, but not unforgivable. After all of this when we act just as they believed and were taught we would their suspicions are confirmed we are evil, and those who told them are considered bearers of truth, but they are the sword and the fire and we must offer them bread and water, because we are the only models they have of freedom and happiness. They kill our children and expect us to do the same, that is why we must save them and their children, because we can.

Like i said I choose safety over freedom....
That's why I Love Americans, because like Oleo mentioned you can always have the life you choose for yourself ...despite your background!!! You also are very forgiving and always believe in the goodness of mankind..I am not surprised, you live the american creed of life!!!:thumbup:

I probably would have seen things as you if i was born and raised in US, unfortunately not.. MY experience is much more crude, and realistic..:frown:

Many people are not like you guys , i do not say they don't deserve freedom, i believe they cannot handle it!!

I Firmly believe the world as a big machine and each one of us ( countries) play a part, have its own function to make this big engine works, you can put a new piece but always the same one, never change it, or there is the risks the machine breakdown!!

And we are breaking down fast!!!!

I admire your optimism and your hope that there are ways to get through those people...,,I just cannot believe it exist.....:wtf: