Kerry Speech At NYU 9/20/04

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In the dark days of the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy sent former Secretary of State Dean Acheson to Europe to build support. Acheson explained the situation to French President de Gaulle. Then he offered to show him highly classified satellite photos, as proof. De Gaulle waved the photos away, saying: “The word of the President of the United States is good enough for me.”

How many world leaders have that same trust in America’s president, today?


Keep punching, John! Good one! :up:
 
I just finished reading the speech. He is dead right about everything that he said. Reading the speech made me sad in many ways. President Bush says that he has made Americans safer yet he has not. I don't feel safe to get on a plane and go explore other countries and to see the world because I am an American and hated by so many people because of this so called war on terror. We are only safer if you consider being holed up in our own country surrounded by guns pointing out towards our borders as safe. We have alienated the entire world and that is a scary thought indeed.
 
paxetaurora said:
In the dark days of the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy sent former Secretary of State Dean Acheson to Europe to build support. Acheson explained the situation to French President de Gaulle. Then he offered to show him highly classified satellite photos, as proof. De Gaulle waved the photos away, saying: “The word of the President of the United States is good enough for me.”

How many world leaders have that same trust in America’s president, today?



Funny, you could read the same statement as a commentary about the changes in France over the decades......
 
paxetaurora said:
In the dark days of the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy sent former Secretary of State Dean Acheson to Europe to build support. Acheson explained the situation to French President de Gaulle. Then he offered to show him highly classified satellite photos, as proof. De Gaulle waved the photos away, saying: “The word of the President of the United States is good enough for me.”

How many world leaders have that same trust in America’s president, today?


Keep punching, John! Good one! :up:

perhaps if de gaulle stood to lose billions of dollars in contracts with cuba, he would have had a different opinion


ahhh but yes... we're not allowed to bring that up as reasons why france, germany and russia didn't want to go to iraq. my bad. let me sweep it away under the rug, right next to the oil for food scandle.

in an unrelated story, boy... how about that halliburton! what a disgrace!

[/sarcasm]
 
check C-Span's web site. should be running again. I flipped around this morning -- it was on CNN, MSNBC and Fox. Not bad.
 
nbcrusader said:


Like Kerry on this issue..... :wink:

Hmm....no, more like Bush. Can you remind me: was al Qaeda connected to Iraq or not? Because one side of Bush's brain -- Dick -- and the other side -- Colin -- can't decide on the right answer.
 
Al Qaeda was operating with Ansar al Islam. The Baathists did not openly cooperate with Al Qaeda however there were connections between the two. It is not as clear cut as Saddam being secular and Bin Laden being a religious nut, there were stories in 1999 about the Taliban being pissed about the bad PR OBL was getting and threatening to kick him out, one of the countries apparently offering asylum was - you guessed it - Iraq (http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,314700,00.html).

The threat from WMD coupled with that of global terrorism is obscenely huge. I do not think that **SOME** people here understand what biological weapons can do, smallpox for instance unleashed upon the world could kill millions, hundreds of millions. Nuclear weapons could destroy cities. We are fighting organizations with the wealth and knowledge to obtain these weapons - leaving Saddam in power was a risk nobody should have been willing to take. I do not care how much you repeat the Bush lied People Died meme or the WMD liars arguments. What has been found subsequent to the war shows that the regime either possesed WMD and used the very long lead up to remove them to other countries for safekeeping (Syria for example, see the article about the Syrian government testing Chemical weapons on Blacks Africans in Dafur) or that it was intent on waiting until sanctions were removed before restarting its programs and gaining new stockpiles.

I do not want to see a WMD attack, by removing the regime the threat has diminished but is by no means removed, it is the first step of a massive operation that requires perpetual vigilance and discipline.
 
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A_Wanderer said:
I do not think that people here understand what biological weapons can do

Oh really?

Tell me what I do for a living, if you will.
 
:yikes:
Perhaps the clarifyer some will do some good.

There was that niggling little voice at the back of my brain going of at something, maybe I should listen to it next time :huh:
 
paxetaurora said:
In the dark days of the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy sent former Secretary of State Dean Acheson to Europe to build support. Acheson explained the situation to French President de Gaulle. Then he offered to show him highly classified satellite photos, as proof. De Gaulle waved the photos away, saying: “The word of the President of the United States is good enough for me.”

How many world leaders have that same trust in America’s president, today?


Keep punching, John! Good one! :up:

What Mr. Kerry, and most of the people who have not done their research into the Cuban Missile Crisis, is that Kennedy DID NOT stand the Russians down. It saddens me that the accuracy of this event would lead one to believe Kennedy was being strong. Kennedy SCREWED EUROPE and specifically Turkey. He struck a deal with the Russians that in order to get the missiles out of Cuba, he would wait a few months and remove the missiles from Turkey. The deal is public knowledge today. However, it was kept from the American public to give the impression that Kennedy had stood up to Communism.

From my viewpoint, Kennedy was a masterful politician. This improved his immage in the American public as being tough on communism. The perception and the reality, as in most cases are two different things. What is completely amazing to me, is that the American people are still pretty much in the dark as to how this went down, yet the documents, 1st hand accounts,ect are right there.
 
I recomend the brilliant documentary "The Fog of War" on Bob McNamara, it gives some insight into that adminstration from the SecDef.
 
Dreadsox said:


What Mr. Kerry, and most of the people who have not done their research into the Cuban Missile Crisis, is that Kennedy DID NOT stand the Russians down. It saddens me that the accuracy of this event would lead one to believe Kennedy was being strong. Kennedy SCREWED EUROPE and specifically Turkey. He struck a deal with the Russians that in order to get the missiles out of Cuba, he would wait a few months and remove the missiles from Turkey. The deal is public knowledge today. However, it was kept from the American public to give the impression that Kennedy had stood up to Communism.

From my viewpoint, Kennedy was a masterful politician. This improved his immage in the American public as being tough on communism. The perception and the reality, as in most cases are two different things. What is completely amazing to me, is that the American people are still pretty much in the dark as to how this went down, yet the documents, 1st hand accounts,ect are right there.

The United States already had plans prior to the Cuban Missile crises to withdraw the specific missiles in Turkey. The United States had a very large bomber and missile command throughout Europe as well as positions in Asia and the Pacific that could easily strike numerous targets through out the Soviet Union. The missiles in Turkey were only a small part of the entire US strike package in Europe.

This is a huge contrast to the importance to the Soviet Union of having their missiles in Cuba, at that time. The Soviet placement of missiles in Cuba was the first time they had a "reliable" guaranteed way to strike the continental United States with nuclear weapons. The Soviet intercontinental bomber fleet was tiny and would be easy targets for US intercepters over such a long flight. The Soviet Union's nuclear Sub fleet was small at the time and unlikely to be successful against the large US and NATO Naval forces arrayed against it. The Soviets did not have bases near or close to the United States, like the United States had in Europe and Asia, all within close proximity to the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union at the time only had 4 ICBM's all of which had technical problems. Bottom line, without missiles in Cuba, the Soviets had no reliable way to hit the United States with Nuclear Weapons in 1962. Thus, the removal at the time for the Soviet Union was a major backdown, and the removal of missiles from Turkey essentially irrelevant when one looks at all the other missiles and bombers the United States had stationed all over Europe and Asia in close proximity to the Soviet Union, in 1962.

By 1965 though, the Soviet Union had finally developed a strong and growing ICBM force. Because of the experience of the 1950s and early 1960s when Bombers and Submarines were found to be poor ways to reliably deliver nuclear weapons to the USA because of the USA's ability to intercept that route of delivery, the Soviets would overwhelmingly invest most of their money for Strategic Forces, into ICBM's which could hit the United States from the USSR in as little as 30 minutes, with little or no chance of interception during that time period. Over 70% of the Soviet Union's Strategic Nuclear Warheads were placed on ICBM's during the the next 25 years of the Cold War. In addition, the Soviet Bomber and Submarine fleets would grow larger and be more capable, but in the 1950s and early 1960s, they were both to small(in numbers) and vulnerable to interception.
 
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