It's proverbial, home is where the heart is, and for you it appears to be in Poland. Nothing wrong with that!
Obama betrays Poland and every American
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It's proverbial, home is where the heart is, and for you it appears to be in Poland. Nothing wrong with that!
The US isn't stabbing anyone in the back. The missile shield doesn't work, you can't hit a bullet with a bullet.
Unfortunately some east Europeans believed in 1956 and 1968 that comfortable Westerners would start World War lll for small countries. There always was that little problem of destroying Germany in order to save it if Soviet Troops crossed from East Germany into West Germany.
Unfortunately some east Europeans believed in 1956 and 1968 that comfortable Westerners would start World War lll for small countries. There always was that little problem of destroying Germany in order to save it if Soviet Troops crossed from East Germany into West Germany.
''The US isn't stabbing anyone in the back.''
Of course not. The European Union is a bigger political conglomeration than is the USA and Canada combined. Poland is a member of that group and is likelier to be invaded by the Plan Nine grave robbers than by Russia.
Of course not. The European Union is a bigger political conglomeration than is the USA and Canada combined. Poland is a member of that group and is likelier to be invaded by the Plan Nine grave robbers than by Russia.
It's too often "Obama" who betrays. Such a complex issue is reduced to one person. But everyone knows him, who is the president of Poland? The Czech republic?
The fact is, we have diaspora politics at work here, it is one of the detrimental effects of immigration on a country. New immigrants to a country, say Canada, like my dad, are intensely interested in politics. They can make politicians respond in favour of the interests of their old country rather than their adopted country because they know how to agitate.
The fact is, we have diaspora politics at work here, it is one of the detrimental effects of immigration on a country. New immigrants to a country, say Canada, like my dad, are intensely interested in politics. They can make politicians respond in favour of the interests of their old country rather than their adopted country because they know how to agitate.
Unproven tech. Where is the evidence of missles knocking out missiles mid flight?
The missile defence "shield" is all about politics, and politics is what so much of everything is about. The Poles like their shield from America, whatever kind of shield they can get is good, technical issues on whether it works or not are of secondary importance.
All European nations are intensely nationalistic and some feel more insecure than others. Poland and Russia are near the top of both lists.
Desert Storm.
Unproven tech but you know it is not impossible.
I agree. Politics have a lot to do with it as well.
It's all politics. The speed of these thingys is too fast, it doesn't and can't work. Plus there are easy countermeasures.
Reading an article on this subject from the Telegraph I saw this cool US debt clock at. Lots of flashing lights and big numbers.
U.S. National Debt Clock : Real Time
Here's the Canadian debt clock. Not quite as flashy though or as comprehensive.
Canada's National Debt Clock : The Canadian Taxpayers Federation
Canada's National Debt Clock : The Canadian Taxpayers Federation
Satellite shoot down. Missile shield does work.
U.S. Department of Defense - Photo Essay
US Navy Shoots Down The Crippled Spy Satellite Using Missile | Latest Technology Trends
U.S. Department of Defense - Photo Essay
US Navy Shoots Down The Crippled Spy Satellite Using Missile | Latest Technology Trends
It does work...but it is also politics.
If it didn't work or will never work then why are the Russians against it?
Those "thingys" have been shot down. The US used the Patriot missle to shoot down Iraqi SCUDS. The Patriot was an anti-aircraft platform and never meant to shoot down SCUDS...but they did a pretty good job.
Ballistic missles aren't bullets, they aren't even air to air missles. They are fast but jet aircraft are fast too...they get shot down all the time.
Revolutions of 1989 – Poland Sets the Stage By Judith Latham
Washington
24 September 2009
Twenty years ago, the fall of Communist governments throughout Central and Eastern Europe transformed the political landscape. And the events Poland would lead the way.
The Polish Example
Lech Walesa speaks during the Solidarity convention commemorating the 25th anniversary of the founding of the movement in GdanskThe emergence of Solidarity - the first non-Communist trade union in 1980 under the leadership of Lech Walesa - sparked the revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe that would come later in the decade. “Within a couple of months (of its creation), Solidarity had 10 million members,” said Janusz Onyszkiewicz, a spokesman for the Solidarity opposition movement during the 1980s. “The fact that Solidarity could be crushed only by implementing martial law deprived the Communist system of any traces of legitimacy,” he said.
The government’s repression drove Solidarity underground, but did not destroy it. “It became absolutely clear that even tanks on the streets could not stop the process,” said Onyszkiewicz.
“For many years everybody in our part of the world lived under the impression, which was quite clearly confirmed by Soviet declarations, that the defense of the socialist system was not a matter of every individual country,” said Onyszkiewicz. “It was actually a matter for the whole socialist bloc.” That, he noted, had been the justification for intervention in Hungary in 1956 and for intervention in Czechoslovakia in 1968, and it could have justified intervention in Poland in the 1980s. But, said Onyszkiewicz, “We proved it doesn’t work.”
Without a military solution at hand, he said the government’s only means of resolving the crisis had to be political in nature. “Finally, we showed that Solidarity could run for elections and win,” he said. The result became the first, and (for some time) the only non-Communist government in the Soviet sphere of influence.
The Soviet Reaction
“Poland would demonstrate that Communist regimes were held together only by force,” said Russian journalist Masha Lipman of the Carnegie Moscow Center. And as soon as that force eased, those governments began to collapse – one after another. “To the great credit of Mikhail Gorbachev, he made it clear that he would not use force,” Lipman said. And that is principally how he is remembered in Central and Eastern Europe today.
Reformers in Poland were helped by Mikhail Gorbachev's decision not to use force
However, the true nature of President Gorbachev’s reluctance to use force has been largely misunderstood, according to Eurasian expert Paul Goble. “Had Gorbachev or any other Soviet leader tried to use force, it would have come to a bloody end rather than a relatively peaceful one,” said Goble. “While one certainly is pleased that Moscow did not behave in the thuggish fashion it had often used before, I think we should recognize that Moscow did not use force not out of some moral judgment but more likely out of a practical calculation that it simply did not have enough force available to crack down everywhere.”
Other Critical Components
Charismatic leadership was also a critical factor in Poland. Onyszkiewicz describes Solidarity leader Lech Walesa as a “beacon in the darkness.” He also cites the election in 1978 of Polish Pope John Paul II as being an inspiration to his countrymen. “The huge crowds that turned out for the papal visit in June 1979 showed Poles they were not alone,” he said.
Onyszkiewicz also credits self-published underground literature and periodicals, or samizdat, for contributing further to the sense of cohesion. “Samizdat was very important because it was quite clear evidence of the emergence and development of civil society that was quite independent from official authorities,” he said. “It also gave Poles who were members of Solidarity the feeling they were not dissidents.” Rather, said Onyszkiewicz, it was the Communists who became the dissidents.
Goble agrees this intellectual component of the 1989 Revolutions was critical in gaining wider appeal, especially in Poland and Czechoslovakia. “The underground writing in Poland, much of which was published in Kultura, the great Polish magazine in Paris, played a critical role in recovering the values of democracy and freedom which the Soviet government in its occupation did so much to try to wipe out,” Goble said.
“No other country played a greater role in the ending of the Soviet empire in Central and Eastern Europe than Poland,” said Gobel. Through courage, the compromises they forced on the Soviet leadership, and through the encouragement of a Polish Pope, the people of Poland are widely credited for starting the movement that extinguished Communism in Europe.
Washington
24 September 2009
Twenty years ago, the fall of Communist governments throughout Central and Eastern Europe transformed the political landscape. And the events Poland would lead the way.
The Polish Example
The government’s repression drove Solidarity underground, but did not destroy it. “It became absolutely clear that even tanks on the streets could not stop the process,” said Onyszkiewicz.
“For many years everybody in our part of the world lived under the impression, which was quite clearly confirmed by Soviet declarations, that the defense of the socialist system was not a matter of every individual country,” said Onyszkiewicz. “It was actually a matter for the whole socialist bloc.” That, he noted, had been the justification for intervention in Hungary in 1956 and for intervention in Czechoslovakia in 1968, and it could have justified intervention in Poland in the 1980s. But, said Onyszkiewicz, “We proved it doesn’t work.”
Without a military solution at hand, he said the government’s only means of resolving the crisis had to be political in nature. “Finally, we showed that Solidarity could run for elections and win,” he said. The result became the first, and (for some time) the only non-Communist government in the Soviet sphere of influence.
The Soviet Reaction
“Poland would demonstrate that Communist regimes were held together only by force,” said Russian journalist Masha Lipman of the Carnegie Moscow Center. And as soon as that force eased, those governments began to collapse – one after another. “To the great credit of Mikhail Gorbachev, he made it clear that he would not use force,” Lipman said. And that is principally how he is remembered in Central and Eastern Europe today.
However, the true nature of President Gorbachev’s reluctance to use force has been largely misunderstood, according to Eurasian expert Paul Goble. “Had Gorbachev or any other Soviet leader tried to use force, it would have come to a bloody end rather than a relatively peaceful one,” said Goble. “While one certainly is pleased that Moscow did not behave in the thuggish fashion it had often used before, I think we should recognize that Moscow did not use force not out of some moral judgment but more likely out of a practical calculation that it simply did not have enough force available to crack down everywhere.”
Other Critical Components
Charismatic leadership was also a critical factor in Poland. Onyszkiewicz describes Solidarity leader Lech Walesa as a “beacon in the darkness.” He also cites the election in 1978 of Polish Pope John Paul II as being an inspiration to his countrymen. “The huge crowds that turned out for the papal visit in June 1979 showed Poles they were not alone,” he said.
Onyszkiewicz also credits self-published underground literature and periodicals, or samizdat, for contributing further to the sense of cohesion. “Samizdat was very important because it was quite clear evidence of the emergence and development of civil society that was quite independent from official authorities,” he said. “It also gave Poles who were members of Solidarity the feeling they were not dissidents.” Rather, said Onyszkiewicz, it was the Communists who became the dissidents.
Goble agrees this intellectual component of the 1989 Revolutions was critical in gaining wider appeal, especially in Poland and Czechoslovakia. “The underground writing in Poland, much of which was published in Kultura, the great Polish magazine in Paris, played a critical role in recovering the values of democracy and freedom which the Soviet government in its occupation did so much to try to wipe out,” Goble said.
“No other country played a greater role in the ending of the Soviet empire in Central and Eastern Europe than Poland,” said Gobel. Through courage, the compromises they forced on the Soviet leadership, and through the encouragement of a Polish Pope, the people of Poland are widely credited for starting the movement that extinguished Communism in Europe.
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not sure what this says conclusively but there's some stuff in there that leaves a lot of room for doubt about the "total success" of the "patriot" system
The Patriot Missile. Performance in the Gulf War Reviewed
The Patriot Missile. Performance in the Gulf War Reviewed
No doubt. When all was said and done the Patriot did not perform as well as it was originally reported.
I remember watching it on TV and the missle would be hit but the warhead would still crash and explode. So they had the right idea... but I think timing was off.
Anyways. I hung out with a guy in HS who later became an officer in the Army and was a Patriot battery commander in Desrt Storm. After the war was over and he got out of the Army I asked him what he thought of the critiques saying the Patriot did not perform as well.
He basically said this...as best as I can remember...
"The Patriot was developed to shoot down aircraft, that's it...it's an AA system. It was only after we got orders to deploy that we were told that we are going to have to learn to shoot down SCUDS. We trained the best we could as we never thought the Patriot would be used for missle defense. We spent the bulk of our time tweaking the system and uploading software from Raytheon as it came in. We did the best we could but at the time it just was not an anti-missle platform."
The Israelis I believe were the first ones to really say that the Patriot did not live up to what was originally reported. The Patriot had to engage the missle when it was close just as it would an aircraft.
Oh I can't fault the people tasked with making the thing work in the field, that must have been fairly unsatisfying, akin to trying to screw in a bolt with a hammer
The report on them hearings I linked doesn't go so far as to call it an outright failure, but it mentions what your friend said about the "target stretch" and the software issues.
The whole concept of shooting bullets with bullets does seem a bit farfetched tho, I would imagine some kind of EMP or some similar "fields based" system would make more sense physics-wise.
The best strategy for avoiding missile attacks is to avoid giving people any kind of justification for even thinking of making such attacks, and hopefully in the long term that is how things will shake down- maybe we'll institute a Gundam Fight, then nobody would be getting hurt AND we'd have some seriously engaging entertainment every 4 years
The report on them hearings I linked doesn't go so far as to call it an outright failure, but it mentions what your friend said about the "target stretch" and the software issues.
The whole concept of shooting bullets with bullets does seem a bit farfetched tho, I would imagine some kind of EMP or some similar "fields based" system would make more sense physics-wise.
The best strategy for avoiding missile attacks is to avoid giving people any kind of justification for even thinking of making such attacks, and hopefully in the long term that is how things will shake down- maybe we'll institute a Gundam Fight, then nobody would be getting hurt AND we'd have some seriously engaging entertainment every 4 years