International Affairs

I grew up during the Cold War. We fought Communism in Korea, the Cuban Missle Crisis, Vietnam, Granada, Panama, etc. It was all so simple... the Communists, like the Nazis before them, wanted to conquer the world, and we were bent on stopping them.
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Military strategy seemed to be very simple. How many warheads did the Soviets have??? We'll make more. How many nuclear submarines, aircraft carriers, tanks, etc.?? We'll get more.
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Then the Reagan administration committed to Star Wars, and the Russians threw in the towel.. They couldn't compete with our technology or economic ability to outproduce them.
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The current situation is way too complex. Al Queda doesn't want to conquer us. They want to annihilate us. They are not a government and they hide behind the Islamic religion, which has been perverted and sacrificed to their twisted aims.
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I'll admit that I don't get it. It seems to be a throughback to a medieval way of thinking emanating from a deep pyscholgical sense of self worth and self esteem. But that is just my amateur conjecture. I haven't figured it out yet.
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My Middle Eastern friends always point to Israel and the support of the West for that Jewish state as the cause of all of the issues. But then why did Sadam invade Kuwait, and make vicious war on the Kurds and Iranians?
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See what I mean??? It's wicked confusing and illogical. I yearn for the good ole Cold War Days.