That’s understandable. As you say, not everything they say is untrue, but never assume they don’t lie.
It’s interesting that you chose Apollo 1 and Kasserine Pass as examples of failures. I’m glad to see you know history. I’m only quibbling a little because you cast those examples as failures. Both examples were early and costly disasters that ultimately led to successful efforts. Both the Apollo Moon missions and the US Army’s North Africa campaign succeeded because someone learned useful lessons from those early mistakes and put them into use quick enough to benefit from them.
You made a few other historical and political references that I can’t ignore, even though they have nothing to do with COVID-19.
I don’t hear many people claim that Democrats won that war. Even the most isolationist GOP members were all in after Pearl Harbor. It was the USA and its Allies, Great Britain & the British Commonwealth (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, etc.), and the USSR. Even China helped some.
Going straight for Berlin was impossible until 1944.
Yes they did. But they did it the same way the Republicans bungled the 2nd Iraq War. They tried to use the military to achieve limited political results. They failed to use diplomacy. And their military plans were inadequate to achieve anything.
My biggest objection is with this statement. While it’s correct the Reagan & Bush were in office when the USSR finally collapsed, it’s just not true that Republicans can claim credit. There’s too much else that happened well before 1990. Since you seem to know some history, please learn more about the US policy that began to be formed during Truman’s years, the
Containment Policy.
It was developed, and rather fully fleshed out, by
W. Averell Harriman, and
George F. Kennan. Harriman was US Ambassador in Moscow during and after WWII, and Kennan worked for him in Moscow, later becoming US Ambassador there as well.
Kennan’s famous Long Cable was the first effort to describe the problems dealing with Moscow as an ally during WWII, and how we might better handle them as adversaries without going to war again. The Cold War was really our response when the USSR stayed in those Eastern European countries it conquered from Germany. Basically, it involved surrounding and out gunning the USSR while pressing all their paranoia buttons. Russia, for a very long time, has suffered from fear and insecurity about being so easily invaded both from the west or the east. The Containment Policy took advantage of that, and forced the USSR into a long-term competition that it couldn't afford.
It was the application of Kennan’s & Harriman’s Containment Policy that led directly to the isolation and ultimate failure of the USSR. Although Republicans
at first didn’t want to adapt it, they ultimately did, under Eisenhower, Nixon, and later Reagan & Bush.
I couldn’t agree more with you! COVID-19 is a serious viral epidemic and a major public health threat. It isn’t political football.
