Posted on 09/26/2008 9:59:08 PM PDT by steve0
“So Obama has had this bracelet since around February 17, 2008 and he can’t remember who’s it is without looking it up.”
Yep, and if you read the article closely, you’ll read:
“I wanted him to know my son’s name for one thing, for when he’s commander in chief,” Mrs. Jopek said during a telephone interview in which she frequently grew emotional.
I wonder if Mrs. Jopek has any retrospective regrets about her decision to give this bozo her son’s bracelet.
“We quietly removed all of our nuclear-tipped intermediate-range ballistic missiles from Turkey so that the Soviets could “save face” by viewing their removal of missiles from Cuba as being a roughly equivalent ‘quid-pro-quo’ for a parallel action by the U.S.”
True, and Kennedy deserves reprobation for violating our national pledge not to negotiate with terrorists. However, since the quid pro quo was not made public, I think we both know that Krushchev blinked less because he made Kennedy fold and more because of the U.S.’s unquestionable predominance in nuclear weapons. After all, the missles in Turkey were not our only option. We had reliable intercontinental missles, the Polaris submarine missles, and the Strategic Air Command. The Soviets, on the other hand, could not hit us with intermediate-range missles, nor sub-based missles, nor airborne warheads. And there intercontinental arsenal was a joke compared to ours.
In my opinion, the crisis was solved by simple deterrence. Krushchev banked on getting the missles operational before anyone noticed (in which case the U.S. would have no option but to accept them). The missles in Cuba would have been operational soon; all he had to do was wait. But he had overstretched, and he knew it. He could not risk a wider war, seeming as how the world, and more importantly the politburo, would see him as the clear agressor. That is almost certainly why he was deposed shortly after the crisis abated.
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