an Iron curtain has descended across the Continent

[Yeager]

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D92KT1180&show_article=1

Strong words from Rice as the administration begins to power up the political machine across the Atlantic.
It would be a tragic mistake to allow Putin to force Russian military might into ex soviet bloc nations. 

"Rice said Monday that Russia is playing a "very dangerous game" with the U.S. and its allies and warned that NATO would not allow Moscow to win in Georgia, destabilize Europe or draw a new Iron Curtain through it."

and this little snippet:

"At the same time, she said that by flexing its military muscle in Georgia as well as elsewhere, including the resumption of Cold War-era strategic bomber patrols off the coast of Alaska, Russia was engaged in high-stakes brinksmanship that could backfire."

This "is a very dangerous game and perhaps one the Russians want to reconsider," Rice said of the flights that began again with frequency about six months ago. "This is not something that is just cost-free. Nobody needs Russian strategic aviation along America's coast."

Oh well........was fun while it lasted.  It is time for the US to power up its nuclear and conventional strategic military forces.....looks like Putin and his man Medvedev are in need of a serious smack down.

[Hornet33]

I wonder how they would feel if all of a sudden a leaflet canister popped over Moscow and the leaflets had this on it....


Did you see us coming? Did you see us leaving? Keep it up comrade and the next time it wont be paper we're dropping.

Courtesy of the 509th Bomb Wing
Whiteman AFB
Home of the B-2 Spirit

[007Rusty]

             

I wonder how they would feel if all of a sudden a leaflet canister popped over Moscow and the leaflets had this on it....


Did you see us coming? Did you see us leaving? Keep it up comrade and the next time it wont be paper we're dropping.

Courtesy of the 509th Bomb Wing
Whiteman AFB
Home of the B-2 Spirit

[SuBWaYCH]

I wonder how they would feel if all of a sudden a leaflet canister popped over Moscow and the leaflets had this on it....


Did you see us coming? Did you see us leaving? Keep it up comrade and the next time it wont be paper we're dropping.

Courtesy of the 509th Bomb Wing
Whiteman AFB
Home of the B-2 Spirit

 

but on a serious note,  I really do hope the U.S. does not get involved (even though they will). I"m sure the U.S. has already deployed sky planes over Moscow, major military installations and so on.

[Nilsen]

I wonder how they would feel if all of a sudden a leaflet canister popped over Moscow and the leaflets had this on it....


Did you see us coming? Did you see us leaving? Keep it up comrade and the next time it wont be paper we're dropping.

Courtesy of the 509th Bomb Wing
Whiteman AFB
Home of the B-2 Spirit

Would be a fun thing to do but i think the russians are fairly confident that they still has the nukes to wipe the US and NATO off the map several times over even with some stealth uav/plane dropping warnings all over

With regards to their bombers flying in international airspace flexing muscles I dont see an issue with that at all. Most nations fly armed planes in international airspace all the time. We are pretty used to them flopping around us here and every time they do so two armed F16's follow them far out into the ocean. Usually they are again met by armed british or american planes somewere out there. Dont think they are un escorted or untracked for many minutes of their flight. They know it, and we know it. Its the way its supposed to be.  I feel much safer with this than what it was like a few years ago when russia was so poor that you never knew what their officers were doing to make ends meet. Now its a better chanse that they are actually doing their dayjob.

[Furball]

The United States stands at this time at the pinnacle of world power. It is a solemn moment for the American democracy. For with this primacy in power is also joined an awe-inspiring accountability to the future. As you look around you, you must feel not only the sense of duty done, but also you must feel anxiety lest you fall below the level of achievement. Opportunity is here now, clear and shining, for both our countries. To reject it or ignore it or fritter it away will bring upon us all the long reproaches of the aftertime.

It is necessary that constancy of mind, persistency of purpose, and the grand simplicity of decision shall rule and guide the conduct of the English-speaking peoples in peace as they did in war. We must, and I believe we shall, prove ourselves equal to this severe requirement.

I have a strong admiration and regard for the valiant Russian people and for my wartime comrade, Marshal Stalin. There is deep sympathy and goodwill in Britain -- and I doubt not here also -- toward the peoples of all the Russias and a resolve to persevere through many differences and rebuffs in establishing lasting friendships.

It is my duty, however, to place before you certain facts about the present position in Europe.

From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia; all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow.

The safety of the world, ladies and gentlemen, requires a unity in Europe, from which no nation should be permanently outcast. It is from the quarrels of the strong parent races in Europe that the world wars we have witnessed, or which occurred in former times, have sprung.

Twice the United States has had to send several millions of its young men across the Atlantic to fight the wars. But now we all can find any nation, wherever it may dwell, between dusk and dawn. Surely we should work with conscious purpose for a grand pacification of Europe within the structure of the United Nations and in accordance with our Charter.

In a great number of countries, far from the Russian frontiers and throughout the world, Communist fifth columns are established and work in complete unity and absolute obedience to the directions they receive from the Communist center. Except in the British Commonwealth and in the United States where Communism is in its infancy, the Communist parties or fifth columns constitute a growing challenge and peril to Christian civilization.

The outlook is also anxious in the Far East and especially in Manchuria. The agreement which was made at Yalta, to which I was a party, was extremely favorable to Soviet Russia, but it was made at a time when no one could say that the German war might not extend all through the summer and autumn of 1945 and when the Japanese war was expected by the best judges to last for a further eighteen months from the end of the German war.

I repulse the idea that a new war is inevitable -- still more that it is imminent. It is because I am sure that our fortunes are still in our own hands and that we hold the power to save the future, that I feel the duty to speak out now that I have the occasion and the opportunity to do so.

I do not believe that Soviet Russia desires war. What they desire is the fruits of war and the indefinite expansion of their power and doctrines.

But what we have to consider here today while time remains, is the permanent prevention of war and the establishment of conditions of freedom and democracy as rapidly as possible in all countries. Our difficulties and dangers will not be removed by closing our eyes to them. They will not be removed by mere waiting to see what happens; nor will they be removed by a policy of appeasement.

What is needed is a settlement, and the longer this is delayed, the more difficult it will be and the greater our dangers will become.

From what I have seen of our Russian friends and allies during the war, I am convinced that there is nothing they admire so much as strength, and there is nothing for which they have less respect than for weakness, especially military weakness.

For that reason the old doctrine of a balance of power is unsound. We cannot afford, if we can help it, to work on narrow margins, offering temptations to a trial of strength.

Last time I saw it all coming and I cried aloud to my own fellow countrymen and to the world, but no one paid any attention. Up till the year 1933 or even 1935, Germany might have been saved from the awful fate which has overtaken her and we might all have been spared the miseries Hitler let loose upon mankind.

There never was a war in history easier to prevent by timely action than the one which has just desolated such great areas of the globe. It could have been prevented, in my belief, without the firing of a single shot, and Germany might be powerful, prosperous and honored today; but no one would listen and one by one we were all sucked into the awful whirlpool.

We must not let it happen again. This can only be achieved by reaching now, in 1946, a good understanding on all points with Russia under the general authority of the United Nations Organization and by the maintenance of that good understanding through many peaceful years, by the whole strength of the English-speaking world and all its connections.

If the population of the English-speaking Commonwealth be added to that of the United States, with all that such cooperation implies in the air, on the sea, all over the globe, and in science and in industry, and in moral force, there will be no quivering, precarious balance of power to offer its temptation to ambition or adventure. On the contrary there will be an overwhelming assurance of security.

If we adhere faithfully to the Charter of the United Nations and walk forward in sedate and sober strength, seeking no one's land or treasure, seeking to lay no arbitrary control upon the thoughts of men, if all British moral and material forces and convictions are joined with your own in fraternal association, the high roads of the future will be clear, not only for us but for all, not only for our time but for a century to come.

Winston Churchill - March 5, 1946

As true today as it was then, in my opinion.

[FrodeMk3]

Winston Churchill - March 5, 1946

As true today as it was then, in my opinion.

Furball, I wonder if Winston would have said the same things' about Russia if he were here today. He wrote that before all of the miseries' of the cold war, and to be honest, I think his opinion would have changed.

[Yeager]

Furball, I wonder if Winston would have said the same things' about Russia if he were here today. He wrote that before all of the miseries' of the cold war, and to be honest, I think his opinion would have changed.

What do you think his opinion would be, if you were to say?

[FrodeMk3]

What do you think his opinion would be, if you were to say?

It would mainly be a change in the first part of the link that Furball put up...I think he would have omitted the admiration.

Especially after the Berlin Airlift, Hungary in '56, and Czechloslovakia in '68.

And, he, and quite a few other British and American politicians, knew even when the ink on the Treaty of Versailles was still wet in 1919, that it was a mistake. Us and the Brits' simply shoulda told the French to sit down, shut up, and be glad that they still spoke their native tongue, and were free to be as obnoxious as they wished. That damn document is what drove Hitler into power, and got the German people behind him. I don't know if this speech was a Barb at Chamberlain, or if it was pointed at the French, But I believe that was what he was alluding to when he mentioned that war could have been averted as late as '33 or '35.

[Elfie]

It would mainly be a change in the first part of the link that Furball put up...I think he would have omitted the admiration.

Especially after the Berlin Airlift, Hungary in '56, and Czechloslovakia in '68.

Don't forget the decade in Afghanistan, the offensive in Chechenya and the latest one in Georgia.

[Elfie]

With regards to their bombers flying in international airspace flexing muscles I dont see an issue with that at all. Most nations fly armed planes in international airspace all the time. We are pretty used to them flopping around us here and every time they do so two armed F16's follow them far out into the ocean. Usually they are again met by armed british or american planes somewere out there. Dont think they are un escorted or untracked for many minutes of their flight. They know it, and we know it. Its the way its supposed to be.  Smiley I feel much safer with this than what it was like a few years ago when russia was so poor that you never knew what their officers were doing to make ends meet. Now its a better chanse that they are actually doing their dayjob.

Why are those flights by the Russia air force even necessary? The flights do nothing to promote their own national security and in fact, are just a relic of the Cold War. Russia seems determined to restart the Cold War by this and other actions.

[FrodeMk3]

Don't forget the decade in Afghanistan, the offensive in Chechenya and the latest one in Georgia.

Yeah, those were bad too-Especially Afghanistan, when you look at it in terms' of Human life. However, I mentioned those in Europe, being as those more directly affected the Euro's, who might be more inclined to look the other way on matters' in either the Middle east, or Soviet asia.

[AKIron]

[hijack] I really wish McCain would pick Rice to be his running mate. [/hijack]

[Elfie]

Yeah, those were bad too-Especially Afghanistan, when you look at it in terms' of Human life. However, I mentioned those in Europe, being as those more directly affected the Euro's, who might be more inclined to look the other way on matters' in either the Middle east, or Soviet asia.

Agreed, I just mentioned the other places to complete the history of Russian/Soviet aggression/power moves.

[RedTop]

Seems they are digging in these lil russian ticks.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,405242,00.html