Read George Criles book "Charlie wilsons war". It will explain everything to you. Bush and Reagan fought the russians in afghanistan during the 80's.
It was the largest covert operation in world history.
Criles is a veteran 60 minutes producer.

The book will help you understand your world today.

Originally posted by Hellmutt
I don´t understand why they use a picture of Dubya. However, despite the fact that this is coming from Lukashenko, I think he could be right in this case. But what´s the problem anyway?

Maybe because he actually had something to do with it? Most likely somebody decided to just put a pic because the pic was called George Bush and nobody checked to make sure which Bush.

Ive never heard about this, interesting. I'm sure most of you, including myself, were under the impression that the collapse of the soviet union was due to economic collapse. Maybe it still was but the leaders, in effort to save themselves, took this offer to go ahead and call it quits before it got worse. Its amazing that this hasnt come out before, Ill have to check out that book.

I think someone is giving too much credit to our current president who was only the son of a vice president back when Ronald Reagan was president. I give credit to Ronald Reagan for the collapse of the Soviet Union. He outspent the Soviets and made them believe at least that he thought the star wars program would save the US. I just thought the Russians were smart and just followed the phrase "if you can't beat them, join them."

U.S. Was Behind USSR´s Collapse

Well, of course we were. They said they would bury us and then proceded to start spending money on the type of technology that would (in their view) give them the power to do this. That doesn't leave us a lot of room to be nice guys.

We faught them on the economic battlefield of the cold war arms race and by proxy through other smaller countires. We won the cold war because our economy enabled us outspend them. They collapsed because their leaders were more concerned with buying nukes than making life better for their people. I'm sure that the fact that a communist society is incompatable with basic human nature played a big part in their inability to be competitive in this field.

I don't feel bad about the collapse of the USSR at all. They did it to themselves really. If you pick a fight you can't win, is it your enemies fault for winning or is is your fault for picking the fight in the first place?

Originally posted by Ambient Sound
U.S. Was Behind USSR´s Collapse

Well, of course we were. They said they would bury us and then proceded to start spending money on the type of technology that would (in their view) give them the power to do this. That doesn't leave us a lot of room to be nice guys.

We faught them on the economic battlefield of the cold war arms race and by proxy through other smaller countires. We won the cold war because our economy enabled us outspend them. They collapsed because their leaders were more concerned with buying nukes than making life better for their people. I'm sure that the fact that a communist society is incompatable with basic human nature played a big part in their inability to be competitive in this field.

I don't feel bad about the collapse of the USSR at all. They did it to themselves really. If you pick a fight you can't win, is it your enemies fault for winning or is is your fault for picking the fight in the first place?

Very well said. I couldn't agree more.

Communism just doesn't work out side of theory. They got into an arms race with a nation that was their superior. They lost. Beyond that, does anyone really have a problem that they lost? Soviet leadership commited the greatest acts of murder in history. Does no one remmber the Berlin wall, or what their sub-states were like?

[edit on 30-11-2005 by American Mad Man]

Originally posted by ludaChris
Ive never heard about this, interesting. I'm sure most of you, including myself, were under the impression that the collapse of the soviet union was due to economic collapse. Maybe it still was but the leaders, in effort to save themselves, took this offer to go ahead and call it quits before it got worse. Its amazing that this hasnt come out before, Ill have to check out that book.

You're Edvard Shevardnarze, Foreign Minister of the USSR. Or you can be Edvard Shevardarze, President of Georgia. All you have to do is sign this document and we're done here, easy, isn't it?

It's not hard to see which way they were going to jump.

As for Lukashenko, what a hypocrite, does he expect us to truly believe that he would rather be 100% answerable to Putin, instead of able do whatever he damn well pleases in his own, sovereign country? Yeah, sure thing mate. Pull the other one, it's got bells on and they play a tune.

Lukashenko is the dictator, oops, sorry, President, of Belarus, the one country that got the smelly end of the stick when the Soviet Union broke up. The country is dirt poor, a huge swathe is covered in fallout from the Chernobyl disaster and it is about as democratic as Freedonia. Free speech is actively discouraged and many opponents of the ruling quasi-communist party have been imprisoned, killed, or forced to leave the country. Lukashenko likes to dream about the good old days, just like his friend Putin, who also likes to hark back to the days when we in the West feared the Soviet Union.

Originally posted by Jakomo
Arming the mujaheddin with Stingers and all the firearms they wanted was how the US sped the defeat of the USSR. When it comes down it, though, it was the mujaheddin who brought about the demise of the Soviets.

I think thats giving way too much credit to the mujaheddin. They just made the USSR look stupid for a little while. If you want to know who really defeated the USSR, it was MTV, Levi's Jeans, and Coca-Cola. It wasn't until the people of the USSR decided they wanted some of the things we had that change there became possible. It could also be argued that the USSR would have fallen on its own anyway without any outside influence as humans are just not happy or productive living under communism.

I agree with Ambient Sound.

The U.S. was partially responsible for the collapse, but really only by providing an example of a better way. The communist totalitarian system was economically successful for a while as it industrialized a formerly almost completely agricultural society, but petered out quickly as incentives for productivity growth disappeared. Misplaced priorities by the government that tried to keep military superiority to the U.S./Europe with a much smaller economy to support it was also a huge factor.

men thats a great picture bush wearing a coat with his hands in pockets just like stalin, but seriously it wasn't reagans speaches and special programs that collapsed ussr, it was gorbachev allowing of too much of political freedom and when boris yeltsin came around, all he cared about was becoming pres of russia, he didn't give a # about ussr, he was the one who signed papers to collapse ussr, and old bush might have financed him and others who wanted to bring down ussr.

Originally posted by Darkmind
Lukashenko likes to dream about the good old days, just like his friend Putin, who also likes to hark back to the days when we in the West feared the Soviet Union.

Actually, I never feared the Soviet Union because from the age of 6 they were busy being humiliated in Afghanistan. But I know what you mean about Lukashenko and Putin.

I was, however, frightened (in a healthy way) of the idea of the (clearly to a 6-14 year old) insane leaders of the USSR having nuclear weapons. And when you're young but interested in world affairs and you read analysis that suggests perhaps Russia might have to rely on their nukes because the Red Army is so riddled with problems it would be useless in a fight without a major overhaul (I could be inserting my own inference here at a distance of 20 years!) those fears become a little more clear.

But either way, I was bereft in 1989. What was I going to read, my entire favourite genre, the espionage of Deighton, Le Carre, Higgins, Thomas etc, had been wiped out in a single stroke with the opening of Checkpoint Charlie? What would they write about now?

At least Lukashenko is keeping the spirit of Honecker and Andropov alive...

edit:sp

[edit on 29-12-2005 by HowlrunnerIV]

If Bush the elder organized the coup/counter-coup in russia that lead to the fall of the USSR, he deserves a medal and a nobel peace prize.

I dont know if this is a US forum exclusivly but i can tell u that here in the UK were taught from the ages of 16+ in history that the US and the USSR used every possible dirty trick to bring down each others administrations.

Lets face it USSR StalinCommunisum VS USA Consumer Capitalism couldnt be further apart in their approach.

So i dont see how things comming to light about HOW the USA beat the USSR is such a conspiracy.

I think people are missing the point here. Its not that the US did stuff in general to bring down the USSR. Its that

the U.S. president George Bush was behind the “sponsored” collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991[when Yelstin and others] concluded the Belovezh agreement abolishing the Soviet Union

He's saying that Bush the elder sponsored Yeltsin et al in their efforts in the counter-coup, and that resulted in the dissolution of the union, that he was the puppet master pulling the strings. Thats definitly a conspiracy.

If this is true, I should saz only 2 words : GREAT JOB.