Here is an event I am 100% sure no one else here knows about
Since typically pro Repub Mainstream Media has for decades been giving Repub President Eisenhower a pass for committing the USA fully and completely militarily to the Vietnam War by word, deed and treaty for at least 7 years of his 8 year presidency, I am sure very few living persons even know about Operation Mobile Yoke, launched by Eisenhower 5 months before the 1960 presidential election and that had been in its planning stage for 6 months before that:
[B]TIME
National Affairs. Red Alert.
June 6, 1960[/B]
[URL]https://time.com/archive/6811743/national-affairs-red-alert/[/URL]
[QUOTE]As Chinese Communist shells slammed into the Nationalist offshore islands of Quemoy and Matsu last week, ending a three-month lull in the Formosa Strait, military strategists of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization sounded a Red alert at a SEATO meeting in Washington. Warned Admiral Harry D. Felt, U.S. commander in chief in the Pacific: The Southeast Asian peninsula is a target for Communist China, and Laos is the first point of entry. Another danger spot, said Felt, was shaky South Viet Nam, under worsening pressure by Communist guerrillas (TIME, May 2).
Meeting outside Asia for the first time since its formation in 1954, eight-member-SEATO braced for post-summit Communist boldness in secret strategy sessions, laid the groundwork for the SEATO foreign ministers meeting to be opened this week by Vice President Nixon. While SEATO strategists were discussing the Red Chinese menace, the U.S. Air Force announced that it was getting ready to deploy a striking force of 120 supersonic jet fighters and other aircraft on maneuvers in Thailand, Formosa and the Philippines. Operation Mobile Yoke, said the Air Force, was planned six months ago, just happened to be announced in a week when Communist artillery started firing.
* The U.S., Australia, France, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand and Great Britain.[/QUOTE]Now, let's see if anyone else can clearly read between the lines, and it doesn't require much effort, for why a sitting president would maneuver a full on USA military strike force right to the edge of the combat lines, ready to get the green light at any moment to respond to any perceived or real "incident" in the area, so quickly and close there would be no chance to clarify the reason and skuttle the mission, just a few months before that sitting president's Vice President was logically expected to take charge as Commander in Chief?
Well, really, regardless which Party's nominee won the upcoming election and had to decide how to deal with the corner Eisenhower had put him squarely into; should he wave the white flag, withdraw and retreat like the French, admit defeat to the Communists' purported Domino Theory of World Dominance, Eisenhower's framing of it for those 7 years, just 15 years after winning the War against Nazi Fascist aggression in Europe and Japanese Imperialism in Asia or allow the USA Military forces put there by Eisenhower and poised to respond to any perceived or real "incident" to unavoidably begin the full combat engagement Eisenhower had been setting the groundwork for over the previous 7 years?
Of course, no president other than Eisenhower "started" America's full and irreversible commitment in every conceivable way to The Vietnam War.
Just as Trump has done with Iran. And as Trump did on a different "battlefield" of engagement to lay the groundwork for, usher in and exacerbate Trump's Pandemic.
Typically pro Repub Mainstream Media has worked very hard and for decades to see to it that the "Party of personal responsibilty" never has to take responsibility for some of the worst results and outcomes in history.
Somebody must hate his job to be hating on people who have retired
What do they expect? For individuals to work until they drop?
[QUOTE=Elvis2008;3069019]This really got me because working guys are literally paying for those lazy ex-pats living abroad.[/QUOTE]I know several retired military men (and women) living abroad. From a 4 Star General to a retired E-7. The money they receive from their government was earned through service. Not their fault US Companies no longer care about their workers by not providing pensions. It's up to everyone to do it on their own now. Life is harder in that sense now. But they didn't make the rules, they just followed them. Is it your suggestion that these shouldn't get their pensions just because you don't like paying taxes?
Oh, and by the way, they still pay taxes. [B]In my country of origin you are taxed on your worldwide income no matter where you reside in the world[/B]
[QUOTE=Elvis2008;3069019]I was just abroad, and if you really look at things, you see prices are pretty much the same in things without legacy or legal costs. Televisions, food, restaurants, cars are all pretty comparable to the USA if you go for similar quality. Then you look at places where the government has intertwined itself with pensioners, and you see where there is such a difference: housing, property taxes, education, health care, insurance, child care, and you see amazing savings when abroad.[/QUOTE]Where is [I]abroad[/I]? Big differences country to country.
[QUOTE=Elvis2008;3069019]The one redeeming feature of a pensioner type would have been that at least they are putting their retirement $ back into the USA but not guys like Tooms and Spidy. All they are doing is sucking the USA dry, and yet they are so arrogant they want even more money than they are getting now.[/QUOTE]Reference is made to the military men (and women) that I know that have retired overseas.
[QUOTE=Elvis2008;3069019]Our forefathers warned us about this.[/QUOTE]The founding document of my country of origin says:
[I]We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.[/I]
So, after they decided I was no longer 3/5 of a person and give my people a vote. Yes, the interests of me and my loved and liked ones come first. I've already put my time in on behalf of my fellow citizens. So I could care less what they think. Individuals who are still working hate on those that have put in the time and are no longer working. Handle your business. And you too will be able to have a income without working in the future if you choose to do so.
[QUOTE=Elvis2008;3069019]If they really cared about how much others pay for gasoline, they would get back to work and stop leaching off hard working Americans.[/QUOTE]I guess he is NEVER going to stop working. Retirement is not in the picture for him. Either through mismanagement of his resources or failure to earn enough money to save for retirement.
[B]ROTFLMAO![/B]
You like Taco's? I like Nachos
Nachos = Not A Chance Hormuz Opens.
For the last 6 weeks, we've been hearing from the Great Genius (GG) that war is over, Hormuz opening is imminent, America has won; only to be rebuffed by Israel (who really are the ones who call the shots, and to whom America is subservient).
Consider how far America has fallen under this GG. Consider the fact that America is condescended to by China which admonishes it about falling into the Thucydides trap (to which the GG probably wondered "Thu who? Sounds Oriental, no wonder you guys side with him" Consider how America's status in the world has fallen, where many ridicule the fact that it couldn't even face up to a third rate, worn out nation like Iran; where others condemn America's unjust assault on specious cassus bellus, where many others regard with disgust its subservience to Israel. A superpower's status is derived from its military and economic status as well as the respect that others confer upon it. The latter has gone up in smoke, the military prowess appears to be irrelevant, and the economic status is being challenged in its own courts.
And this is the GG that a few of you still think worthy of respect. Some people never cease to amaze me.
Whatever the outcome- at some point Hormuz will reopen- America has failed abjectly. Iran had always foregone nuclear weapons (the ersthwhile Ayotollah considered nuclear WMD a sin in Islam); they were being rigorously monitored by the relevant agencies; there was an agreement in place which they were adhering to which Trump then tore up unilaterally. Then and only then did they start their enrichment program. And this was the onset of a series of decisions by the GG which led to America snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. And yet, in some minds, there's still a likelihood he's a GG. I really don't understand such people.
