Power causes corruption ?

[Aenlic]

Can you provide some links that show GWB playing golf, having lunch, or doing anything else that "good buddies" do with Moon?

Okie-dokie!

First some links to Daddy's association with Reverend Moon:

http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/moon1.html

Given the controversy, Argentina's elected president, Carlos Menem, did decide to reject Moon's invitation. But Moon had a trump card to play in his bid for South American respectability: the endorsement of an ex-president of the United States, George Bush. Agreeing to speak at the newspaper's launch, Bush flew aboard a private plane, arriving in Buenos Aires on Nov. 22. Bush stayed at Menem's official residence, the Olivos. But Bush failed to change the Argentine president's mind.

Still, Moon's followers gushed that Bush had saved the day, as he stepped before about 900 Moon guests at the Sheraton Hotel. "Mr. Bush's presence as keynote speaker gave the event invaluable prestige," wrote the Unification News. "Father [Moon] and Mother [Mrs. Moon] sat with several of the True Children [Moon's offspring] just a few feet from the podium."

Bush lavished praise on Moon and his journalistic enterprises. "I want to salute Reverend Moon, who is the founder of The Washington Times and also of Tiempos del Mundo," Bush declared. "A lot of my friends in South America don't know about The Washington Times, but it is an independent voice. The editors of The Washington Times tell me that never once has the man with the vision interfered with the running of the paper, a paper that in my view brings sanity to Washington, D.C. I am convinced that Tiempos del Mundo is going to do the same thing" in Latin America.

That's just one of many examples, by the way.

For Dubya? He certainly knows how to repay the unwavering editorial support he receives from Moon's newspaper - the Washinton Times.

In 2003, Bush appointed former Washington Times managing editor and Unification Church member, Josette Shiner, to be Deputy U.S. Trade Representative. Among her jobs there? Enforcing free trade agreements in East Asia, including Korea (snicker, care to guess where Rev. Moon's empire is headquartered, or do I need to spell it out for you?) http://www.ustr.gov/Who_We_Are/Bios/...hiner.html?ht=

In 2003, Bush appointed David Caprara to be head of AmeriCorps(VISTA). Caprara is another Unification Church member and was formerly head of the Moonie front organization, American Family Coalition. http://www.americore.gov/about/newsr...?tbl_pr_id=117

I'm afraid I don't have any links to Dubya accepting large cash remunerations for speaking at Moonie gatherings, yet. Dubya, like his father, will have to wait until he's out of office before taking those $1 million plus paychecks from Moon per speech.

You obviously didnt thoroughly read the thread... which is not a suprise.

Oh, but I did. And as soon as you specified that the thread must separate out any such minimally important political things such as, oh... Hitler, from a discussion on whether or not Germany was wronged in WWII, it wasn't too difficult to see where you were going with the thread.

[Al Khalifah]

Not really related, but I think UK and France have roughly the same destructive power as China. Actually, UK might even have more nuclear weapons than China.

You think very wrong.

Though reliable figures for the strengths of the PLA are always going to be sketchy due to the system in place in China, it is believed that China has in excess of 20 DF-5 ICBMs in addition to an unknown quantity of the newer DF-31s. These are liquid-fueled and solid-fueled missiles capable of hitting anywhere on the globe. China also has 5 nuclear weapon equiped submarines and an (estimated) excess of 200 heavy bombers for the delivery of tactical nuclear weapons.
Compare this to the UK's four Vanguard class submarines equipped with Trident missiles capable of striking at targets within 5000 miles, of which only one is on active service at once during peace time.

China is a big boy along with Russia and the United States. Britain and France's nuclear detterants are, in reality, effective against little more than insuring that these nations are not invaded by a hostile power. Russia and the US have excellent strategic programs in place to hunt for an opposing power's submarines in the event of nuclear war - its reasonable to assume that China would have developed a similar program.

[Aenlic]

China is a big boy along with Russia and the United States. Britain and France's nuclear detterants are, in reality, effective against little more than insuring that these nations are not invaded by a hostile power. Russia and the US have excellent strategic programs in place to hunt for an opposing power's submarines in the event of nuclear war - its reasonable to assume that China would have developed a similar program.

I believe you're correct about China's nuclear ICBM arsenal, Al Khalifa. About 20 of the DF-5's and maybe 120 altogether counting the older 3's and the newer 21's. Best place to check is www.fas.org. They keep a pretty accurate accounting of all countries' forces, nuclear and non-nuclear, at least as far as they can discern from available unclassified records, some not intended to reveal as much as they do.

I'm not so sure about the Chinese strategic submarine capabilities. To date, they still only have the one functional (and functional is giving it a lot of credit, considering its history of problems) nuclear powered SSBN called the Xia, and a project they call the Type-94 to develop more. The Type-93 SSNs they are still in the process of developing , they claim will be as capable as a U.S. Los Angeles class SSN. That's probably stretching the truth. Really stretching it. Other than the program for the Type-93's, of which there is not yet a prototype, they have about 20 Ming class SSN's which are derivatives of the old Soviet Romeo class. Hardly a challenge for our own SSNs. They also have a bunch of Kilo class non-nuclear subs and some of the old Soviet Romeo's which they copied for the Mings.

The Soviet capabilities were quite a ways behind our own in attack subs, and the post-Soviet economy has ended almost all research beyond that. The closest the Soviets came to our abilities underwater were the very latest generations of their subs, like the Schuka-B which we call the Akula and the possible but not proven in unclassified documents Yasen which was given the designation Graney. About 2/3 of the entire former Soviet sub fleet lies waiting for scrapping across the bay from Petropavlosk-Kamchatskiy, which is one reason many Russian generals were upset about having U.S. military personnel there during the recent rescue of their research sub.