It is hard to know where to start on this. How the fall of the Soviet Union had anything to do with "the China card" is too deep for me. I thought it had something to do with Poland, the collapse of East Germany, etc. Oh, Henry Kissinger probably believes that he was responsible for the fall of the Soviet Union, and Mark McGwire's 70 home runs, but why anyone else should believe him is a mystery.

Next, the idea of China "taking on" the U.S. is so pathetic. China has under 50 active nuclear missiles, which it will bump up to respectable numbers if the Americans persist in driving them to do so with this stupid missile shield nonsense. If you want to create a nice new enemy, you are doing a good job of it. But anyway -- The "only nation remotely capable of taking on the United States" and indeed obliterate the U.S. in 20 minutes is RUSSIA. HELLO?????Remember Russia? Thousands of missiles? Still aimed at you. Right now. Today. The country George Bush just cut funds to to support the dismantling of the nuclear apparatus there.

.What is all this nonsense about Kissinger opening up China as his big deal? It might be remembered, if priorities matter, Western opening to China was inaugurated by Pierre Trudeau and the Canadian government; and the French and the British and others were not far behind. All Nixon did was open China to America. Be still my beating heart. Meanwhile, if China was closed at all, it was because the Americans refused to have anything to do with the Communist Chinese government because they were so obsessed with Chiang Kai-Shek. Joe Stilwell spent much time in vain trying to get his own government to see what was happening, to no avail, and, among the other pieces of blind nonsense, they threw out all the people who knew anything about Asia out of the Foreign Service as soft on Communism, which is one reason why the Americans found themselves bewildered by the Korean War, and stumbled around lost in Vietnam. Convincing American right-wing conservatives that they were a bunch of stupid bastards and had been wrong for 30 years was something of an achievement, perhaps worth the Nobel Prize in Physics, as the only known instance of refuting a natural law, i.e. the inexorable gravitation of right wing Americans towards even deeper pools of lunacy.

3) Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon came into power as liars, that they had some plan for peace. This turned out to be another 4 years of a stupid war to absolutely no purpose, which led to thousands and thousands of deaths, American, Vietnamese, the bombing of a neutral country, and more lies.

yours, Peter T.