The ONE thing I agreed with Reagan on is- You Don't Negotiate With Terrorists. Then he went and traded weapons to the IRAINIANS for hostages! It really was un - F--ing - believable.
Mango posted: Great find Mango. That’s very interesting. It suggests that in this policy at least the Reagan administration wasn’t that far out of step with what the previous administrations had been doing. But I hope that from our perspective now, 25 years later, we can all see that allying with and arming men like Bin Laden and Hussein leads to disastrous consequences. Such acts are at best a moral relativism that most surely sows the seeds of future problems and misery, whether it was done initially by Carter, or Reagan, or whoever. In the day horrible things were clearly felt justified by those in power as long as they were deemed to be part of the “war against communism” (sound familiar?). But if you want to seriously address the question “why does so much of the world hate America”, as has been done on this board many times, then this history needs to be front and centre. Put yourself in the other person’s shoes. If a distant nation that couldn’t care less about yours started a Vietnam type war in your country, using it as nothing more than a pawn to diminish the power of yet another foreign country, how much would you hate them? If your town was destroyed, your family and friends slaughtered in this war, how deep would your hate be? Would you view that country as evil? If you reversed the roles, how many Americans would come to view the ones who created the “Vietnam” in their country as evil? Now repeat the effects of this kind of meddling throughout the Middle East. In Iran the US was involved is situations from backing the Shah to the Iran-Iraq war to the Iran-Contra affair. In Iraq the US was involved in allying with Hussein from early on in his reign, including the Iran-Iraq war where young children were sent to die by the thousands and the gassing of his own citizens, to invading the country and killing thousands of innocent citizens to get rid of Hussein. In Saudi Arabia the US has supported, and presidents have even had personal friendships with, the hated non-democratic regime of the radical Islamic nation (with far more terrorist connections that Iraq) and is perceived to be exploiting their resources … etc. etc. etc. All of these mostly clearly immoral acts, justified by the excuse that they were part of the “war on communism” or otherwise “protected” American interests, formed the seeds of what our generation is reaping today. The question is now, what has our generation learned from this? Have we learned? Are we now sowing the seeds of peace in the Middle East, or the seeds of continuing and future hate and grief? (And for those who see the world only in terms of belonging either to the Republican tribe or the Democrat tribe and believe that whatever tribe you’re in can do no wrong and the other can do no right, don’t even respond to this. This is for a discussion amongst intelligent, independent thinking people, people who are prepared to think about a new future and not just stagnant tribal warfare.)
We forget that we were trying to get hostages out of Lebanon. So what if he sold them a few obsolete Phantom fighter planes and some HAWK and TOW missiles? We raped them on the prices and were able to fund revolutionaries fighting against a Communist dictatorship in Nicaragua. But then again, the Left never met a Communist dictator they didn't love. I just wish Reagan could have done what he really wanted to do and that was take an axe to the size of the bloated Federal govt. That would have been nice to see the end of the entitlement hell and lots of useless agencies. He rebuilt our military from its sad-sack state from the Carter years and the Russkies collapsed trying to keep up. We won the war without firing a single shot. He cut a ridiculously high tax rate and the economy BOOMED, despite all the doom and gloom from the left that tax cuts are so horrible for the economy.... He made a big mistake in going into Lebanon and a ton of American Marines died needlessly. But in the end, he succeeded more than he failed. I do tremendously miss him and I wish Bush was half the president that Reagan was.
I think that you will find Reagan's foriegn policy in many ways was on the same trajectory as Carter's and previous Administrations. However, the Reagan Administration took these policies to the extreme (especially in Latin America) and probably did a lot more damage than say Carter would have.
I keep hearing that he had a clear message, but I saw nothing of the sort. I saw simple minded rhetoric that seemed to brainwash the public and mask actions that were almost directly contradictory, (if you’ll pardon the pun ), to the actions of his administration, like the one you pointed out. Another particularly freaky one was the fact that in public he portrayed himself as a “Christian” and yet in private he and Nancy consulted the occult. Creepy, creepy, creepy stuff. He talked endlessly about the evils of communism, but didn’t seem to understand what it is, and isn’t. It was like some simple minded mantra he kept repeating. He preached “freedom” while at the same time meddling in the affairs of countless nations around the globe, and while his administration literally attacked free and democratically elected governments like the one in Nicaragua. That’s worth repeating. His administration illegally, as well as immorally, funded mercenaries to kill innocent people in a direct attack on a free and democratic nation, in a direct attack on freedom and democracy itself. This is the legacy of Reagan and his administration for most people outside of the US.
I've got many, many family members who say the years of Samosa, was a lot better than the Sandanista takeover and horrific deeds afterwards...I will believe them versus anyone who hasn't been there, and tries to put a political spin on things...
My mother was born in Manaugua, Nicaragua in 1950, and said this is not true...She lived for over 20 years in the country, and said Reagan was a godsend...She thanks him for cleaning up the mess Carter made...
Do you believe in freedom and democracy? The issue here is as simple as that. The Sandinistas were a democratically elected government. I’m sure I could easily find people who say that things are bad for them in the US. Would that give another nation the right to overthrow your government? Al Qaeda would say yes. I say no. What do you say?
To confirm this, I asked my Mother,...and yes they instilled an "elected" government, but she said among the people, among the everyday person, there was WIDESPREAD talk and issues of armed intimidations and sneaky-business concerning the votes and how the Sandinistas had staged the takeover plan from the start... My Mother NEVER lies, and I can refer her with any question you may have during that time...I have to let you know, her father was a military officer for Samosa (who died there - My grandfather), but my Mother is the kind who would call it evenly as she sees it... Thanks to Reagan,...many of my relatives were able to move here right after the chaos in the late 70's/ early 80(s), and my cousins now have children born here...
reminds me of a debate i once had w/ a guy in chile about pinochet and allende. i was singing down there during the first election in the mid-80s, the one where allwyn defeated pinochet. my dad had spent several months in santiago during the '70s, both pre and post coup. i stayed in a hotel overlooking the presidential palace and a small park that fighters flew over as they straffed the palace during the coup. in any case, i had an impassioned debate with an old friend of my dad's, a doctor who was voting for pinochet. i couldn't believe it, talked about the human rights abuses under pinochet, the disapperances, the missing. his response brought me up short, and has stayed with me for nearly 20 years: "isn't the ability to earn a living, a strong economy, a human right too?" this guy had no connection to pinochet, wasn't in the army, had friends who'd died, yet still though allende had to go, and by any means possible. i supported pinochet's (btw, the chilleans don't pronounce it as if it were french, they pronounce the second syllable w/ a hard "CH" like "cheese" and so it rhymes w/ "jet") arrest in england, but sometimes the west, despite the best intentions of human rights activists, really don't understand everything that's going on in other countries.
Do some research on U.S. interference in the Chilean economy while Allende was president. I believe Kissinger said we were going "make the economy scream."
Great post Grizzled. Sometimes, though, i wonder whether dirty tricks are just part of the game. While we (the US) is secretly supporting one side, who is supporting the other? Does it matter. (And does the US appear worse only because it has a system that eventually shines a light on its misdeeds). I'm not suggesting 'anything goes' but rather reluctantly recognizing that it may not be a play nice world. If funding Bin Laden contributed to the end of the cold war, it therefore contributed to the tearing down of the Berlin wall, reunification of Germany, free elections in Eastern Europe etc..etc. So while these acts sow the seeds of future problems and misery, i think you could just as easily suggest they also sow the seeds of independence, liberty and prosperity. (Forgive me -- i'm not so good with the poetic symbolism ). I recognize this is an 'ends justify the means' argument, but I think we should recognize who is funding the 'other' side, and consider that their objectives may not be as pure as we'd like. I wonder if we're too idealistic to suggest that if we treated the world as we wished to be treated, then they would respond in kind. It seems inconsistent to denounce the US acceptance of the Saudi regime, yet also denounce involvement in Iraq, past involvement in Iran and Afghanistan. Are we to be isolationalist, or not? Do we let the regions determine their own leadership. -- And do we assume that other forces are not actively pursuing their own agendas. (I'll concur with Roxran re my experience with the Nicaraguan revolution. When the 'will of the people' is cited -- we'll often have differing views on what, in fact, was their will..and who the 'people' are. Some of the 'hatred' of the US, i believe, has more to do with the US being the big guy on the scene. It's easier to rally the masses against the big bad US than to actually provide health, electricity, water, education and security to your people. And liberties are generally out of the question! The anti-US rallying cry is extremely powerful. Did Iran fix its problems when the US puppet was disposed? Are they better off today? The US has certainly supported its share of despots. And i'm glad when it's taken to task for doing so. But i think we are grossly oversimplifying when we suggest that anti-US sentiment is purely a result of US actions -- or that those actions were necessarily has heinous as they appear in isolation.
Roxran, Did your family own property under the Samoza regime? Did they lose any of that property while the Sandinistas were in charge? Did they own property under both, and have their taxes jacked up greatly under the Sandinistas? I know that both of these things happened to people in transition between the two regimes. I was just curious if your family was affected in this way.
That is a huge factor. It's a dirty, dirty, game. However, I think we're being naive if we suggest the US is the only player. Read Roxran's mom's concerns about Nicaraguan elections. My mom's family shares her disdain for the Sandinistas. And they've never had any connections to the SamoZa, government, or significant business interests - and my Mom's quite lefty overall.
You’re putting me in a position where if I disagree with you I will questioning you mother’s integrity. That’s not the kind of discussion I want to get into. Let’s just look at the very high level facts. The Samosa regime was a dictatorship which, by definition, is not a free and democratic form of governance. The Sandinistas were a democratically elected government, and when they subsequently lost an election they relinquished power. I submit to you that if their democratic principles were merely a sham, they would not have stepped down when they lost the election. In any dictatorship there are people who do well. Almost invariably these are people associated with the ruling group. When a country is liberated and a people set free, those associated with the ruling group usually lose their privileges. Not everybody gets richer or gains status when a dictatorship is toppled.
Can we all agree that simplifying another country's internal conflicts to a black-and-white banalities is about as appropriate as doing the same thing for the US? ... Oh wait, a lot of us actually do simplify our internal conflicts to absolutist banalities. Nevermind.
Grizz: If you don't stop discussing SamoSa...SamFisher's going to blast you. Consider yourself warned.
perhaps, but allende was nationalizing industries, essentially turning the country into a socialist state. that's the real reason the economy went, err, south. i'm not defending the coup, just making two points. a) elected governments aren't faultless, and b) we're sometimes rather patrionizing in our views about what's best for other countries. it'd be interesting to see a poll today on how modern chile views the allende years. btw, lan Chile- hands down, most beautiful stewardesses flying...
