Do you have documentation to support that the Reagan Adminstration was instrumental in starting the mujahaddin resistance in Afghanistan against the Soviets?
Come on, treeman... LBJ just continued Kennedy's policies in Vietnam? That's all he did? You might find this interesting reading: OCTOBER 11,1963 NATIONAL SECURITY ACTION MEMORANDUM NO. 263 TO: Secretary of State Secretary of Defense Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff SUBJECT: South Vietnam At a meeting on October 5, 1963, the President considered the recommendations contained in the report of Secretary McNamara and General Taylor on their mission to South Vietnam. The President approved the military recommendations contained in Section I B (1-3) of the report, but directed that no formal announcement be made of the implementation of plans to withdraw 1,000 U.S. military personnel by the end of 1963. After discussion of the remaining recommendations of the report, the President approved the instruction to Ambassador Lodge which is set forth in State Department telegram No. 534 to Saigon. McGeorge Bundy Copy furnished: Director of Central Intelligence Administrator, Agency for International Development 11/21/63 DRAFT TOP SECRET NATIONAL SECURITY ACTION MEMORANDUM NO. The President has reviewed the discussions of South Vietnam which occurred in Honolulu, and has discussed the matter further with Ambassador Lodge. He directs that the following guidance be issued to all concerned: 1. It remains the central object of the United States in South Vietnam to assist the people and Government of that country to win their contest against the externally directed and supported Communist conspiracy. The test of all decisions and U.S. actions in this area should be the effectiveness of their contributions to this purpose. 2. The objectives of the United States with respect to the withdrawal of U.S. military personnel remain as stated in the White House statement of October 2, 1963. 3. It is a major interest of the United States Government that the present provisional government of South Vietnam should be assisted in consolidating itself in holding and developing increased public support. All U.S. officers should conduct themselves with this objective in view. 4. It is of the highest importance that the United States Government avoid either the appearance or the reality of public recrimination from one part of it against another, and the President expects that all senior officers of the Government will take energetic steps to insure that they and their subordinate go out of their way to maintain and to defend the unity of the United States Government both here and in the field. More specifically, the President approves the following lines of action developed in the discussions of the Honolulu meeting of November 20. The office or offices of the Government to which central responsibility is assigned is indicated in each case. 5. We should concentrate our own efforts, and insofar as possible we should persuade the government of South Vietnam to concentrate its efforts, on the critical situation in the Mekong Delta. This concentration should include not only military but political, economic, social, educational and informational efforts. We should seek to turn the tide not only of battle but of belief, and we should seek to increase not only our control of land but the productivity of this area whenever the proceeds can be held for the advantage of anti-Communist forces. (Action: The whole country team under the direct supervision of the Ambassador.) 6. Programs of military and economic assistance should be maintained at such levels that their magnitude and effectiveness in the eyes of the Vietnamese Government do not fall below the levels sustained by the United States in the time of the Diem Government. This does not exclude arrangements for economy on the MAP accounting for ammunition and any other readjustments which are possible as between MAP and other U.S. defense sources. Special attention should be given to the expansion of the import distribution and effective use of fertilizer for the Delta. (Action: AID and DOD as appropriate.) 7. With respect to action against North Vietnam, there should be a detailed plan for the development of additional Government of Vietnam resources, especially for sea-going activity, and such planning should indicate the time and investment necessary to achieve a wholly new level of effectiveness in this field of action. (Action: DOD and CIA) 8. With respect to Laos, a plan should be developed for military operations up to a line up to 50 kilometers inside Laos, together with political plans for minimizing the international hazards of such an enterprise. Since it is agreed that operational responsibility for such undertakings should pass from CAS to MACV, this plan should provide an alternative method of political liaison for such operations, since their timing and character can have an intimate relation to the fluctuating situation in Laos. (Action: State, DOD and CIA.) 9. It was agreed in Honolulu that the situation in Cambodia is of the first importance for South Vietnam, and it is therefore urgent that we should lose no opportunity to exercise a favorable influence upon that country. In particular, measures should be undertaken to satisfy ourselves completely that recent charges from Cambodia are groundless, and we should put ourselves in a position to offer to the Cambodians a full opportunity to satisfy themselves on this same point. (Action: State.) 10. In connection with paragraphs 7 and 8 above, it is desired that we should develop as strong and persuasive a case as possible to demonstrate to the world the degree to which the Viet Cong is controlled, sustained and supplied from Hanoi, through Laos and other channels. In short, we need a more contemporary version of the Jordan Report, as powerful and complete as possible. (Action: Department of State with other agencies as necessary,.) McGeorge Bundy As far as "fighting Communism for 50 years"... it only counts when the bullets fly?? Again, I recommend reading The Bedford Incident for an idea of how the Cold War was being fought. I didn't call you naive, but you are making it difficult.
This is all very off topic and I doon't know why you're pursuing it, but do you honestly think that the CIA didn't help funnel arms, money and etc to Afghanistan from 1980-88? I don't think there is any need to provide documentation. But honestly, who cares, that's totally beside the point; taking complete blame or credit credit for historical events that happened when x or y was president with multiple underlying causes built up over decades is silly. I thought that was pretty obvious that that was the point that I was making rather than entering into an accounting of debits and credits.
No edit! Here's the link to the declassified memos I posted... http://www.jfklancer.com/docs.maps/n263.GIF
<i>This is all very off topic and I doon't know why you're pursuing it, but do you honestly think that the CIA didn't help funnel arms, money and etc to Afghanistan from 1980-88? </i> Yes, there was funding for the Afghanistan resistance during the Reagan Adminstration. Now back to my question: <b>Do you have documentation to support that the Reagan Adminstration was instrumental in starting the mujahaddin resistance in Afghanistan against the Soviets? </b>
Iran Contra, Nuff Said Reagan may have done some good things but his methods were suspect at best Rocket River
You've accepted the premise, yet you doubt its basis? Look it up yourself if you are feeling conflicted. But if you find it, would you concede that Reagan was responsible for September 11?
Deckard: Yes, I am aware that the Kennedy admin was looking into withdrawing from Vietnam, but the facts on the ground show only that our military presence there increased during his tenure. If he talks about withdrawing, but sends more troops there, then what is he really doing? We can speculate all day about whether or not he would have pulled us out early. Maybe he would have, maybe he wouldn't have. The facts on the ground - increasing troop levels throughout his office - argue against the idea, though. And I don't think one could argue that LBJ reversed that trend. He unquestionably accelerated it. Major: stagflation: Slowing growth in the economy accompanied by a general rise in prices. Also known as stagnation. When the economy isn't growing, but prices are - not a good situation for a country to be in. This occurred to a great extent in the 1970s, when oil prices skyrocketed and the economy was slowing. The effects of inflation were made considerably worse by stagflation. http://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/stagflation.asp Up until the 1970s, it was generally believed that recession and inflation could not occur at the same time. A slowing economy was supposed to bring stable prices, so inflation just could not be a problem when the economy slowed. That fact gave central bankers, such as the U.S. Federal Reserve, a sure-fire method for combating high inflation: just employ tight monetary policies until inflation was choked to death. The Oil Crisis of 1973 shattered that myth and resulted in a new word in financial circles: stagflation. The four-fold increase in oil prices imposed by OPEC in 1973-74 raised price levels throughout the economy while slowing economic growth at the same time. This left policymakers in a quandary. World central banks, worried about a severe economic slowdown, chose loose monetary policies and inflation took off. http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_00/blanchard123000.html http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/multimedia/ASAD1.html http://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/7547.html http://www.edc.ca/docs/ereports/commentary/w10-09-2002_e.htm If you continue to try to explain how we had a rosy economy in the 1970s, then I will simply continue to post links on stagflation. Rosy it was not, and it was largely because of OPEC's assreaming, which Carter did nothing about.
At least Reagan was more or less honest about his economic policy... he made no bones about favoring the rich and advocating the trickle down theory, quite unlike our current administration which has sold tax cuts on lies and distortions. I spent a few minutes on Google trying to find the Schlesinger quote mentioned by Mr. Clutch. Could find no citation to an article, speech or interview and was only able to find the quote itself on conservative/far right web sites. Additionally, some have it being said in 1982, others in 1981. I'm not saying it's a false quote, just that I couldn't find a legitimate source. Besides, Gorbachev did not become General Secretary until 1985. If Schlesinger had made the quote in 1986, then it would have been much more damning. (Any help tracking the quote down would be appreciated.) Regarding the collapse of the Soviet Union... it was Democrats who set the intellectual framework of the Cold War that was carried out by both Republican and Democrat presidents over a 50 year time span. If you want to assign heroes, it was the American people who sacrificed the most. To try and appropriate that struggle for partisan purposes is sickening. It is an accomplishment of the United States, not a party. Furthermore, the argument that we spent the USSR into the ground has been discredited so many times it's laughable that some people still believe this junk. Here's one excerpt that has been posted in this forum at least three times now... pay particular attention to the Soviet budget numbers cited... From Frances Fitzgerald (2000), Way Out There in the Blue: Reagan, Star Wars, and the End of the Cold War (New York: Simon and Schuster: 0684844168). pp. 473-476: "No one in Washington foresaw the collapse of the Soviet system, but the conservatives were the very last to see that the system was vulnerable and that it was changing. In his memoir, published in 1990, Caspar Weinberger wrote that, 'In a world in which there are two superpowers, one of which has the governmental structure and military might of the Soviet Union, it is essential for our very survival that we retain the military strength we acquired in the 1980s....' And 'My feeling has always been that no general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union will be allowed to alter in any fundamental way the basically aggressive nature of Soviet behavior.' "Yet, as soon as the Soviet Union collapsed, conservative pundits began to advance the argument that the Reagan administration had played a major role in its downfall. Among others, George Will and Irving Kristol argued that SDI, Reagan's military buildup and the ideological crusade against Communism had delivered the knockout punch to a system that had been on the ropes since the early 1980s. A parade of former Reagan administration officials, including Weinberger and Richard Perle, came forward to assert that Reagan had known all the time that the Soviet Union was on its last legs and had aggressively foreclosed Soviet military options while pushing the Soviet economy to the breaking point. According to conservatives, the combination of military and ideological pressures gave the Soviet Union little choice but to abandon expansionism abroad and repression at home, and SDI was the key to this winning strategy. The Star Wars initiative had put the Soviets on notice that the next arms race would be waged in areas where the U.S. had a decisive technological advantage. "This argument contrasted sharply with previous conservative complaints about Reagan's embrace of Gorbachev, and it did not persuade scholars of the Soviet Union. Yet, since it is the inveterate propensity of Americans--or at least of American pundits--to relate the falls of sparrows in distant lands to some fault or virtue of American policy, it went against the grain to deny the argument entirely and to propose that the enormous military buildup of the Reagan years had no role at all in the demise of the Soviet Union. "Thus a vague and unexamined version of the conservative thesis entered the public discourse: SDI and the U.S. military buildup forced the Soviets to spend more than they could afford on their defenses and/or convinced them of the inherent weaknesses of their system. But the evidence for this proposition is wanting. "From 1983 to 1987 the Strategic Defense Initiative alarmed Soviet leaders because it threatened to reverse what they saw as the trend toward strategic stability and stable costs. Nonetheless, they did not respond to it by creating their own SDI program. That is, they continued their existing research programs on lasers and other advanced technologies, plus their existing design-work on space weaponry, but they did not mount an effort to test or develop SDI-type weapons. In addition they studied counter-measures to space-based weaponry, but since the SDIO never designed a plausible system, they had nothing specific to study, and their military spending was not affected. Between 1985 and 1987 Gorbachev spent a great deal of effort trying to convince the Reagan administration to restrain the program, presumably because he thought his own military-industrial complex would eventually force him to adopt a program of some sort to counter SDI, but by the end of 1987 the Soviet leadership no longer regarded SDI as a threat. "Then, too, the Soviets did not respond to the Reagan administration's military buildup. "As CIA analysts discovered in 1983, Soviet military spending had leveled off in 1975 to a growth rate of 1.3 percent [per year], with spending for weapons procurements virtually flat. It remained that way for a decade. According to later CIA estimates, Soviet military spending rose in 1985 as a result of decisions taken earlier, and grew at a rate of 4.3 percent per year through 1987. Spending for procurements of offensive strategic weapons, however, increased by only 1.4 percent a year in that period. In 1988 Gorbachev began a round of budget cuts, bringing the defense budget back down to its 1980 level. In other words, while the U.S. military budget was growing at an average of 8 percent per year, the Soviets did not attempt to keep up, and their military spending did not rise even as might have been expected given the war they were fighting in Afghanistan. "During Reagan's first term, some in the Kremlin were concerned that the U.S. might possibly be gaining a first-strike capability and might actually launch a nuclear war. This was, of course, the mirror image of the fears expressed in Washington in the mid-seventies. Nonetheless, though the strategic arsenjals on both sides grew like Topsy in the 1980s, the strategic balance remained extremely stable. Without any spending increases, the Soviets continued to turn out and deploy strategic warheads at about the same rate the U.S. did. When the START I treaty was signed in 1991, the U.S. had deployed 12,646 strategic warheads, the Soviet Union 11,212--the numbers so large as to be almost meaningless in terms of deterence. "At the beginning of Reagan's first term, some conservative enthusiasts in the administration might have believed that the U.S. could spend the Soviets under the table in an all-out strategic arms race. But the Joint Chiefs of Staff never thought this, nor did the CIA, for the simple reason that Soviet spending on strategic weapons was a very small fraction of the overall Soviet military budget. According to one MIT expert, Soviet spending for the procurement, operations, and maintenance of its strategic offensive forces amounted to only 8 percent of its entire defense budget. In other words, had Gorbachev achieved the 50 percent reductions he was seeking at Reykjavik, he woul not have made savings of any significance in terms of the Soviet economy. "What happened during the 1980s was that the Soviet economy continued to deteriorate as it had during the 1970s. The economic decline, of course, resulted from the failures of the system created by Lenin and Stalin--not from any effort on the part of the Reagan administration. Without Gorbachev, however, the Soviet Union might have survived for many more years, for the system, though on the decline, was nowhere near collapse. It was Gorbachev's efforts to reverse the decline and to modernize his country that knocked the props out from under the system. The revolution was in essence a series of decisions made by one man, and it came as a surprise precisely because it did not follow from a systemic breakdown.
treeman, Carter didn't become president till 1976 (actually 77) So why are you blaming him for not reacting to OPEC's price increase in 1973 or 74? What did Reagan do to OPEC that was so much different/better?
I am not conflicted about this topic. There are quite a few from the left on this BBS that believe it..........but they haven't joined the dialog. The other person never got back to me on the Taliban question that I asked.
SF: Ford didn't do anything either, which makes him as guilty as Carter. Carter had 4 years to do something about it, and he did nothing. The stagflation was a direct result of inflated oil prices, he knew it, and he did nothing. Naturally, as with Clinton, the Ayrabs did not fear him, since he showed no inclination to punish them for their bad behavior. Reagan scared the sh*t out of them (remember how quick the Iranians caved? It took one day). Sometimes being a cowboy can help.
Reagan scared them into lowering oil prices? I have never seen this theory advanced before. The October surprise is another topic, but if Reagan scared the Iranians so much, why did he have to trade them arms to get our hostages back? Why did he let hezbollah or whoever it was blow up 300 marines in Lebanon and then retreat with his tail between his legs? Doesn't sound too cowboyish.
Sam, I have my own arguments going, but Reagan didn't "let Hezbollah" blow up those Marines. Unfortunately, they didn't need any help. I know your trying to make a point, but this sort of thing doesn't help any, imo. Carry on.
SF: Read up on the Iran Hostage Crisis. The hostages were released the day of Reagan's inaguration. http://www.bartleby.com/65/ir/Iranhost.html The Beirut operation was a lousy idea, I agree. It is the one black mark in Reagan's dealings with the middle east.The troops should have either never been sent there in the first place, or we should have hit back hard after the bombing. Running away was, well, rather Clintonesque. Black mark for Reagan. As for Iran Contra, all indications are that A) he did not know about it at the time, and B) that he was furious about it when he found out. And curiously, no one was ever prosecuted, and no laws were ever broken... Iran Contra had two good effects: freeing hostages and arming anticommunist fighters. It had the very bad effect of giving Iran desperately needed replacement arms, though... Still, all indications are that it was not of Reagan's doing.
