Reagan's Legacy - Good, Bad, or Ugly

[oldhat]

The Sandinistas were like the Bolsheviks in Russia - They overthrew an unpopular regime to begin a dictatorship. Reagan and the Contras feared another Red Terror like that of China or Russia. The Cotnras were like the Whites in Russia - they were scumbags, but their enemy was worse.

Nonsense, the Sandanistas had popular support and won the election in '84. Why Reagan and the CIA continued to supply and fund roving death squads after they won the election makes no sense, unless you think raping and murdering people like Jesuit priests and nuns is part of spreading democracy.

And then there's the issue of the CIA cavorting with cocaine traffickers and Reagan looking the other way. To defeat the Communists. Or something.

 

[NWO Sentryman]

Nonsense, the Sandanistas had popular support and won the election in '84. Why Reagan and the CIA continued to supply and fund roving death squads after they won the election makes no sense, unless you think raping and murdering people like Jesuit priests and nuns is part of spreading democracy.

And then there's the issue of the CIA cavorting with cocaine traffickers and Reagan looking the other way. To defeat the Communists. Or something.

The Bolsheviks also had popular support. Look at the nightmare they unleashed.

Wherever the sandinista ideology was, wherever in Russia, China, Cambodia or Ethiopia, you had masss murders and purges in its wake.

I said the Contras were like the Whites in the RCW.

Beign elected does not permit one to commit an ethnic cleansing campaign.

Reagan was determined not to risk another cuban missile crisis. That image of Soviet Nukes was still in US memories

The Comparison is apt. The Bolsheviks = the sandinistas. Somozas = The Romanovs.

 

[Praktik]

She said she as around during Somoza's regime. She was (presumably) not around during the civil war, so we should take what she says with a grain of salt.

Actually no. We do not know the exact year of her departure. Living in Nicaragua I think gives her credibility in answering the question of "which is worse". You said the Contras were the lesser of two evils after a pretty facile analysis that amounted to one quote and raising the spectre of the Soviets.

And even if she did leave prior to the developments of the 80s so what? She will have personal connections in the country, maybe even family. She'll have a deeper understanding of NIcaraguan society and the political blocs therein. Her connections will mean she has been exposed to people who paid the price of the conflict even if she wasn't there.

All of this means that I would still value her opinon on these matters more than yours, even if she left in '78.

This is not to say that I would automatically agree with all people with first-hand knowledge of a given issue, just that I am more likely to give the perspectives credence.

 

[Praktik]

Well, Reagan made a lot of bad decisions about his allies, but he felt that the US needed to regain its morale after Carter's appeasement of the Soviet Union.

Then why was his solution to Carter's appeasement, more appeasement?

 

[NWO Sentryman]

Then why was his solution to Carter's appeasement, more appeasement?

No, Reagan, after muscling up the conventional forces could negotiate on HIS Terms. That was completely different from Jimmy Carter who just gave them a blank cheque.

 

[oldhat]

Beign elected does not permit one to commit an ethnic cleansing campaign.

The Contras weren't elected, you have it backwards.

 

[Praktik]

No, Reagan, after muscling up the conventional forces could negotiate on HIS Terms. That was completely different from Jimmy Carter who just gave them a blank cheque.

I just don't know why Reagan would appease the Soviets at all the way he did.

Didn't he know the lessons of history??

 

[NWO Sentryman]

I just don't know why Reagan would appease the Soviets at all the way he did.

Didn't he know the lessons of history??

No, reagan offered the "Zero option". He wasn't taking it on the Soviets word. He was making sure they kept it.

Carter emasculated the military. Reagan restored it to its prestige.

In fact, i think Reagan unintentionaly led to gorbachev's rise. Gorby was elected by one vote in the politburo.

The Sandinistas did engage in an ethnic cleansing campaign agaisnt the Miskito, Rama and the sumu. I don't know what ethnic minorities the Contras pushed around.

 

[corplinx]

I take that to mean you are completely excluding the military from the federal bureaucracy?

I was talking about actual pages of regulation written and not dollars spent.

 

[leftysergeant]

Well, Reagan made a lot of bad decisions about his allies, but he felt that the US needed to regain its morale after Carter's appeasement of the Soviet Union.

Carter hardly "appeased" the Soviet Union. He did try to work with Gorbachev, and it appeares to have worked.

The transition away from totalitarian rule was going smoothly unti Reagan started acting like a bully and made the hard-liners panic. They nearly took out Gorby.

Reagan just wanted to look like a winner, so he kicked Gorby in the shins and claimed that that was the reason Gorby wanted to stand down.

He made things worse. Were it not for Reagan, there might have not been so much crime and graft in the transition and we might have an actual progressive Russia today. Instead of progfressing toward a democratic socilaism, people like Putin led the country toward a more fascistic dystopia.

 

[oldhat]

I don't know what ethnic minorities the Contras pushed around.

Well, there are the black people in American ghettos they sold crack cocaine to along with the help of their CIA handlers, for one...

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Don't sweat it, from some perspectives nearly everyone appears to be "on the left".

Yay! There's hope for the US yet.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

The Mitrokhin Archive clearly proves the Sandinistas were linked to the Soviet Union.

The Sandinistas persecuted the Miskito, with one of the leaders describing it as a "ethnocide and genocide". russell means also supported the Contras. The Sandinistas were also behaving like the Bosnian Serbs and Croats.

The Somozas were scumbags i agree, but the Sandinistas were Stalinists.

The Sandinistas were like the Bolsheviks in Russia - They overthrew an unpopular regime to begin a dictatorship. Reagan and the Contras feared another Red Terror like that of China or Russia. The Cotnras were like the Whites in Russia - they were scumbags, but their enemy was worse.

Reagan lvied through the Cuban Missile Crisis, and he did not want another round of nuclear russian roulette.

Carter Got Zbiginew to aid the Khmer Rouge. And Reagan's aid was AFTER the Khmer Rouge were gone.

And Thirdworldtraveler is one of the Death to America websites with no editors. Heck the woo level is so high on that i need a new woo-o-meter. As well as that, you have Stalinists and Milosevic apologists abound.

For the record, I'm not going to argue this sidetrack with you except to say the Sandinistas were desperate people who only wanted a decent life and had we not been supporting corporate profits and instead promoted labor unions and human decency, communist political ideology would never have had a major role in Latin America. They had a capitalist economy before and after US intervention with the exception of Cuba which also only became communist because we subsidized corporate profits with our military intervention instead of insisting corporations return some of their profits to the communities they were taking the resources from in the first place.

As for 3rd World Traveler articles, the ones I've read have been fairly accurate. There are dozens of web sources. It's not like TWT is the only one with supportable facts about US involvement in Latin America. Reagan (getting back to the thread topic), was one of the worst for claiming actions which promoted US and international corporate interests were acts purely against the evil commies.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Nonsense, the Sandanistas had popular support and won the election in '84. Why Reagan and the CIA continued to supply and fund roving death squads after they won the election makes no sense, unless you think raping and murdering people like Jesuit priests and nuns is part of spreading democracy.

And then there's the issue of the CIA cavorting with cocaine traffickers and Reagan looking the other way. To defeat the Communists. Or something.

You left off hacking off the hand with a machete of a 5yr old child in Masaya who was trying to get a drink of water from a creek after the Contras had cut off the water supply to the town. That incident was before the Contras were ousted and while Somoza was still living in his concrete bunker.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I was talking about actual pages of regulation written and not dollars spent.

And to what do you attribute the latest economic crash? Lack of regulation or as described using Newspeak, because of regulation?

 

[gtc]

Actually no. We do not know the exact year of her departure. Living in Nicaragua I think gives her credibility in answering the question of "which is worse". You said the Contras were the lesser of two evils after a pretty facile analysis that amounted to one quote and raising the spectre of the Soviets.

And even if she did leave prior to the developments of the 80s so what? She will have personal connections in the country, maybe even family. She'll have a deeper understanding of NIcaraguan society and the political blocs therein. Her connections will mean she has been exposed to people who paid the price of the conflict even if she wasn't there.

All of this means that I would still value her opinon on these matters more than yours, even if she left in '78.

This is not to say that I would automatically agree with all people with first-hand knowledge of a given issue, just that I am more likely to give the perspectives credence.

Are you talking about Skeptigirl? She simply said she had been 'in Nicaragua'. That could mean she had simply taken a holiday there.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Howard Zinn on Reagan, well worth a glance:

A people's history of the United States: 1492-present, Howard Zinn: Reagan excerpts

Passionate declarations: essays on war and justice, Howard Zinn: Reagan excerpts

These book excerpts are protected from cutting and pasting even short sections. But you can browse the opening paragraphs in the pages on the search result and see if you want to read further.

On Third World Traveler, Zinn has an article on how there was little difference between Reagan's policies of retaliation for terrorism and the original terrorism, if you could even discern where the original terrorist act actually occurred. (That would be the website NWO claims never documents article authors. )

Howard Zinn on Reagan: Terrorism Over Tripoli

In April of 1986, a bomb exploded in a discotheque in West Berlin, killing two people, one an American soldier. It was unquestionably an act of terrorism. Libya's tyrannical leader, Muammar Khadafi, had a record of involvement in terrorism, although in this case there seemed to be no clear evidence of who was responsible. Nevertheless, President Reagan ordered that bombers be sent over Libya's capital of Tripoli, killing perhaps a hundred people, almost all civilians....

...Perhaps the word deliberate shows the difference: when you plant a bomb in a discotheque, the death of bystanders is deliberate; when you drop bombs on a city, it is accidental. We can ease our conscience that way, but only by lying to ourselves. Because, when you bomb a city from the air, you know, absolutely know, that innocent people will die.

That's why Defense Secretary Weinberger, reaching for morality (his reach will never be long enough, given where he stands) talked of the air raid being organized in such a way as to "minimize" civilian casualties....

...In this endless exchange of terrorist acts, each side claims it is "retaliating." We bombed Tripoli to retaliate for the discotheque. The discotheque may have been bombed to retaliate for our killing 35 Libyan seamen who were on a patrol boat in the Gulf of Sidra-in international waters, just as we were.
We were in the Gulf of Sidra supposedly to show Libya it must not engage in terrorism. And Libya says-indeed it is telling the truth in this instance-that the United States is an old hand at terrorism, having subsidized terrorist governments in Chile, Guatemala, and El Salvador, and right now subsidizing the terrorism of the contras against farmers, their wives and children, in Nicaragua....

Of course Zinn is criticized by the people who believe in the John Wayne version of American history and those of us who doubt such idealistic versions of history are dismissed as simply America haters.


Zinn, of course is no more kinder to Democrats than Republics.

Carter-Reagan-Bush: The Bipartisan Consensus
by Howard Zinn

Coming to the end of the century, observing its last twenty-five years, we have seen exactly that limited vision Hofstadter talked about—a capitalistic encouragement of enormous fortunes alongside desperate poverty, a nationalistic acceptance of war and preparations for war. Governmental power swung from Republicans to Democrats and back again, but neither party showed itself capable of going beyond that vision.

Sadly I agree. While I think Carter was more aware of this serious problem of our promotion of US self interests and Clinton seemed ideologically like he would act to change the status quo, neither was quite able to do so. And given the mess GW left for Obama in the way of foreign policy, I doubt Obama will be much different.

If we promoted real human rights instead of claiming we did but merely acting under that facade to promote corporate self interests, we would stop the flow of fodder being used to fill the ranks of the terrorists and 'communist' armies. It's insane that that isn't obvious to world leaders.

 

[Praktik]

Are you talking about Skeptigirl? She simply said she had been 'in Nicaragua'. That could mean she had simply taken a holiday there.

I guess her glass is half full with me and half empty with you.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Are you talking about Skeptigirl? She simply said she had been 'in Nicaragua'. That could mean she had simply taken a holiday there.

I was young and totally unaware of the political events in Central America when I went off to travel the world after finishing college and working a year. I traveled through Central America and the Dominican Republic for 6 months by myself. I had a plane ticket good for a year that went from Miami to the DR to Panama and on to LA. I could get on and off anywhere in a direct line. I spoke a little Spanish which grew to a fair amount by the end of the 6 months, had a backpack and joined the trail of young travelers on similar expeditions. I stayed with families that rented rooms and in $1/nite pensiones.

I had more history and current events lessons in 6 months than I had had in my entire education in US public schools.

I saw the results of the struggle against Trujillo years earlier in the Dominican Republic's history including the graves of students killed in college protests. People showing me the graves were the surviving friends and family members. The US supported Trujillo, up there with the most brutal dictators in history, through much of his reign of terror.

When I got to Nicaragua, the terrorism was current. I had had no idea about the danger until I got off the plane. I learned a lot rather quickly to say the least.

From there I traveled in El Salvador and Guatemala.

The nuns in El Salvador were murdered shortly after I returned to the US. Beheadings and massacres began in Guatemala shortly after I returned to the US. I will forever hate Reagan for promoting the terrorist Contras calling them Freedom Fighters. I seethe just thinking about it. I hate the people in the US and in the US government who knowingly promoted murder in the BS name of fighting communism. The struggle in Central America that I experienced was one of the desperately poor just trying to fight for a decent life, while the US supported horrible dictators because it was favorable for corporate profits to do so. These powerful corporations very much wanted to keep their access to cheap labor and free access to the natural resources they were exploiting. Why return any of the profits to build the local infrastructure when you could have it all to yourself for a moderate bribe to a few dictators and campaign contributions which resulted in US military support for your cause at the expense of the taxpayers?

We literally trained the Guatemalan soldiers to be terrorists in the US in the infamous School of the Americas now renamed to lessen attention to it.

And here the taxpayers thought they were paying for an army to fight the noble cause of ridding the world of dirty atheist commies. Little did the ignorant Americans know they were paying for the murder of any labor union organizers or other political opposition to any current dictator we were supporting. Call a union organizer a commie and the US public is happy to see their beheaded bodies left in the street to be found at daylight by their families.



Arrrrghgghhh!!. OK, rant over. I should not have started. I'm going to get a glass of vino now.............

 

[gtc]

I guess her glass is half full with me and half empty with you.

I wasn't suggesting that she had no first hand knowledge and my post wasn't critical of her. I was just pointing that she wasn't actually claiming to have lived there or have family there.