Reagan

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Originally posted by Dissident
Reagan's lack of guts to responding to Beirut was an indirect cause to 9/11. Discuss

*runs away*

Who wants to open the discussion on Dissident running away?

Kind of reminds me of Bill Clinton during Vietnam.....

[Dis]

ahh yes, the great Bill Clinton.

nothing like smoking a joint while your buddies are dying in some unjust war.

I'm not sure what that means, but I thought I would say it.

[PLATO]

Dissident-You must remember the times and the stigma of Vietnam that was still in the air. This was the first real military chance we had taken since Vietnam. The response at the time was thought to be proportional. I can remember pictures of the battleship opening up on the hills over Beruit. You would see a tiny little artillery flash and seconds later the entire hillside would erupt as a 16inch shell hit that location. It was impressive.

The concept of overwhelming force was probably developed as a result of Beruit. The country was still not willing at that point to do what it had to. Reagan's philosophy changed that over time and the terrorist are paying a large price now for not realizing that.

[Dis]

I'll give you that. It did take a while for the U.S. to find it's legs after Vietnam.

Though I'm not sure that is a good thing. Now we aren't shy at all about invading countries anymore with Bush as prez.

Is that a good or a bad thing?

[Kuciwalker]

Good thing.

[PLATO]

I think that it is a good thing. The US has as much right as anybody to protect our national interest. People are just pissed because we have the means as well. I dare say that if Iraq had had the capacity to conquer the US that Saddam would not have waited or given a $hit what the world thought.

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

I agree with PLATO.

I also agree with Socrates on a few things.

[PLATO]

Originally posted by GhengisFarb
I agree with PLATO.

I also agree with Socrates on a few things.

Me to. He was my mentor afterall

[The Mad Monk]

Mr. Fun, you never did answer my followup question in the other thread...

[Ned]

Do not impute into that time our thinking today. At that time, terrorism was primarily directed against Israel. We were attacked in Lebanon because we transformed a neutral peacekeeping mission into a pro-Christian mission. Had we simply stayed neutral, nothing would have happened to our troops.

I repeat, the failure in Lebanon was mission creep.

The same thing happened in Vietnam where support for the SV gov't turned into a US war. Clearly, after the bombing, Reagan realized that he was falling into the Vietnam trap. He is to be applauded for withdrawing, IMHO.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by The Mad Monk
Mr. Fun, you never did answer my followup question in the other thread...

"other thread"


Gee, I should be able to locate WTF you're talking about in no time.

[Q Classic]

He helped defeat communism by resisting it, by building up the militarily, and by standing up to Gorbachev on Star Wars.

gorbachev? he needed standing up to? well, i suppose... he knew he was facing a decaying system--and what he tried to do--and failed--was to modernize soviet russia.

what he didn't realize was that a soviet system cannot engender the same vibrant life that democracy does. reagan was merely there, and lucky. we won the cold war, not the president.

[Nubclear]

Really, when you people credit Regan with the end of the cold war...All I can do is laugh.
The Soviet Union was on the road to collapse. It's people were not happy. It's economy was doing down the tubes. Dissenting was becoming more commonplace.
Regan was at the right place at the right time. Heck, with the situation given...If I were leader I could've brought the union down

And to say Regan was your greatest president That borders on complete ignorance IMO.

I gave him a 4.

Oh, and so far...
Those on the upper side (6-10) have 1 less vote than those on the lower side. Interestingly enough, nobody seems to think he was simply average (5).

[The Mad Monk]

Originally posted by MrFun


"other thread"


Gee, I should be able to locate WTF you're talking about in no time.

Sorry -- given the subject and time frame, I thought you would.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=2432326&highlight=reagan#post2432326

[The Mad Monk]

I haven't voted yet -- are we considering this to be an absolute, or a relative scale?