Reagan's Legacy - How will he be remembered?

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Kucinich
[Bush's response to 9/11 has been the exact OPPOSITE of what AQ wanted.

The success of Bush's responses, maybe. Invading Iraq was a gift to AQ, which was on the ropes. It still is as an organization, but it's ideology has now spread far and wide. To misquote Che Guevara, there are now "a thousand Al Qaedas." The original organization will die a martyrs cause, and tens of thousands of others will take their place because of Iraq.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Sava
Wow... you really have no clue. Read some books. I get tired of telling you your wrong.

I thought you just got tired of being wrong... oh wait, you argue with MtG about the energy industry...

[Imran Siddiqui]

You say Reagan came and "swept things aside"-I can think of only a few programs he "swept aside" , mainly ending help for low income housing. Non-military discretionary spending grew under him, and he made no moves to end any of the largest programs.

Well Drake's article is pretty good on this. But when you have, less than 10 years after he left office, a DEMOCRAT president saying "The Era of Big Government is Over", even if it is not true, shows a dramatic sea change in the perception of government.

What did Goldwater do? He wasn't even in the top office, and in the Senate he was never in leadership roles. Reagan was President. He had the bully pulpit. He did cut funding for many social programs. He constantly harped on how bad and inefficient the government was.

There is a reason they call it the Reagan Revolution and not the Goldwater Revolution.

Reagan democrats as a voting block, not conservative democrats, which is what you mentioned.

What do you think Reagan Democrats were? Conservative democrats. Zell Miller and John Breaux represent that Southern democrat who would nine times out of ten vote Reagan over Carter/Mondale (even though Carter is from the South). I just gave you some examples, but go all over the South. John Edward's constuency would be Reagan Democrats. Georgia used to be run by Democrats. Aside from Zell, you had Max Cleland and Governor Roy Barnes. A vast majority of their constitutency would be Reagan democrats.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
The success of Bush's responses, maybe.

That's another point in his favor, but it's not the main one. Why would they expect us to invade in the first place? What precedent was there? At most they would have expected some airstrikes and cruise missiles. Look at Gulf 1 - we spent the first nine-tenths of the war bombing the hell out of the Iraqi army before we would commit land troops. Look at Kosovo - we conducted it almost entirely by air (did we even send any ground troops?). Look at Beirut - we sent in a few hundred Marines, and as soon as just a few died, we pulled out. Look at our response to Ghaddafi - we dropped a few bombs, whoop-de-doo (and that was under Reagan). Look at the Iran hostage situation - we spent more than a frigging year negotiating with them. The lessen they'd learned was, you kill Americans, they pull out. We were a "paper tiger". What's the big thing with AQ? Americans in SA and our support for Israel. How do they get them out? Kill some Americans. Bush is criticized for being simple-minded, but the mentality of "you hit me, I hit you back REAL hard" is exactly what they didn't expect.

Invading Iraq was a gift to AQ, which was on the ropes.

Iraq has no connection with 9/11, as many on your side of the fence have been quick to point out. In fact, Bush was planning to go in before 9/11. It has no bearing on the question of the wisdom of Bush's response to 9/11.

It still is as an organization, but it's ideology has now spread far and wide. To misquote Che Guevara, there are now "a thousand Al Qaedas." The original organization will die a martyrs cause, and tens of thousands of others will take their place because of Iraq.

Any evidence at all that they are somehow stronger, now? There is now no central C&C for their organization - everything would have to be done locally.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Kucinich

Invading Iraq was a gift to AQ, which was on the ropes.

Iraq has no connection with 9/11, as many on your side of the fence have been quick to point out. In fact, Bush was planning to go in before 9/11. It has no bearing on the question of the wisdom of Bush's response to 9/11.

The fact that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 is pointless when discussing how invading Iraq is a boon for AQ. AQ benefits because of the anger generated by the invasion, and the desire of many more Muslims around the world to strike back at the United States. This gives AQ a foot in the door to promote themseles.

As for the rest, this is the wrong thread to argue it in.

[Kuciwalker]

The fact that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 is pointless when discussing how invading Iraq is a boon for AQ.

But it is completely relevent when discussing whether Bush's response to 9/11 was what AQ wanted. I'm not discussing whether or not Iraq was beneficial to AQ - at the very least, the answer isn't as clear.

[Sava]

Originally posted by Kucinich




I thought you just got tired of being wrong... oh wait, you argue with MtG about the energy industry...

the list of things you don't know **** about just keeps growing... why am I even wasting my time with some kid who can't even drive yet?

[Imran Siddiqui]

'Cause he's smarter than you?

[Chemical Ollie]

I's expecting to see a lot of re-runs of Reagan movies on TV now.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

You say Reagan came and "swept things aside"-I can think of only a few programs he "swept aside" , mainly ending help for low income housing. Non-military discretionary spending grew under him, and he made no moves to end any of the largest programs.

Well Drake's article is pretty good on this. But when you have, less than 10 years after he left office, a DEMOCRAT president saying "The Era of Big Government is Over", even if it is not true, shows a dramatic sea change in the perception of government.

What did Goldwater do? He wasn't even in the top office, and in the Senate he was never in leadership roles. Reagan was President. He had the bully pulpit. He did cut funding for many social programs. He constantly harped on how bad and inefficient the government was.

There is a reason they call it the Reagan Revolution and not the Goldwater Revolution.

Sorry, but any Revolution so assenine as this one hardly deserves the name- maybe all you guys are ignoring the reality that non-military discresionary spending continues upward and upward. For all the rhetoric, the Republicans in congress, when they actually took power in congress after decades in the wilderness (the real revolution), failed to curtail the government. The most they have done is shift the burden unto the state governments with endless unfunded mandates. And this president, supposedly the deciple of reagan, goes and creates vast new bureaucracies, and new spending programs.

So, if the end of big government has come, can somoene please show me the smaller government? Oh, sorry, none of you can....rhetorics and facts on the ground are different. FDR's rhetoric, or LBJ's rhetoric matched the facts on the gorund they created. All the "smaller government" words have failed utterly to actually bring about a smaller government in total, and not even just the Federal either.

Wow, grand revolt there......

What do you think Reagan Democrats were? Conservative democrats. Zell Miller and John Breaux represent that Southern democrat who would nine times out of ten vote Reagan over Carter/Mondale (even though Carter is from the South). I just gave you some examples, but go all over the South. John Edward's constuency would be Reagan Democrats. Georgia used to be run by Democrats. Aside from Zell, you had Max Cleland and Governor Roy Barnes. A vast majority of their constitutency would be Reagan democrats.

Actually imran, the "Reagan democrats" everyone spoke of were not southern protestant boys, like all the ones you mention, but MIdwest Catholic Union guys. That was the supposed magic new constituency that Reagan had brought into the Republican party reach-read up on 1984. Of course, these guys did NOT stay with the republicans.

[molly bloom]

Re: Ted Pays His Respects to those who Represent

Originally posted by Ted Striker

...and another from a woman from El Salvador thanking him for "saving her country."

Here's to you Mister President we love you!

Ted's analysis of what Reagan 'did' for El Salvador seems a little sketchy.

'In early 1982, Bonner also exposed the Salvadoran government's massacre of nearly 1,000 men, women and children at the town of El Mozote in December 1981.

Bonner's courageous reporting on the El Mozote massacre would not be corroborated until 1991. Then, a United Nations forensics team excavated the village and found hundreds of skeletons, including those of little children who had been butchered by the Salvadoran army along with their mothers and fathers. But this El Mozote war crime, like so many others in El Salvador, went unpunished, not only there but in Washington. No American official was held accountable for giving misleading testimony to Congress or covering up the
atrocity.

One U.S. government pamphlet from the mid-1980s even suggested that Nicaragua, with its navy of a few river patrol boats, might somehow bottle up the U.S. fleet in New Orleans as it tried to resupply American troops in Europe during a hypothetical World War III with the Soviet Union. As farfetched as these scenarios were, these apocalyptic visions justified to the Reagan team almost any action, even countenancing atrocities against civilian populations in Central America and deceiving the American people at home. '

http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/mexico/usa/secsal.html

'El Salvador.

"The Reagan Missionary Position." No, not a sexual position for raping American churchwomen (for that would be in poor taste), but a position as in a stand. The Reagan Missionary Position, formulated by high officials Al Haig and Jeane Kirkpatrick, is that the three nuns and one layworker were pro-Marxist "political activists" and thus hardly innocent. Besides, their deaths were accidents, not planned executions. Haig explained that the churchwomen ran or were perceived to have run a "roadblock" and may have gotten caught in a guerrilla-National Guard "exchange of fire." Were they also raped in the crossfire? The Reagan Missionary Position's lips say no, but his eyes say yes. '

http://www.counterpunch.org/hans06072004.html

'In early 1992, the war came to an official end when a United Nations commission, after a year-and-a-half effort, finally got the warring sides to agree to a cease fire and a peace agreement. A major offensive launched by the guerrillas in late 1989-in which they "brought the war home" to wealthy neighborhoods and Americans in the capital-had made clear to Washington and its Salvadorean allies, once again, finally, that the war was unwinnable. In February 1990, Gen. Maxwell Thurman, the head of the US Southern Command, told Congress that the El Salvador government was not able to defeat the rebels and that the only way to end the fighting was through negotiation. '

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Blum/ElSalvador_KH.html

El Mozote- Reagan's allies against the 'commies' in action:

'A boy named Chepe, age 7, was the only child to survive the siege. He later described the terrors he witnessed:

"They slit some of the kids' throats, and many they hanged from the tree ... The soldiers kept telling us, 'You are guerrillas and this is justice. This is justice.' Finally, there were only three of us left. I watched them hang my brother. He was two years old. I could see that I was going to be killed soon, and I thought it would be better to die running, so I ran. I slipped through the soldiers and dived into the bushes. They fired into the bushes, but none of their bullets hit me." '

"....there is sufficient evidence that in the days preceding and following the El Mozote massacre, troops participating in 'Operation Rescue' massacred the non-combatant civilian population in La Joya canton, in the villages of La Rancheria, Jocote Amatillo y Los Toriles, and in Cerro Pando canton."

http://www.parascope.com/articles/0197/el_mozin.htm

[Ted Striker]

Ted didn't MAKE AN ANALYSIS in the first place.

I READ a CARD left by someone from EL SALVADOR.


Nice cut and pastes though.


It seems your analysis of what I wrote is a bit sketchy.

[Jaguar]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
'Cause he's smarter than you?

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
Ted didn't MAKE AN ANALYSIS in the first place.

I READ a CARD left by someone from EL SALVADOR.


Nice cut and pastes though.


It seems your analysis of what I wrote is a bit sketchy.

No you didn't - that was the point.

My analysis of what you have written is that ignorance induces bliss.

[Ted Striker]

You really have absolutley no idea what you are talking about, and the fact that you consistently have to provide mountains of cut and paste articles only proves the point.

The POINT I was making was people (like you) who read too much without actually ever getting a feel for what the people involved in the situation actually think about it, look at the situation as being completely evil, an show the real true ignorance.

Did you ever stop and think that the situation isn't black and white, and that maybe people from the country in question actually supported something that went on? Did you realize that there is a large population of Salvadorians in Los Angeles and most of their experience and knowledge of the situation is something I would draw upon and trust, instead of some stuck up relocated Pommie with an elevated sense of importance and a broomstick stuck up his ass?

So thanks for showing me your real ignorance, next time get your head out of a book and actually meet some real people who lived the situation first hand.

Thanks for playing though.