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The first is insignificant on a practical level, and the second is merely rhetoric.
It seems you can't dispute what was brought up in the OP though?
I think the answer is "no:"
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dale Cooper
I barely read it and it went immediately out of my mind. I'm not going to waste yet more time reading it again. It's nothing but hot air. I don't need to dispute it. I know without question how I feel and don't need some goofball making up nonsense.
I have always said Reagan was an idiot. The amnesty to the illegals was the start of the immigration problem and look what immigration is today. It's a disaster!
Like I said, the USSR had been on the verge of collapse since Nixon's presidency. Afghanistan just accelerated it. His speeches were just empty talking points, just like Obama's.
Reagan just happened to be at the right place at the right time.
You're wrong and.
I suppose oil production increased all on its own, huh?
Quote:
After the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, King Fahd joined with the United States to aid Afghans fighting the Russians. Hume Horan, a former United States ambassador to Saudi Arabia, wrote in a 2004 article for the American Enterprise Institute that William J. Casey, then director of central intelligence, visited the king in 1987.
The American brought a shiny, detailed Kalashnikov rifle. Its stock featured a brass plaque saying that the weapon had been taken from the body of a Russian officer.
"Mr. Casey might as well have been giving the keys to the Kingdom of God itself," Mr. Horan wrote. "The king rose, flourished the weapon, and struck a martial pose."
Why was that important? Because it dealt a crushing blow to the Soviet economy and increased economic activity in the U.S.
Then you have the propaganda campaign...
Quote:
Less than three weeks before his meeting with the Pope in 1982, the President signed a secret national-security-decision directive (NSDD 32) that authorized a range of economic, diplomatic and covert measures to "neutralize efforts of the U.S.S.R." to maintain its hold on Eastern Europe. In practical terms, the most important covert operations undertaken were those inside Poland. The primary purposes of NSDD 32 were to destabilize the Polish government through covert operations involving propaganda and organizational aid to Solidarity; the promotion of human rights, particularly those related to the right of worship and the Catholic Church; economic pressure; and diplomatic isolation of the communist regime. The document, citing the need to defend democratic reform efforts throughout the Soviet empire, also called for increasing propaganda and underground broadcasting operations in Eastern Europe, actions that Reagan's aides and dissidents in Eastern Europe believe were particularly helpful in chipping away at the notion of Soviet invincibility.
As Republican Congressman Henry Hyde, a member of the House Intelligence Committee from 1985 to 1990, who was apprised of some of the Administration's covert actions, observes, "In Poland we did all of the things that are done in countries where you want to destabilize a communist government and strengthen resistance to that. We provided the supplies and technical assistance in terms of clandestine newspapers, broadcasting, propaganda, money, organizational help and advice. And working outward from Poland, the same kind of resistance was organized in the other communist countries of Europe."
Lech Walesa
President of Poland from 1990 to 1995, & winner of the 1983 Nobel Peace Prize
GDANSK, Poland — When talking about Ronald Reagan, I have to be personal. We in Poland took him so personally. Why? Because we owe him our liberty. This can’t be said often enough by people who lived under oppression for half a century, until communism fell in 1989.Poles fought for their freedom for so many years that they hold in special esteem those who backed them in their struggle. Support was the test of friendship. President Reagan was such a friend. His policy of aiding democratic movements in Central and Eastern Europe in the dark days of the Cold War meant a lot to us.
There's is no way anyone who has actually studied communism, the Soviet Union and Reagan's presidency could ever come to the conclusion that Reagan was a silent player who did nothing in the Cold War. You've apparently sucked up the liberal lies and rewriting of history like a two dollar ***** and now you're repeating it as if you had even the slightest of clues as to what you were talking about.
Any reasonably intelligent person with a basic grasp of recent global history should be aware that Saint Reagan didn't just magically snap his fingers and say "Tear down this wall!" resulting in the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union.
That's revisionist nonsense.
There are all kinds of reasons the SU was heading south anyway (including becoming nearly bankrupted by their involvement in Afghanistan--sound familiar?)
But actual information and the reultant knowledge clearly shows Reagan didn't topple the Soviet Union single-handedly.
Sorry to spoil your little fantasy bedtime story.
Quote:
One man who spoke up promptly was Ronald Reagan, then a candidate for the Republican nomination for president. In a campaign speech in Florida in January 1980, Reagan urged Washington to provide Stinger antiaircraft missiles to Afghans fighting the Red Army. He called specifically for supplying the rebels with "shoulder-launched, heat-seeking missiles that can shoot down Soviet helicopter gunships."
In due course, the Carter administration did aid the mujahedeen. Then in November 1980, Reagan was elected president, and throughout his eight years in office he continued assisting the Afghan rebels. Those American Stingers ultimately became the bullet to the chest of the Soviet campaign, central to the Kremlin's devastating withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989, and a vital contribution to the demise of the USSR and the end of the Cold War.
You can keep repeating the lie but virtually no one believes you.
Quote:
Although the specter of a CIA-bin Laden link has been raised often since 9/11, no evidence has emerged to back it up. The CIA did covertly finance and arm Islamic fundamentalist Afghan factions in the fight against the Soviets, but the CIA has long maintained that it did not support the Arab fighters — including bin Laden — who came to Afghanistan to fight in solidarity with a Muslim country.
The CIA official in charge of the U.S. covert operation in support of the Afghan fighters during the late 1980s told us Paul is perpetuating an “urban myth.”
The CIA website states unequivocally “that the CIA never employed, paid, or maintained any relationship whatsoever with bin Laden.”
In a 1993 interview, bin Laden himself said, “Personally neither I nor my brothers saw evidence of American help.”
Several independent journalists and authors who have extensively researched and written about the CIA’s involvement in the Afghanistan conflict with the Soviets in the 1980s support the CIA’s contention. For example, Peter Bergen, a national security analyst for CNN who interviewed bin Laden in 1997, told us, “There is no evidence that the CIA funded or armed bin Laden or even knew who he was until 1993.”
What do you mean all the "OTHER" leftists? I'm as far from a leftist as you can get (voluntaryist anarcho-libertarian).
YOU are the one supporting leftist ideology via your support for a leftist Keynesian like Ronald Reagan.
And I suggest you read some history books (not via the U.S. government propaganda machine) and do some basic learning of economics 101. Communism is completely unsustainable and it was patently obvious that the USSR had been on the decline for over 20 years before 1991.
You've been thoroughly dismissed and the only thing you can come up with is that I need to read some more and take some classes because I can't possibly know anything because I don't read anarchist propaganda?
Do you folks even think about what you write on these forums?
This guy somehow thinks the leftist Keynesian Reagan waved a magic wand and presto, the USSR fell--conveniently ignoring the constant state of war the USSR had been for the previous 50 years.
Kind of sounds like the USSA.
No, they didn't wave a magic wand. What part of NSDD 75 are you having trouble understanding?
Quote:
U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union will consist of three
elements: external resistance to Soviet imperialism; internal
pressure on the USSR to weaken the sources of Soviet imperialism;
and negotiations to eliminate, on the basis of strict reciprocity,
outstanding disagreements. Specifically, U.S. tasks are:
1.
To contain and over time reverse Soviet expansionism by
competing effectively on a sustained basis with the Soviet
Union in all international arenas -- particularly in the overall military balance and in geographical regions of priority concern to the United States. This will remain the primary focus of U.S. policy toward the USSR.
2. To promote, within the narrow limits available to us, the process of change in the Soviet Union toward a more plura- listic political and economic system in which the power of the privileged ruling elite is gradually reduced. The U.S.
recognizes that Soviet aggressiveness has deep roots in the
internal system, and that relations with the USSR should
therefore take into account whether or not they help to
strengthen this system and its capacity to engage in
aggression.
3.
To engage the Soviet Union in negotiations to attempt to
reach agreements which protect and enhance U.S. interests
and which are consistent with the principle of strict
reciprocity and mutual interest. This is important when the Soviet Union is in the midst of a process of political succession.
1.
Military Strategy: The U.S. must modernize its military
forces -- both nuclear and conventional -- so that Soviet leaders
perceive that the U.S. is determined never to accept a second
place or a deteriorating military posture. 'Soviet calculations
of possible war outcomes under any contingency must always result
in outcomes so unfavorable to the USSR that there would be no
incentive for Soviet leaders to initiate an attack
2.
Economic Policy: U.S. policy on economic relations with the
USSR must serve strategic and foreign policy goals as well as
economic interests. In this context, U.S. objectives are:
Above all, to ensure that East-West economic relations do
not facilitate the Soviet military buildup. This requires
prevention of the transfer of technology and equipment that
would make a substantial contribution directly or indirectly
to Soviet military power.
3.
Political Action: U.S. policy must have an ideological
thrust which clearly affirms the superiority of U.S. and Western
values of individual dignity and freedom, a free press, free
trade unions, free enterprise, and political democracy over the
repressive features of Soviet Communism. We need to review and
significantly strengthen U.S. instruments of political action
including: (a) The President's London initiative to support
democratic forces; (b) USG efforts to highlight Soviet human
rights violations; and (c) U.S. radio broadcasting policy. The
U.S. should
Oh, lookie, who still doesn't understand that the entire point of SDI was to challenge them further...
Hell, I'll let Gorbachev's actions point out to you how important SDI was in negotiations with the SU...
Quote:
In the 1985 Geneva summit, progress on arms control had foundered over Gorbachev's insistence on scrapping SDI, and Reagan's commitment to its development. The October 1986 summit between Reagan and Gorbachev, in Reykjavik, Iceland, also ended in a stalemate. At this second summit, Reagan still refused to budge on SDI, and Gorbachev refused to make further concessions without compromise. But at the third summit, in Washington, DC, in December 1987, Gorbachev yielded to Reagan's terms. The USSR was in dire economic straits, and Gorbachev needed a respite from the arms race.
So, are you going to act like SDI had no influence on Soviet actions and policy? I mean, if it was a meaningless attempt why was it so important to Gorbachev for the U.S. to drop it?
Yeah... You people are so ill-informed that you don't have a coherent message. The only thing you can do is write one-liners in some hopes that you'll be able to pass it off as facts.
Last edited by CaseyB; 06-10-2013 at 04:07 AM..
Reason: rude
No policies needed--he got a magic wand from crackpot psychic Jeanne Dixon and waved it at Communism!
What part of "we win, they lose" don't you understand? What part of detente is so hard for you to understand and what part of containment confounds you?
I'll give you a hint. One of those things is not similar to the others.
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I'm as far from a leftist as you can get (voluntaryist anarcho-libertarian).
