History 101, Looking at Ronald Reagan
Maybe when confronting terrorism, we should look to history to guide us to victory. One way to approach this is focusing on which president of modern time had the most effective and successful Foreign Policy. There's no doubt in my mind that this would be Ronald Reagan and his administration.Ronald Reagan was the one that established, in recent times, the notion around the world that we would not crumble under pressure. His optimism about America and his strength when dealing with other nations was key. He took the offense against the Soviet Union. Everyone told him that being so forceful would lead to nuclear war with them. But he knew that if we looked like appeasers, we would eventually be forced to become appeasers. Look what happened, he destroyed Jimmy Carter in the election (an appeaser), and he destroyed the Soviet Union (who wanted appeasment from us). Backing down from the Soviet Union would have been disasterous for the people living there, and for the rest of the world. He told them to "Tear down that wall," and they did.
People told him that the Stratigic Defense Initiative would do more harm than good, but he saw that it was necessary to the well-being of the world, so he continued with it. Because of his policies of Peace Through Strength, we won the Cold War. All of this in the name of Freedom and Liberty.
Sound familiar? Hmmmm, kind of like what the Bush administration is doing now. We are taking a GREAT offense against the terrorists, and because of this, we haven't had a terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9-11. We have thrown al Qaeda into disarray, and we took a murderous dictator out of power.
For years the Clinton Administration left terrorist attacks unchecked, and our reputation for defending freedom and ourselves was in the toilet.
George W. Bush made us a force to be reckoned with once again.
Fighting for truth, justice, and the capitalistic way
posted by YoungRightWinger @ 8:33 PM Link to this Post
2 Comments:
For a point of reference, here is a book discussing what has become recognized as the first battle in the war on terrorism. It's pretty high level, and well written. I was there for the entire 4 months of the Prairie Fire and El Dorado Canyon ops.
I found this quote the other day and think it fits well here...more wisdom from our forefathers: “There is but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging the future but by the past.” – Patrick Henry
Keep pushing forward. You're doing good work.
Hey-ya;
I'd like to point out a few flaws in YRW's reasoning that don't involve descending into tin-foil hat territory. See, YRW claims that Ronald Reagan was the "president of modern time had the most effective and successful Foreign Policy."
That's not true.
Now DMP is right when he says that Reagan certainly helped hasten the demise of the Soviet empire. But is that the greatest accomplishment of any modern president? I don't think so. It didn't prevent chaos in ex-Soviet republics like Bosnia and Chechnya. As we can see from Vlamir Putin, it didn't even signal the end of athoritarianism in Russia itself.
Other presidents have done things that were greater accomplishments. President Kennedy and the Missile Crisis spring immediately to mind. And the Camp David accords, while a failure, were still an incredibly difficult acheivement. But the most impressive foreign policy accomplishment since World War II was President Nixon's opening of relations with China.
Further, focusing only on the positives ignores some of the serious negative aspects of the Reagan administration. Leaving asside the fact that President Reagan stood by while the crack, poverty and AIDS decimated the inner cities, more of his appointees were indicted for crimes in office than any other president, including Tricky Dick. And the crimes were more serious: the Iran-Contra affair involves well-documented evidence that the Reagan administration sold guns to terrorists.
That's hardly tin-foil hat stuff, boys.
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