Intro: "When you're listening to the many tributes to President Ronald Reagan, often for his talent making Americans feel better about themselves, you might want to spend a minute thinking about the many atrocities in Latin America and elsewhere that Reagan aided, covered up or shrugged off in his inimitable 'aw shucks' manner."
President Reagan, wearing an 'I'm a Contra too' pin, with Nicaraguan Contra leader Adolfo Calero, and NSC advisor LtCol Oliver North standing in the background, 01/01/84. (photo: TIME-LIFE/Getty Images)
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Yes, a number of presidents have committed crimes and kept to a foul agenda, but none have been lauded as Reagan as some sort of god.
As a DC resident during his administration, I well recall how he undermined and demoralized the federal bureaucracy. It's easy to demonize the federal govt. after you underfund and undermine it with incompetent or even hostile cabinet appointments. Remember Ann Gorsuch and James Watt at the EPA and Interior dept. respectively? Yeah, he was charismatic and charming, but one judges a person for what they value and what they create. He made Americans FEEL good about themselves rather than BE good. Big difference.
He said that the reporting about the invasion -- both that of Reagan cheerleaders and that of administration critics -- was wrong about the Cubans who were there. At the time, Reagan cheerleaders claimed they were a tough force of elite soldiers, beaten by the US only because of brilliant planning of the operation, and administration critics said they were just noncombatant advisors.
My friend said that the Cubans weren't particularly competent soldiers, but they were definitely soldiers rather than just advisors -- poorly trained and equipped, but definitely shooting back. And the victory was certainly not due to great planning -- it was because the US had vastly superior numbers, firepower, and training. The soldiers won the conflict, in spite of the Pentagon's best efforts to foul it up.
In context, however, I think that we look at these events, Bay of pigs with JFK, Resuce mission with Carter, the Sudan Rx and Afghanistan Al Qaeda camp attacks, etc., as military screw-ups (as far as the actual events go on the ground) and no reflection upon the President. A better guage would be to look at how successful they were with correcting the situation.. and as capturing Bin Laden goes to show, and Abu Ghraib in Iraq - not very. In the moment, the President is dependent on what the ole system is telling him.
I can see why they want to throttle the Internet as it is the only way that people can find out the real truth behind the Spin that governments led by both parties generate to cover their tracks.
They have so much to be ashamed of, but they will probably never be brought to justice for all the wrong-doing they have brought to the people in our fragile world. We have learned to hate and reduce our "enemies" to less than human all on the instigation of the political/military/industrial/banking complex.
Sad, very sad how easily we are duped.
It was Pres. Clinton, who being completely aware of the world's unfolding pandemic, turned his back on the issue. Progressive columnist and frequent guest on MSNBC, David Corn wrote in 2002, in "Too little, too late
How many times is Bill Clinton going to apologize to Africa?"
"The prevailing view was, these people should die quietly. A cynical guess at Clinton's motivations: AIDS in Africa, it doesn’t poll well."
On the other hand, President George W. Bush would be the man who set the historic bar on what leadership and vison was all about in proposing, passing, and implmenting a program that is world aclaimed and will save millions of lives.
In the present moment, Obama is seeking to apply the Bush model here in the US, while world HIV/Aids leaders are visably upset that Obama is not maintaining the pace established by Bush.
How many lives did bush jr. save in Iraq and Afghanistan? How many lives were saved in New York City when bush intentionally ignored warnings that al quaida was about to attack? Letting them attack sure helped push his previously written "patriot" act through Congress quickly didn't it? It also aided in his implementation of cheney's PNAC agenda didn't it? As cheney said, "the American people would never go for all of this unless we had 'another Pearl Harbor' ". I guess the 3,000 who died in New York City on that day had to be sacrificed for the greater good of the Iraqi oil suppliers. baby bush sure has a good human rights record since opening Abu Graib and Guantanamo as well, doesn't he?
Thanks but no thanks, for the "different view". I'd rather focus on reality.
But I'd added, after laying out the case, that you really exposed your hate and determined ingorance here in saying that Bush "ignored" the warnings about 9/11/. I'm confident that even Dennis Kucinich and President Obama would solidly agree with me here.
Those folks that had been preparing "daily" presidential briefings for years (I linked Clinton's too - which sounded even worse) didn't know that it was going to happen here and when or where. Don't go into that one FBI agent who got snuffed by the pathetic old system (which the Patriot
Act attempted to fix) - because not even the head of the FBI every found out - and as you should know, the CIA didn't know and neither did that other agency.
Funny, doesn't the Cheney quote sound like Rahm Emanual's view,"never let a crisis go to waste." Can't live on one-liners bb. As I said before, as a human being, you should spend some time trying to find the good in folks. See it's easy; I find a lot of good in LBJ, Nixon, Carter, Bush, Reagan, Clinton, Bush, Obama. They all cared/care deeply about their fellow man/women, and none of them would intentially do anything to hurt the country. I can also find fault in the details of each and every action and direction they all have taken.
Try a little love, OK?
The daily presidential briefs in August stated WITH CRYSTAL CLARITY that ( THEY COULD NOT SAY EXaCTLY WHEN) but Al Queda intended to hit INSIDE AMERICA.Condi Rice read it aloud, when pressed, and she was squirming a lot.
You may not remember that BUSH STAYED AT HIS RANCH ALL OF AUGUST. Some fearless leader!!
Also Madeline Allbright testified that the Clinton adm. had impressed on the incoming administration that the GREATEST DANGER we faced was from Al Queda. So you are wrong again, in attacking Clinton
Richard Clark testified that he was constantly brushed off, when he brought up the Al Queda danger, and ultimately he was reassigned.
THE IGNORANCE YOU SPEAK OF IS TOTALLY YOURS
I didn't "attack Clinton" there, you see?
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/pdbnews/Ex_B.pdf
Compares 1998 PDB, for Clinton, to the one that you're claim to be familar with.
No clarity in it at all.. they'd been saying for years, they were going to hit in the US.
100's of those things, you see - that's why they are called "daily briefings." The folks that gave this one to Bush and reviewed it with him, had no idea as to what was going to happen, either. We all knew something was up - consensus opinion was that it was to be in Europe.
You might also remember that the draft plan for taking Al Qaeda out of Afghanistan that Bush had ordered up, months before, was completed only in the week before 9/11. As was widely reported, Bush was tired of us swatting flies with these folks, and wanted to them; wnated to end it.. early on.
Clarke testified to a lot of things, including how Gore and he convinced Clinton in stepping up our program of extraordinary rendition in mid-90's, which Obama refused to end, because if we close Gitmo, it will be necessary again.
Expand your mind - think.
As I noted elsewhere-folks out there like Dennis Kucinich and Bill Clinton and President Obama would get sick to their stomachs listening to this junk you've somehow picked up.
Instead of blaming everyone else for what happened on bush's watch with bush's foreknowledge and bush's gross negligence, if not complicity; try accepting that someone on your side may be responsible for one of their own mistakes.
Expand your mind - think.
Your m.o. - I did not blame anyone else, you see..
I wouldn't even blame Richard Clarke for personally giving the OK for all those Saudi's to leave the country.
You've not raised a single significant worthwhile point - only rattle.
I'm glad we agree on something.
Could it be just POSSIBLE that you're wrong and the rest of us are right? Could it be just POSSIBLE that instead of lecturing the rest of us about our lack of civility and our lack of intelligence, you should start working on yourself and your own comments first?
Are you referring to X Dane turning the tables and pointing out your ignorance after you accused me of the same? Maybe your keyboard is working automatically and you really don't even know what you're saying. Are you aware of the insults that have come from you, or just those directed at you from others in revenge?
THAT AL QUEDA WAS DETERMINED TO STRIKE INSIDE AMERICA....... Again you obviously don't remember, that the CIA Director, George Tenet, said, I am quoting,----WE WERE ALL RUNNING AROUND WITH OUR HAIR ON FIRE, because we knew something terrible was going to happen. All August there was high tension in the White House and CIA, not in the country as a whole.
It is difficult to respond to you because you mix everything together.
The "flies" Bush was tired of swatting was in regard to Saddam. NOT Al Queda.
Obama WANTS to close Guantanamo, it is congress who will not assign money for a prison inside USA. He cannot do it by himself.
I am relieved to see that others agree with me
It's unforuntate that the FBI didn't pass up the information it knew about (flying lessons, etc.) It's horrible that the FBI and the CIA were not allowed, by law, to share intelligence info.
It terrible that the head of the CIA, etc., were running around thinking something terrible was going to happen - but believing that it was to be in Europe.. and it's too bad that we missed Bin Laden before. It's too bad we didn't go after him after the Cole - but it doesn't work like that.. it's not Cliton's fault, per say - it's not Bush's fault, per say. etc. Everybody wants to blame everyone else. It's a decadal on-going problem of not having the tools working proberly.
Bush did not know that there was an imminent attack planned in the US - not a single person involved has ever suggested such. He could have done more. Clinton could have done more. And Carter could have struck the Soviet's in a pre-emptive nuclar strike back in 1980 as he threatened to do in a personal phone call to the Soviet premier.. but he didn't. Hint - that would have changed everything, ya think? Even Chomsky says the 9/11 truthers are nuts.
Last I checked, when Bush came in the second Palistinian Intifada was raging - the economy had tanked from the Enron Dot.com era of greed and fraud.
And Bush headily adopted the European led model of the Road Map - which fell apart following horrific Sadar bombing. The Arab League had just, for the 1st time, announced that they would finally accept Israel as a viable partner and friend in the region (sure a few conditions) and what? The entire world media went silent.. that wasn't worth headlines? You can't make peace w/ no interest in peace.
Obama's 1st effort at the M/E peace process has collapsed again, as well.
Tough stuff over there.
Apparently you believe bush's side of the story regardless of how many of his own employees say he's lying.
bush DID receive a dire warning that al quaida was planning an attack IN THE U.S. WITHIN DAYS. He chose to to do nothing to stop it, then chose to rely on the blind support of his base (you) to accept the lie that he was somehow out of the loop when these warnings were coming in.
Thank you for atleast admitting that bush's buddies in Enron were responsible for the greed and fraud. You see! We DO HAVE COMMON GROUND AFTERALL! We both AGREE that bush's buddies in Enron WERE in fact guilty of the crimes they have been accused of.
Yes, I think Gov. Bush knew of them as far as their business in Texas - especially in building more wind farms than most anyone else, and in a lot of their community work. And who knows how dirty the political/business atmosphere was -- but it was Clinton who was president then - and it was his Treasury Sec. -Rubin- who teamed up with Greenspan, Geitner, Summers to deregulate, and it was Rubin who turned down the job offer with Enron, but took it with CitiCorp who held most of Enron's commercial paper -- oops, right back up to where I started - a nice circle.
But Bush decided that ANYTHING Clinton had worked on was going to be dropped.
Remember how hard Clinton tried to get a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians?? Right up to the last days of his presidency.......And what did Bush do??????? dropped it like a hot potato.
How incredibly stupid. Something as important as the Middle East peace process certainly should not have been stopped because a new administration came in......
And when did Bush take it up again????
On his way out the door!!
I do not understand, why they would not want a two state solution, for if there is only one state, before very long they will be a minority, since Arab families have more children.
The difference will be greater and greater, and eventually they will be out voted. They can not "keep down" a Palestinian population much larger than their own. I simply don't understand it.
The Israelis are smart and hard working, they must be able to see the writing on the wall.
The Palestinians need and deserve their own state. For their sake, and ours I hope it happens before something awful happens.
Bush did a lot of terrible stuff intentionally -- condoning torture, following in Reagan's bloody footsteps, for example -- but being asleep at the wheel in advance of 9-11 was mere incompetence.
If it was only incompetence, it was also born out of an arrogance that didn't require him to take similar advice when it was offered to him by the C.I.A. or the F.B.I. Of course, after the fact, bush was ready to lay blame for the "lack of intelligence" on the very people he didn't respect enough to listen to when it might have helped.
cont.
Then there's the fact that cheney and rumsfeld were specifically looking for evidence to tie the attacks to Iraq, even if it had to be manufactured. To me, it sounds more like bush had a pre-existing agenda and a playbook for realizing that agenda. The attacks on 9-11 served as a pretext for putting that agenda in motion. Any doubts about there being a pre-existing agenda could be alleviated by checking out what cheny's group PNAC was proposing back in the 90s.
On balance, the Bush administration was a disaster of corruption and incompetence, but fighting AIDS was a needle of good in a haystack of harm.
Reminds me of the silly Medicare part D smear. (yes - I'd done it differently too - but that's the problem with over 500 people in congress bickering). Bush proposed to provide drug benefits to Seniors for 1st time in history. The D's proposed a $1.2 trillion budget - then $800 billion. In the end, it was a ten year $400 billion tab that got approved. It was coming in under budget a couple of years back. Funny how everyone, but the seniors who greatly loved having a drug benefit, used the program against Bush - 1.) as a budget buster; 2.) for not doing enough.
Politics is a funny thing.
WAS NEVER PAID FOR, NEITHER WERE THE TWO WARS BUSH STARTED!!
TO REALLY SCREW UP THE COUNTRY AND THE FUTURE OF OUR CHILDREN...AND GRANDCHILDREN
HE ALSO GAVE BIG TAX CUTS TO THE RICHEST PEOPLE IN THE COUNTRY.
Bush was a one man destruction band.
Tax cuts have never before been given in wartime.
Bush's ACTIONS WERE CRIMINALLY INCOMPETENT.
AIDS funding skyrocketed in the 1980s, almost doubling each year from 1983 — when the media started blaring headlines — from $44 million to $103 million, $205 million, $508 million, $922 million, and then $1.6 billion in 1988.
Reagan did, first speak of the need to increase funding to fight HIV/Aids, during a press conference in 1985. I'd suggest that he was more progressive at the time (comparitively - seeing as how little we knew then, compared to the 1990's) than Bill Clinton was during his term.
I, once again reger to David Corn here:
Too little, too late - How many times is Bill Clinton going to apologize to Africa?
http://www.alternet.org/story/13632/clinton_pardon_me,_africa/
Not to mention the millions who died in Rwanda, DR Congo, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, and of course "blood diamonds."
National Institutes of Health, by 1990 there were over 5.5 million cases of HIV in Africa. I guess they have a liberal agenda too.
Again, forgive me for being so ignorant about history compared to you, but didn't President Clinton take office in 1993?
Maybe President Clinton did too little, as the rest of the world is still guilty, but being "too late" is hardly his fault - especially, since the current hypothesis is that HIV began crossing from monkeys to infecting humans as far back as the 1930's due to deforestation from colonial rubber plantations.
Now, if you wanted to pinpoint the decade during which AIDs first became known as a global pandemic and during which the most could have been done to stop it in its tracks, that would have to be the 1980s. Now, let's see... Which Democratic President could we blame for being in office during that decade?
Oops! I guess history has a liberal agenda as well.
I saw a survey a few years back - amongst HS and college students nationally - wow, right when they are being taught history. A much larger percentage blamed Nixon for Vietnam, than LBJ. In fact .. in the first question.. "which US president do you associate with the Vietnam War - Nixon was the leading answer.
It would be helpful if they remembered that it was LBJ who sent 586,000 of our troops over there, and it was Nixon, as he promised (it was an ugly out - but) started bringing them home as soon as he was President.
I find that you live in that world of shallowness. We can't move forward with that kind of thinking.
This is why Obama embraces Ronald Reagan. Looking forward... finding the best in everyone.
Try it. At least try to find something good in everyone.
You are right Johnson WAS the one who escalated the war in Vietnam, and Nixon
DID end it; but certainly NOT as soon as he became president.
You need to read more history too before you lecture.
For the 100th time stop lecturing the rest of us about the civility you are incapable of participating in. You're right. President Johnson was WAY TOO CONSERVATIVE. Maybe we should have gotten out of Viet Nam in 1968 when the overwhelming majority of Americans wanted us to. The only thing was that nixon promised to end the war as soon as he took office and people actually fell for it. He, like reagan, cut a deal with a foreign country behind the back of a sitting American President without the consent of the Pentagon or Congress, thereby committing TREASON. Like reagan a few years later, he told South Vietnam to sit tight and not go through with the peace treaty that was already on the table, but to wait until he entered office, so he could get them a better deal. Five years later, the U.S. left Vietnam without ANY deal, thanks to nixon. Of course, I'm sure you're a HUGE fan of President Kennedy who, ironically, shortly before a repuglican put an end to his Presidency with a "Second Amendment remedy", was planning an exit strategy that would have removed ALL American forces by 1965.
http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2003/11/22/vietnam/
cont.
I know you don't believe in links, but here's a "wee bit of history" for ya:
http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2003/11/22/vietnam/
Unfortunately, conservatives at the time felt that withdrawal would be a show of weakness in front of the commies, so the war lingered, with the "bipartisan cooperation" of a CONSERVATIVE Democratic President all to willing to "find something good" in conservative ideology.
The shallow lectures about civility coming from you, as one of the most insulting individuals, on these threads are not fooling anyone.
1959 760
1960 900
1961 3,025
1962 11,300
1963 16,300
1964 23,300
1965 184,300
1966 385,300
1967 485,600
1968 536,100
Enter Nixon
1969 475,200
1970 334,600
1971 156,800
1972 24,200
1973 50
Also, last I checked, the Democratic Party controlled both chambers of Congress, during all of those years (LBJ and Nixon) -even the years when LBJ was hiding the majority of the cost of the war from Congress. I'm quite sure that would be considered impeachable, today.
Why don't you go check what President Kennedy's plans were right before he was removed from office by a “Second Amendment remedy”? While you’re at it, you could check out why President Kennedy chose Johnson as his running mate in the first place - HINT: it was because Kennedy was considered too liberal and Johnson was a known conservative. Also, while you’re busy being our “fact checker”, why don't you go back check who it was that started bombing Cambodia?
The last I checked nixon came to office promising to end American involvement in Vietnam IMMEDIATELY. When pressed on that issue by David Frost (after leaving office), he said, "well that's just one of those things you say to get elected".
The last I checked, 20,863 more American lives were lost in Vietnam AFTER the time nixon PROMISED to end our involvement.
By the way, how much do the "wars" in Iraq and Afghanistan cost us? Answer: YOU DON'T KNOW. It's classified information. If it's impeachable, then, a repugnican controlled Congress wasn't doing it's job by impeaching bush jr. when the costs became a state secret. Any article you read quoting the actual costs of these "wars" is nothing more than an estimate. And, like everything else partisan, especially when arguing against people like you, the estimates vary WILDLY.
cont.
So, once again, thank you for arbitrarily picking 1/10th of the complete story and running with it as though it were the whole truth.
The real world is a bit more complicated than your rhetoric, regardless of how much you seek to “educate” and lecture the rest of us until we align ourselves with your version of history.
"It was liberals who were being represented by the only party willing to even listen to them that were protesting"
Of course I meant to write:
"It was liberals who were NOT being represented by the only party willing to even listen to them that were protesting"
So let me pose this question then; Does one bad deed (or failing) wash another? The article is about PRAISING REAGAN and not about praising Clinton. It purports to say that Reagan doesn't deserve the praise and it makes a good argument about that. Your post tries to change the subject. Can we agree to stay on a topic? If you think Reagan deserves the praise, offer a convincing rebuttal to the points made. If you can't, then can we agree that we ALL should be more careful about who we are led to admire?
[quote name="forparity"]A different view...
It was Pres. Clinton, who being completely aware of the world's unfolding pandemic, turned his back on the issue. Progressive columnist and frequent guest on MSNBC, David Corn wrote in 2002, in "Too little, too late
How many times is Bill Clinton going to apologize to Africa?"
The fact that he and nixon are now both swimming together naked in a lake of fire is not enough justice, as far as I'm concerned. Hopefully, this nation will recover from his presidency completely, in time to celebrate the 100th anniversary of his death.
"You know things are going pretty rough when people start remembering REAGAN NOSTALGICALLY!"
Reagan loved to say Government IS NOT THE SOLUTION, GOVERNMENT IS THE PROBLEM.
His administration certainly was, and so was W's UGH.
I think comparing how the Democrats in Congress failed to do their job in the 80's with the way repugs chose President Clinton's term as "pay back time" for nixon, is a good lesson, still applicable today. This is why lofty words like "greater good", "cooperation", and "civility" only come up when repugnicans are at a disadvantage, and why Democrats need to learn that it's a two-way street. Cooperation is NEVER unilateral.
Democrats in Congress who had power to hold him accountable for his crimes, were enablers of reagan.
Some things never change.
Right-wingers hide their heads in the sand about this kind of thing because ignorance is bliss.
Parties mean nothing to me. Dem or Rep--the title doesn't matter. It's the man -- the MAN. The two above happen to be Rep,-- the party that seems to attract the worst kind of MAN. Yet, as Nader says, Tweedledee and Tweedledum(mer) The "new" great communicator seems as helpless as a babe in a diaper. Either that or the greatest con-man who has ever been born. Talk about hornswoggling his followers.
Although I voted for Nader, I had hopes for the new Dem. But once OB began appointing his Cabinet, I soon lost them ("Sal" at Interior, fergawdsake?) Bailing out Banks, fergawdsake? Creating a "new" Health system--as bad as the non-system it is supposed to have up-graded? [Made the bloodsucking insurance industry quite thrilled I'm certain (they backed it all the way)]. PLEASE inform me --are we, is the nation, any better off than under the two monsters cited above?
Where is a plan like that of FDR? Where is a NEW New Deal---a BETTER Deal for the average folk? OB promised "change"? (Oh that's right --to paraphrase --change means more of the same. Well we got THAT alright.
My last word to anyone who reads this-- stop the partisan politics and bickering between two evils (i.e. corporate shills ALL). Vote for a MAN, not a Party.
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