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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: aladin who wrote (122918)	1/8/2004 11:33:04 AM
From: Win Smith	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Not that I want to get into the problem of conservative dogma masquerading as history, but American influence "freeing the east" is pretty debatable. The immediate cause of the collapse of the East German government was the mass exodus of Ossies to West Germany . The freedom of movement that allowed this to happen arguably owes a lot more to the long term effects of Kissinger's détente and its predecessor, Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik, than it does to Reagan era saber-rattling. American influence had its part, but Europe played a role too. I know it's the holiest of conservative dogma that "Reagan won the cold war", and if your version of "history" has to fit on a bumper sticker, I guess that's ok. But that version of history willfully ignores a lot of conventional reality. Not that that's unusual or anything. The other issue here is that the local never-ending demonization of Germany for not getting with the W program totally ignores the tremendous effort and expense involved in German reunification. Anyway, Germany is hardly unique in not getting with the program, most of the rest of the world doesn't much hold with it.