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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (535042)	2/3/2004 9:07:58 PM
From: Gus	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

I didn't know Reagan was the President who won the cold war during The Cuban Missile Crisis. Let's see. The Bay of Pigs in 1961? Ike planned it. RFK championed it. JFK executed it......timidly. Fortunately, he had the CIA to blame. This was probably the first time that our politicians learned to appreciate the full potential of the CIA as a punching bag. The Cuban missile rematch, er, crisis in 1962? You do know that we bartered away our missiles in Turkey for the missiles in Cuba to end the crisis, right? Or maybe you just prefer the technicolor version of that story?<g>

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (535042)	2/4/2004 9:14:22 AM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

The Cuban Missile Crisis? The net effect of that was to put an end to the (relative) liberalization of the Khruschev years. Afterwards, there was the invasion of Czechslovakia; the alliance with Vietnam, and support of its regional hegemony; the sponsoring of Cuban adventures in Central America and Angola; support of "peace initiatives" meant to undermine NATO; the invasion of Afghanistan; and the threat to invade Poland, if Jarewzelski had not declared martial law. I am sure I am forgetting some things. Although Carter, after an embarrassing lag, was beginning to make a serious response to some of these adventures, Reagan came in and increased the credibility of our responses, especially when he marshalled the resolve of NATO to meet the threat of intermediate range missiles, despite the vociferous "peace movement". The decision to pursue SDI was brilliant. It scared the Soviet Union, because they could not keep up, and were in danger of revolt on the issue of the poor consumer sector of the economy. Thus, they launched a more credible peace initiative, giving Kremlin reformers some real power. Fortunately, Reagan both helped to keep Gorbachev in power long enough for glasnost to undermine the system, and kept challenging him to prove his good faith through further reform. By the time the Kremlin was ready to topple Gorbachev, it was too late, and the people themselves protected the Duma. After that, it was just a matter of how the devolution would work out in detail. Of course Nixon deserves credit for "triangulation". It enhanced our security. But it did not suffice to win the Cold War. If you read anything about Reagan's service, you would know that he did not just "make VD films", but all manner of training films, that he was acting CO of the unit, that he had a security clearance and was one of the first to see raw footage of film from the extermination camps, and that he was considered very good, both as executive officer and acting CO. Furthermore, he had a number of years fighting off Communist control of Hollywood unions as president of the Screen Actors Guild, and was frequently subject to death threats because of it. Anyway, if you learn a little history, you might find it useful in the formulation of opinions......