Ronald Reagan.

Yes he died, not a very nice thing.

But after seeing so many ****ing people on tv saying crap like "he won the cold war... saved us all blah blah blah" it just makes me think, WHAT THE BLOODY HELL!? Have these people no grasp of real events? Have they ever heard of Gorbachev?! He deserves twice as much credit as that nut job Reagan, but of course..hes not American.


And suddenly, Reagan has been turned into some kind of uber-President, despite as I said, the fact he was a nut job, oh and he pretty much made Al Qaeda what they are;

Reagan tried to cut federal funding for school lunches for the poor. He tried to have ketchup reclassified as a vegetable to save money. Senator Heinz gave a speech against this move. He said that ketchup is a condiment, not a vegetable, and that he should know

Reagan's aggression led him to shape our world in most unfortunate ways. Although it would be an exaggeration to say that Ronald Reagan created al-Qaeda, it would not be a vast exaggeration. The Carter administration began the policy of supporting the radical Muslim holy warriors in Afghanistan who were waging an insurgency against the Soviets after their invasion of that country. But Carter only threw a few tens of millions of dollars at them. By the mid-1980s, Reagan was giving the holy warriors half a billion dollars a year. His officials strong-armed the Saudis into matching the U.S. contribution, so that Saudi Intelligence chief Faisal al-Turki turned to Bin Laden to funnel the money to the Afghans. This sort of thing was certainly done in coordination with the Reagan administration. Even the Pakistanis thought that Reagan was a wild man, and balked at giving the holy warriors ever more powerful weapons. Reagan sent Orrin Hatch to Beijing to try to talk the Chinese into pressuring the Pakistanis to allow the holy warriors to receive stingers and other sophisticated ordnance. The Pakistanis ultimately relented, even though they knew there was a severe danger that the holy warriors would eventually morph into a security threat in their own right.

What about the Iran-contra scandal, in which weapons were illegally sold to Iran and the money illegally used to fund right-wing bands in Nicaragua, was, in many ways, worse than Watergate, and tremendously more constitutionally troubling than Bill Clinton's gropings.

----


"At our meeting in Geneva, the U.S. President said that if the earth faced an invasion by extraterrestials, the United States and the Soviet Union would join forces to repel such an invasion. I shall not dispute the hypothesis, though I think it's early yet to worry about such an intrusion..."
Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev 17 Feb 1987

But he's not American, therefore he is evil.

No he was a commie therefore he was evil.

Lets face it every big event like this seems to have only 1 hero in it. Take Mandella for example. South Africa would still be under apartheid now if it wasn't for De Klerk i think it was wanting to reshape his party. Mandella and him had alot to do with it but it's only mandella you hear about.

the only example I can think about where all involved got some form of credit is the Good Friday Agreement and that doesn't really say much on account of it being a sham.

yah but Reagan did bollocks all compared to Gorby


As Keylor says “Gorbachev drastically scaled back Soviet military and political commitments across the globe” Russia first pulled out of Afghanistan, then removed Soviet interests from the Horn of Africa, whilst later using their influence (and co-operating with America) to attempt to diffuse tensions in the Middle East.

Gorbachev came to power in Russia amidst a period of low production, low consumer buying (because simply there was no money) and the long-standing ethnic conflicts in the Union itself were beginning to become more apparent everyday, as was the lack of a way to solve them. For Gorbachev to deal with the social and economic problems at home would have been hard enough on its own, but to try and keep up the arms race with America was surely impossible, Gorbachev did not subscribe to the Leninist hard-line thinking that war was inevitable, he was more interested in the reform of the Soviet economy. This ‘new thinking’ in foreign policy – talk of ‘common goals’ – was revolutionary for Russia, his keenness to come to agreement with Reagan and later Bush over nuclear weapons was clear. Yet this was not because he was afraid of the Americans, as a Marxist he knew that if the economy of the USSR collapsed then she would be powerless and would fall to nothingness, which was the last thing Gorbachev wanted. The American-induced drop in oil prices also made it far more difficult for the Soviets main arms customers, places like Iraq and Iraq, to continue their trade deals and purchase more Soviet weaponry which was a further blow to the Soviet income. Foreign industrial projects also had to be scrapped; a Renault car factory, two British chemical plants, and the purchase of Japanese and U.S. machinery due to a lack of hard currency to back them with. To Gorbachev it was becoming increasingly clear that in order to reform the Soviet economy it first would be necessary to reduce substantially the enormous expenditure going to their military-industrial complex. Much of the impromptu Iceland Summit in 1986 was centred on Gorbachev's attempt to convince Reagan of the importance of scrapping SDI.


“When Gorbachev set off on the road to Glasnost he opened public access to the past and present and without knowing it, greased the skids for the ‘Great Collapse’. Thinking he would clear the way for needed economic reforms by requiring access to meaningful statistical information, and desirous of rectifying the more egregious crimes of Stalin and Brezhnev by freeing thousands of dissidents, he, in fact, wrought more than he bargained for."

I couldn't agree with you guys more. As an American who was appalled at much of what Reagan did, this rewriting of history makes me mad. And yes, I think Iran-Contra was far worse, morally, than what Clinton did - but clearly the majority of my country disagrees with me.

Kathleen

reagan was from the same political party as george w bush (republicans i think) so thats why everyone (including bush) is going on about how great he was, and also why theyre gonna give him the biggest funeral of a president for 50 years...

I agree with you Kathleen... All this.. hoobla about the Great Ronald Reagan just sickens me... When people say, "Oh he was the best President," is just crap. Yes, after reading and learning what Reagan did in office, it shocks me...

Ryan

Bush is just rifing the bandwagon - Reagan was still more popular than Bush, so it can only help Bush to be associated/compared with Reagan.

However, Ron Reagan Jr. came out and spoke openly about how appalled he is that George Bush would compare himself to Reagan and that his father was a much better president than Bush ever will be. Thought that was pretty neat.

Can you guys show at least an ounce of respect here?

In what way is it disrespectful to say he was a bad president or that he didn't do a good job? These are merely opinions and are in no way disrespectful to him.