A Different Perspective About Reagan

I also submitted the "Collective Amnesia or Collective Alzheimers" as the most honest epitaph I'd read so far.

Reagan won the Cold War. A lot of people seem to have amnesia - during the Cold War with the Soviet Union we were all 15 minutes away from annihilation at any time, for years on end - so the end of the war is what is known as 'a very good thing'. The fact is that the West won through the strong leadership of Reagan and Thatcher, this is particularly galling to socialist sympathizers, but they should be thankful because the Soviet Union was always the least kind to political activists after they invaded, activists were always shot first....

15 minutes from annihilation: Get real! Reagan DID NOT win the cold war; maybe you should study a bit of history anon. And tell us please who it was who renounced the first use of nuclear weapons. Hint: It was not the USA

History and ICBM's are pretty easy to understand. A nuclear missile takes only minutes to reach a target because of its orbital trajectory, could be less than 5 min for easy to reach targets, but not more than 30 minutes for just about anywhere on the planet. And Reagan obviously won the Cold War, the Soviets didn't just 'give up', they had to be pushed. Your question with regard to a 'no first use' policy, you win, you're righteous, the USSR gave us their word that they wouldn't use nukes first, promised not too even. Did anyone really believe such proclamations?

Who cares if the guy is dead. Reagan was a creep! He won nothing. Natural change came upon the Soviet Union when people running the so-called communist system were corrupt. That`s what truly brought the Soviet system down! Just like greed and corruption are bringing the capitalist system down! Reaganomics hurting the average working person, Iran-contra, invading Nicaragua and Grenada, trying to bully Trudeau over the NEP. That is the Reagan lagacy!!! Here`s another piece of Reagan brilliance: Reagan said to Trudeau, " Why can`t we fix what`s wrong out there? I mean, first you have your Jewish peoples. Then you have the Arabs. Then there`s us, the Christians. I mean, why can`t we just all get together and fight the communists?"

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Dave Ruston

Anon, <br><br> And now that the Soviet Union has not existed for more than a decade why are the USA (and other nuclear powers) not adhering to their obligations under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty that they try to enforce on everybody except India, Israel and Pakistan? <br><br> In case you didn't know they are supposed to work towards eliminating nuclear weapons. <br><br> Again if you don't know let me tell you that the USA is developing <b>new types of nuclear weapons</b> and when GWB signed a modest 'reduction treaty' with Russia he put the US missiles into storage. They only have a few thousand still sitting in silos. <br><br> Furthermore, as even you might know, the USA is the only country to have used nuclear weapons. Not once, but twice. <br><br> They used the people in the Marshall Islands as guinea pigs to study the effects of nuclear radiation on humans. People are still dying of cancers and when they signed their treaty of association with the USA their pending lawsuits in US courts were annulled as part of it. <br><br> That wasn't enough. The Americans also used other Americans to study the effects of radiation on people. (As if that hadn't been known.) <br><br> BTW The testing grounds for the missile shield which you dinosaur of a cold warrior (against whom?) are probably supporting are in the Marshall Islands, which the USA gave to itself. As a permanent member of the UN Security Council it could easily create that unique status that the Marshall Islanders were forced to accept. (The Soviets, the French or British to their shame didn't veto this probably because they didn't give a damn.) <br><br> The USA has a history of preaching one thing and doing something else. Look at what they have done in Latin America. <br><br> It is the USA which you should worry about. They are a danger to peace. They spend more on weapons than the rest of the planet combined even though there is <b>no country</b> which could threaten them.. <br><br> As I said in my original post, history is being rewritten. But please don't take the rest of us as stupid.

L Ray,

Don't you think these anons do know but like the French, Soviets, and Brits that didn't veto these anons too just don't give a damn?

maybe I'm just being baited. But I do feel very strongly about these matters and I don't like it when these right wingnuts think they own the truth

This anon is just a troll. It's common knowledge that the USSR was going to collapse anyway, and that Reagan's tough talk (like evil empire, etc) only <I>strengthened</I> the Soviet hardliners. Even former ambassador to Moscow & father of the theory of containment has said that the idea that the USA could have instigated massive domestic overhaul of a powerful country on the other side of the world is "childish". (his word, not mine)<p>---<br>"These Yankee politicians are the lowest race of thieves in existence." - Sir John Sparrow Thompson

And then they reduced Russia to the status of a third world country. No wonder that a majority of the people regret the demise of the USSR. (This was mentioned in the recent reports on CBC about the celebrations of Russia Day) <br><br> George Soros, arch capitalist and self-made billionaire and one of the greates philanthropists (who I actually admire a lot and agree with many things he says even though I consider myself to be 'somewhere on the left') writes in his book Open Society how he implored US authorities for some (relatively inexpensive) help for Russia. <br><br> Of no avail. <br><br> Kick them when they are down?

Common knowledge - what crap. I lived
through the entire cold war period and nobody
expected it to end the way it did. There
are legitimate questions as to the extent
of Reagan's influence on the fall of the
Soviet Union but there is no doubt that few
on the left, right or center expected such
an outcome.

nobody expected the crap about Iraq to be total lies either.

Check out the report of the US gov committee on 9-11

I have always found it so hilarious that there are people who somehow think Ronald Reagan had anything at all to do with the collapse of the Soviet Union. I usually like to counter that line of illogic with the following questions:

1) How exactly did Reagan accomplish this Herculean feat? Was it when he said, "Tear down this wall"? (There are many here in the States who confuse Reagan with Moses)

2) Did Reagan "defeat the Soviet Union" by simply trying to outspend the USSR in military build-up? Was the "winning strategy" then to see who would run their country into bankruptcy first? (Hooray! we won! Must have been Ronnie's follow up to "we begin bombing in 5 minutes").

3) Er...ah...ever hear of Mikhail Gorbachev?