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Originally posted by: ricarleiteQuote
Originally posted by: JediSage
Gorbachev? What did he do besides surrender? He was the leader of a totalitarian system that needed to be destroyed. Reagan (and Maggie and JPII) left him no options. And the only reason Reagan's administration did what they did with Iran-Contra is because the Democratically controlled congress refused to fund anti-communists in the Western hemisphere, in other words: Gave tacit aid to the Soviet flunkies in Central and South America. Or maybe the popular leftist views that Truman won the Cold War by losing China and Eastern Europe to the communists is right. Or that they really did have 75 years of bad weather and that's why communism didn't work.
Nixon: All he did was get us out of Vietnam (which JFK got us into, BTW) by bombing Cambodia then going directly to the Chinese. And, refresh my memory...who had the world on the bring of nuclear holocaust, JFK or Nixon? *cough* Missles of October *cough*
Mandella? Don't get me started.
OK before this goes on, let me remind everyone here, including yourself, that this is a political view discussion, and based on opinions. Opinions are like clocks, they can be a little bit foward or back, but no clock is entirely correct. Also, to discuss is not the same as to offend, and we are NOT letting this get personal. OK? I'm not competing with you, I'm not against you, we are just discussing points of view. No one is "right", there is no right answer. OK?
Reagan did have some part on it ("mr gorbatchov, tear down this wall"), but he was also not very sensitive on the subject, joking about the missles who were coming from ussr at that moment... Try to imagine how Regan and Maggie would act if Kruchev was on office... But I'll give you Reagan for an influencial man in the 20th, ok. He was influencial after all.
Iran-Contras: ok so let me get this straight, it is OK for a country to sell weapons to both Iraq AND Iran, so one can kill each other, and then get the profit from this and invest on killing civilians on suth american countries who had strong communist parties? Let me remind you, I'm from Brazil, who had a violent dictatorship for 20 years backed up by the CIA, the US secret service, and with actions authorized by Lyndonn Jonshon and Nixon. I've talked about it enough on another topic, but if you want me to go on I will.
Nixon: he got you out of Vietnan? OK correct me if I'm wrong - I'm not being sarcastic, I don't know, correct me! - but didn't the US withdraw from Vietnan in 1975, when Ford was on office? Now, imagine if the US had never invaded Vietnan, the north would win the same way as it did, right? And how is Vietnan today? Eh? There's a freaking McDonalds on Ho Shi Ming City (Saigon).
JFK: The missle crisis would have a very different ending if Kennedy was not on office. A mushroom cluded ending. But I don't know, maybe what've read on the subject and on the actions taken by the White House back then were wrong...
Mandella: What's wrong with him? OK you don't like him, let's have MLKJr and Steve Biko only...
I did not mean to belittle anything that went on in Brazil. I'm also not going to make nice nice and act like there weren't communist governments in Central America that didn't need to be squashed. It seems like any time someone talks about the anti-communist guerilla's in Nicarragua (sp?) in a positive way they get bombarded by a litany of stories about the innocent civilians that they killed. Would it have been better to let the totalitarian communists stay in power and establish a foothold in the Western Hemisphere? 100,000,000 dead at the hands of communism/socialism. And the number continues to climb. It's an idealogy that needs to be wiped out.
Actually, we participated in the Iran-Contra debacle in order to aid Israel (in addition to fighting communism in Cent Amer). They were the ones who sold Iran the weapons. Given Iraq's hatred of Israel, I'd say they had every right to sell arms to Iran (the enemy of my enemy is my friend). I'm sorry, but if I was within striking distance of two of my greatest enemies and they were fighting eachother, I'd sell weapons to BOTH of them. The biggest ones available.
Reagan did much more than the "tear down this wall" speech. He waged idealogical, moral, economic, and military war against communism the world over. Relentlessly (in spite of the news media, Congress, and Hollywood celebrities). The Soviets had never been challenged in this manner. Aside from Reagan, the only previous serious challenges to their hegemony came from Nixon and to a much lesser extent Eisenhower and JFK (almost no resistance).
Cuban Missle Crisis would have been MUCH different if we weren't put in that situation to begin with. I place most of the blame on Eisenhower and to a lesser extent JFK. There was so much ambiguity about where Castro's political leanings were that Eisenhower hesitated about taking action against him. This allowed him to solidify his position in Cuba and with Moscow. JFK had an opportunity to get rid of Castro at Bay of Pigs, but insisted on idiotic rules of engagement (see below) that hamstrung the exiles and our own military and prevented us from providing the aid that had been promised. Things may have been much different if they had succeeded, or something had been done about him earlier. A good book on the subject: One Hell of a Gamble
Yes, we did withdraw from Vietnam in 75, but only after Nixon laid the groundwork by going directly to China and negotiating with them (backed by bombing in Cambodia). By doing that we cut the Soviets and N. Vietnamese out of the equation (without aid from China, NV would never have been able to do what it did). If Nixon was still in office Saigon would not have fallen (and the left would lose one of it's favorite memories). It was only after immense pressure by the American leftist establishment that we finally withdrew. The inevitable outcome of a war tragically fought, with 1 and 1/2 hands tied behind our back because of idiotic "rules of engagement". War is hell. It must be as horrible as possible in order to be ended as quickly as possible. Yes, that's a terrible thing to say, but protracted, ugly engagements with hundreds of thousands of casualties are not pretty either. I have multiple family members currently or in the past served in the military and they would say the same thing.