The US, UN & Iraq III

Wasn't the idea to get the hostages released? And make Ronald Reagan look god-like? Anyone who actually died from that game of tic-tac-toe was not a US citizen and obviously expendable. It's not the 'broad view of history' when your family's on the receiving end of such illegitimate operations.

Greeneyes, the best money can buy

I stared this thread BLIX BLASTS US 'BASTARDS' 9 hours ago, which actually didn't call any attention until now :wink:

Mr. Stillwater,

That was accomplished before the election when papa Bush paid the Iranians off to not release the hostages ($3 million, if I remember correctly) until after the election and they would then pay them back further with missle parts and arms. Seems Reagan was burning the candle at both ends - suppling both Iran and Iraq. A lot of the cash was obtained by the CIA ferrying cocaine into the USA (Hosenfuss, or some such spelling). Thought that was very cleaver of the Republicans also.

Walter, we're just waking up and getting around over here

Sorry Walter - didn't see the thread.

This continual indictment of Clinton's blow job is incredibly interesting. The sexual misbehavior by Kennedy, really much worse, receives far less attention. It seems likely that this is partly due to the stature in American mythology of Kennedy as hero (and we DON'T, many of us, want to know negatives about our heroes).

But I suspect there is something else going on here too. Kuv's post points to the profound differences between the Clinton case and the Poindexter/North case - one involves a simple sexual act where the other has deep consequences for the foundations of governance - deceit, violation of the constitution, etc.

Is it just that one is much simpler for people to think about? Or is it also that the second case is an example of another part of American mythology which many do not want to face or think about - that elected officials at the very top of US politics might get things really wrong?

Blatham, All of the above (from my post). c.i.

ci

You are always ahead of me...I'm trying though.

Yup. If you compare the judgments by the general public of the Clinton administration vs. those of either Reagan or (either) Bush, your heart sinks as you are forced to face the value system in this country. It ain't good, and it ain't hopeful.

a good accessment of this is provided in a review of sid blumenthals book at the attached link and quoted below.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0306.greenberg.html

"Where Clinton truly offended the Right was on the cluster of issues surrounding sex, race, and religion. Notwithstanding the post-1960s backlash against "permissiveness," Americans have grown increasingly broadminded on these matters, as Alan Wolfe showed in One Nation, After All (1998). Clinton not only championed toleration in his policies (at least most of the time) but, more important, he personally embodied the new ethic. He was the first Baby Boomer to win the presidency; a white Southerner at ease with blacks; the husband of a confident career woman; an avid learner who liked the company of Jewish intellectuals; and a man comfortable (indeed, perhaps too comfortable) with his sexuality.

"Clinton's attackers, on the other hand, mostly came from those elements unreconciled to the new toleration. When Bob Barr disparaged Clinton supporters as not being "real Americans," when Tom DeLay said he pushed impeachment to promote a "biblical worldview" that Clinton didn't share, or when Ken Starr touted his own marital fidelity and his daily singing of Christian hymns, they revealed their own alienation from the emerging live-and-let-live consensus. In this context, the Right's more sinister swipes at the Jewish intellectual Blumenthal--not to mention its resolve to press ahead with impeachment in the face of public outcry--becomes more comprehensible. These are the death throes of a retrograde morality.

"But what about members of the press who didn't share this pinched morality yet abetted the Right's crusade? Weren't they responding to something about Clinton, not the culture wars? Here, too, Blumenthal is illuminating. From the start, many in the media accepted the Right's basic "narrative" (Blumenthal's useful term) that the impeachment and the other scandals were about Clinton. To a large segment of America, in contrast, these ordeals were mainly about Clinton-hating--about the Right's rearguard efforts to repeal advances in social tolerance and equality. After the initial January 1998 spasm of media madness following Drudge's Lewinsky scoop, a good minority of journalists--some avowedly pro-Clinton, others hostile to the president but skeptical of the Right's aims--advanced what Blumenthal calls "a different narrative about the burgeoning scandal." The focus shifted from whether Clinton had lied about an affair to the more serious subject of why he was being investigated (and possibly impeached) for it. "Starr, his methods, his prosecutors, the political character of his case, and the activities of the right wing properly became subjects of controversy."

sounds fairly accurate, and yet the demonization of progressives who have evolved from the intolerances of "retrograde morality" continues from those who still salute it.

George, the coincidence of Reagan lining the pockets of his southern California military industry buddies, and the collapse of the Soviet Union from overextension does not prove the rectitude of near criminal bankrupting of the polity. The Sovs were supporting the Cuban intervention in Angola, the Iraqis v. Iran, the Syrians in their Lebanese incursion, as well as their own increasingly disasterous war in Afghanistan. The rise of the Solidarity movement in Poland in 1980 lead them to increase their deployments in the Baltic states, and in western Russian and Belorussia. The implications of muslim fundamentalist opposition to their puppet regime in Kabul lead them to increase deployment in the muslim states of the Soviet Union. They covertly supported the Azeris in their war with the Armenians. They increased their deployments in Georgia, Chechneya and Ingusetia because of the rise of separatist movements. That they continued their military technology development says nothing about the Reagan administration. The T-72 and the MiG-29 would have been developed without regard to who occupied the White House, and several new models of Sukhoi close-support fighters were developed and deployed to Afghanistan. The T-72 and the MiG-29 were responses to the increased technological sophistication of western arms systems. That the Iraqis failed to maintain their T-72's and dug them into the desert, leaving them vulnerable to the air and ground attacks in Gulf War I, the Prequel, doesn't mean they weren't a good weapons system. The Syrians deployed T-72's in the Bekkah valley, properly maintained, and well-supported by mobile SAM batteries, and sufficiently well deployed to discourage any Israeli ambition to move across the mountains and challenge their incursion. The MiG-29 overcame the discrepancy in avionics by an incredibly high level of pilot-control mechanism, an ability to climb at an angle which no western aircraft has ever matched, and their development of "forward-looking" and "sideways-looking" radars far exceeds anything accomplished in the west in those areas. Ilyushin continues to produce transport planes which beggar the capacities of western transports, and, as have all Soviet aircraft since 1941--they were required to and were designed to take-off and land "short," on unimproved runways and on snow and/or ice. These development programs were under way without reference to the cowboy in the White House, and were definitely not a response to a specific adminstration, but rather, a part of an ongoing effort to keep pace with western technological sophistication. Mir was in the works well before Reagan was elected, and was launched in 1986 for a two year mission which stretched to eleven years.

That this bankrupted the Soviet Union i would not deny. That it had anything to do with the looting of our economy by the Reagan administration i strenuously deny.

Terrific posts, Setanta and Kuv.

There is a curious thing at work here, has been at least since the time I first returned to this country, and that is the disgust factor on both sides. Real physical disgust. I listened to some conservatives (not rads, old fashioned conservatives) the other day talking about how they have to switch off the TV and radio if Bush's face and voice comes on. They felt the same way about Clinton, they said. Physical disgust. I felt the same way about Reagan, very strongly about Ollie North (who seems to spend a lot of time in my neighborhood), less so about Bush 1 (though I found him narrow and grim), and share the conservatives inability to listen to Bushbaby's voice, see his face. There is something worth exploring here. Kuv's post begins to get at the heart of it.

Setanta,

I agree with nearly all of your recitation of facts concerning Soviet military deployments and hardware during the '70s and '80s. (Their side looking radars were generally later and not nearly the equal of ours). You could also have added the development of long range anti ship missiles (some supersonic), and high performance aircraft to launch them (Backfires), high speed submarines, and very large ballistic missile submarines. They even built a partly nuclear powered 'battleship' and two modern aircraft carriers with catapults (never put into operation). It is simply a fact that this development and production accelerated dramatically in the early '80s, and was increasingly focused on countering our growing capability. You can insist that it was not a result of our increased expenditures and more aggressive deployments, and, not knowing their internal thoughts, cannot argue with you. However I believe few knowledgable observers would agree with you.

And i would point out to you that few knowledgable observers would agree with your previous contention that we spent only 4% on the military in the Reagan era--where in dog's name did you come up with that fanciful figure? The national debt increased astronomically, and it only benefited the robber barons of Wall Street and the military industries--it did great harm to the working class, and made much shabbier the existences of the middle class. If one posits an acceleration of military expenditure in the Soviet Union as a direct result of Reagan's unpardonable looting of tax monies for a bloated and criminally dishonest "defense industry"--and contends that this directly and rapidly caused Soviet collapse--such person or persons are ignoring the inherent complexity of cause and effect in historical development, and the force of the personality of Gorbachev, the courage of the Poles, the blandly heroic decision of Hungary to ignore dictates on border policy from Moscow--such person or persons are oversimplifying events simply in order to praise a man whom i believe will be justly vilified in the views of historians in the centuries to come.

Here's a link on Reagan's spending on the military. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/6899
Hope it's accurate and helpful to this discussion. c.i.

Thanks, c.i., kinda blows 4% right out of the water.

Setanta,

I believe on this subject you would benefit from more reading of the available historical materials. Gorbachev entered office convinced that the Soviet Union could no longer afford to continue attempting to match the rapidly growing U.S. military capability - efforts which had escalated rapidly under Andropov and Chernyenko. You are also wrong in saying the principal beneficiaries of increased military spending were concentrated in Southern California. General Dynamics, Newport News Shipbuilding, Macdonald Douglas, Grumman, etc. were all based in other regions.

Did the national debt rise due to increased defense expenditures or due to still out of control entitlement expenditures? There are two versions this. Moreover the debt did not increase significantly on a relative (% of GDP) basis. The economic growth that resulted from increased national self confidence and tax reform quickly yielded increased government tax revenues and, as already stated, diluted the debt as a % of GDP.

Now, that's much better! c.i.