On Fox News Sunday this morning, Juan Williams thought the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden had more to do with the fall of the Soviet Union than Ronald reagan did.
It's good to see those most effected...and intimately familiar with, are giving credit were credit is due. Now, if we could just convince some others. With the death of Ronald Reagan, begins the liberal revisionsism over just how important and influential his policies were in the defeat of the Soviet Union. Many [Liberals] say that Reagan just happened to be in the right place, at the right time...and that the USSR was already imploding because of its own economic malaise. This is absolute nonsense. After our setback in Vietnam, the Soviet Union engaged in one of its most expansionist programs since the end of WWII...invading 10 countries from 1974 to 1979 (AEI statistic). From N. Africa to the Mid-East (Afghanistan) to Central and S. America, the Soviets hand their hands in everyone's pie.
While I will concede that Communism, in general, doesn't bode well for a growing and prosperous economy, the Soviets didn't simply rely on "their" economic system to support their government. This is important as this is something liberals seem to ignore in their attempts to diminish Reagan's accomplishment by claiming the USSR was bond for failure. The Soviets used their expansionism to set up proxy governments that in turn, would be in debt/provide booty and rewards, to the Soviet Union.
The only thing that stopped them from succeeding and collecting on those debts, was Reagan's aggressive interventionism. If the Soviets had succeeded in setting up these proxy governments, unhindered, they would have had new trading partners that would've coalesced to form an economic bloc (similar, but larger than the Tripartite Pact prior WWII) that would've supported each other, and essentially, paid tribute to the Soviet Union. Fortunately, from Grenada to N. Africa to Nicaragua, Afghanistan, etc., Reagan met the Soviets head on with support for insurgents of his own.
Instead of following in the foot-steps of others, Reagan declared containment a failure....afterall, the Soviet's Bryzhnev Doctrine had seen the Soviet's engaging in their most aggressive expansionism since the end of WWII. Unlike US policy that was usually reactive...and often resulted in direct US confrontation with enemy combatants, Reagan supported counter-insurgency programs to aid pro-democratic forces before the Soviets could ever get a foothold. Liberals, who often whined about the American bully in places like Genada, fail to realize that it was this early intervention that resulted in victory...and ususally without the costs of wasted American lives.
Even events like Iran/Contra...that liberals label as scandalous, were important to the final defeat of the Soviet Union. This is why when we hear the condemnations over Iran/Contra things need to be kept in perspective. The US support for the Contra's prevented the Soviet's from setting up those very proxy governments in places like Latin America...which would've created new trading partners and increased the Soviet's economic strength. From Grenada to Cuba to Nicaragua and El Salvador, the Soviets were attempting to spread their influence into the Western Hemisphere...an insurgency that would have had dire implications to the security of the US as our own neighbors to the south would've become enemies. The Cold War would not have ended, as it would've been brought to our own southern borders.
The Iran portion was also a little more complicated than just a weapons for hostage exchange. While Iran was an unfriendly government, a completely defeated Iran at this time would've left it open for Soviet insurgents, who we later discovered, were not only working with Saddam but also with the new Afghanistan government. The Soviets became Saddam's biggest supplier for his war in Iran because their intentions were to completely destroy the government making it easier for their own insurgents. While the US wanted Iran bruised, we didn't want it broken to the point of collapse, leaving it open to Soviet occupation. If the USSR had gotten its hands on Iran and its oil wealth, the Cold War and the Mid-East would've also been completely different.
This was already a major concern with the USSR's occupation of Afghanistan on one border of Iran and Saddam's ongoing war with Iran on the other border. The Soviet's presence in Afghanistan was so influential that it actually helped finance part of the very destabilization that led to the Iran Revolution. Cross-border insurgents, led by sympathetic Shi'ites and other Tudeh party members within Iran, iteself, were attempting to move Iran towards the USSR. These groups worked hand-in-hand with the fundamnetalist in their efforts to depose the Shah and move Iran away from its Western roots.
This myopic view when it comes to Iran/Contra has to stop as it was far more complicated than what the media made it out to be. These events were fundamental to the defeat of the USSR, who had been making advances towards the Mid-East's wealth for decades. In fact, one of the very first confrontations in the Cold War occured shortly after WWII ended, when the Soviets refused to withdrawal their forces from positions in Iran. Heck, by 1972 the Soviets had over 15,000 troops in Egypt, training their forces in what was a mutual freindship pact. A closer look at these events shows that had the Soviets been successful in the Mid-East, they would've had enormous amounts of wealth at their disposal.
While the "closed" economic system of Communism is doomed to failure, the Soviets had "opened-up" their system through expansionism and allies who would've helped support the survival of the Soviet Union for some time to come. The Soviet system collapsed becasue they were forced at every turn to expend more resources and men because Reagan confronted them at every oppurtunity. Afghanistan literally became the Soviet's Vietnam, as they lost valuable soldiers and resources in that war. Reagan made them spend more because he built up our military, forcing them to do the same. If not for this intervention throughout the world, the Soviets would have spent much less and established new trading partners that would've helped the Soviet Union recover and further prosper. Sorry... the Soviet Union was still a threat and Reagan was directly responsible for its failure.
He ought to try that line in Krackow, Tallin, Riga, Dresden, Prague, or a thousand other places once under the cloak of communism.
Juan Williams is a fragile affirmative action media hothouse mutant who would wither and die at the first exposure to the cold unforgiving light of reality.
Plus, he has sh*t for brains.
Juan obviously forgot who was decisive in the defeat of the Soviets in Afghanistan.
All this time I thought it was God who brought the wall down so He could open up the Communist countries to allow His children (the Jews) to go home to Israel. In 1948 Israel was made a nation again and It was the first time in 2000 years that they had a country to return to. I read in the Bible that God said HE would call HIS children home from all over the world before the Lord comes.
It was obvious He used President Reagan to complete that task. I actually thought that this was Bible Prophesy being fulfilled, but now I can see that I was wrong. If Juan Williams said it was Osama and the Taliban who brought the wall down, then I KNOW it must be as he said. </ sarcasm> :-)