Posted on 10/18/2002 7:32:21 AM PDT by Tumbleweed_Connection
It what had to be a painful examination of conscience, Newsweek has finally admitted what just about every American not a member of the harebrained left has long known: Ronald Reagan won the Cold War, brought the Soviet Union to its knees and sounded the death knell for the Evil Empire.
In a friendly review of Peter Schweizer 's new book "Reagan's War" Newsweek's Andrew Nagorski admits that President Reagan knew exactly what he was doing in dealing with the Soviets and was determined to bring down the Evil Empire.
Noting that the author asserts that Reagan "won the cold war." Nagorski writes in his "Reagan Had it Right" book review: "Today's scholars can dispute the sweeping nature of that claim, but as someone who reported from Moscow and Eastern Europe during this period, I fully agree that Reagan knew more and did more to produce that outcome than any of his predecessors."
At the time, however, Reagan was being pictured as being both a bumbling ex-actor in over his head, and a dangerous war monger likely to bring on a nuclear holocaust with his far right wing anti-Communist policies. His description of the Soviet Union as an "Evil Empire" was greeted by the liberals with horror and derision. After all, America's leftists were wedded to the old Marxist concept of "no enemies to the left," and the idea that somewhere to the left of them lay evil was simply unacceptable.
Foreign leaders openly voiced their skepticism of Reagan's as a Cold War warrior engaged in the hopeless cause of seeking victory over the Soviets, answering the question asked by Barry Goldwater in his book "Why Not Victory" by asking, indeed, why not?
Nagorski recalls one incident in 1982 when Germany's Chancellor Helmut Schmidt told Secretary of State Alexander Haig, Schmidt that it was ridiculous for President Ronald Reagan to think that he ould "overthrow the post-World War II division of Europe" by prying countries like Poland loose from Soviet control. "FIVE YEARS LATER, when Reagan gave his famous "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall" speech at the Berlin wall, many Germans-and Americans-similarly scoffed at what they took to be the president's naivete," Nagorski recalls. "They continued to do so right until the moment when Solidarity swept to power, the Berlin wall collapsed and communist rulers were routed all across the old Soviet empire."
Nagoski notes that Schweizer, a research fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution, argued that Reagan understood the Soviet Union far better than the so-called experts. "Relying on the public record, diaries, memoirs and recently declassified documents, he offers an engaging, richly anecdotal account to make his case that Reagan 'won the cold war.' "
While his predecessors in the White House more or less accepted the permanency of Soviet rule over its homeland and the captive nations, settling on the appeasement policy of "détente," Reagan from his early days in Hollywood disagreed, Nagorski writes.
Nagorski writes that the book reveals that Reagan "was deeply troubled by the notion that fear of a nuclear war was producing a consensus for accommodation with Moscow, with the result that the West was more concerned about the rulers in the Kremlin than the people they oppressed."
"He also pinpointed the weaknesses of communist economics, noting as early as 1963 that the Soviet Union and China were "in the grip of modern-day feudalism," a system that would become "unhinged" if it were forced to truly compete with the West.
Thus when Reagan became president, he acted on his long held convictions, "squeezing the 'evil empire' at every opportunity" Nagorski recalls.
He launched his massive defense buildup, including his much ridiculed strategic defense-or "Star Wars"-initiative - a policy liberals still cannot stomach.
He imposed sanctions on the Polish government in response to martial law, and began funneling help to Solidarity, the Polish opposition.
His administration pumped heavy-duty weaponry to the Afghan resistance.
It worked a deal with the Saudis to lower oil prices, which boosted the American economy and hit the Soviets hard. The result of these much maligned policies? "As former Soviet officials later admitted, the Kremlin suddenly realized it was 'beyond our power' to compete with Reagan's U.S."
According to Schweizer in 1982 Richard Pipes, who handled Soviet affairs at the National Security Council, predicted that such pressures would bring forth a reformer in Moscow who would "favor a more accommodating foreign policy stance in order to increase trade with the West and ease domestic economic problems."
"Three years later," Nagorski recalls, Mikhail Gorbachev took power. "Although the two leaders developed a grudging respect for each other, Reagan wasn't going to help the new man save the system. As Gorbachev told the Politburo after the Reykjavik summit: 'They look at us in the West and wait for us to drown.'"
Nagorski fails to note that at that time, America's liberals recoiled in horror at Reagan's hard-nosed attitude at the Reykjavik summit, warning ominously that the U.S. was moving dangerously towards another risky showdown with the mighty Soviet Union which in reality was coming apart at the seams.
Nagorski, however can't allow the liberal's greatest foe to escape without criticism. He writes that Schweizer admits that the Iran-contra affair was Reagan's "greatest failure," and accepts some of Reagan's positions "too uncritically," citing Reagan's. contention that the United States should have fought the war differently in Vietnam, a viewpoint that "misses the point that the war was a grievous miscalculation from beginning to end." This of course ignores what Reagan was getting at - miscalculation or not, once involved, there was, as General MacArthur once said, "no substitute for victory."
He criticizes Reagan for castigating the 1975 Helsinki accords for allegedly "putting our stamp of approval" on the Kremlin's domination of Eastern Europe, when the accord's human rights' provisions "would prove a vital tool for the dissidents who undermined the system from within."
But on the big picture, Nagorski admits, "Schweizer is correct: Reagan had it right. Those who fought for their freedoms recognized his role even before the communist system collapsed. On a visit to Poland in the spring of 1988, when the riot police were still trying to club the opposition into submission, several Poles asked me wistfully: 'Is it really true that Reagan can't run for a third term?' "
Back home in the U.S. the very idea of a third term for Ronald Reagan would have driven the liberals insane over the thought of four more years in the White House for a bumbling war monger likely to engulf the U.S. in a nuclear war with the mighty Soviet Union.
I heard Schweizer interviewed on local talk radio here. I always respected Reagan before but this author told some things about Reagan that I wasn't aware of. Sounds like a GREAT book.
MKM
Sigh....
You know, I still feel guilty for having hated him so much, I feel like apologizing to him, but I know its silly, and even too late. I hope he understood how there were many of us who opposed him, who grew to admire him greatly.
Ill, senile and addled by Alzheimer's Reagan would still make a better President than any of the blow-dried punks offered up by the Dems.
At the time, however, Reagan was being pictured as being both a bumbling ex-actor in over his head, and a dangerous war monger likely to bring on a nuclear holocaust with his far right wing anti-communist policies. His description of the Soviet Union as an "Evil Empire" was greeted by the liberals with horror and derision. After all, America's leftists were wedded to the old Marxist concept of "no enemies to the left," and the idea that somewhere to the left of them lay evil was simply unacceptable."
Yup, his good heart was his greatest strength. Others who think you have to demonize your political opponents in order to win should take a lesson from Ronbo.
Sounds like the second verse is the same as the first
Foreign leaders openly voiced their skepticism of Bush as a warrior engaged in the hopeless cause of seeking victory over terrorism
Reagan was being pictured as being both a bumbling ex-actor in over his head, and a dangerous war monger
Bush was being pictured as being a bumbler in over his head, and a dangerous warmonger
His description of the Soviet Union as an "Evil Empire" was greeted by the liberals with horror and derision
His description of Iraq as "Evil" was greeted by the liberals with horror and derision
I have a theory: All the criticism against Republican presidents originates in Hollywierd. They haven't done anything new in years, just remade old scripts into today's movies.
The criticism is also a rerun.
(George Bush at the Islamic Center of Washington D.C. - September 17, 2001)
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