Ex-President Ronald Reagan dies aged 93!!

Hey Pluto, i just happened to find the following snippet on Tanknet…

pluto77189 – Crew
posted 25 Jun 2004 09:04 Log:
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quote:
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Originally posted by XXXX:
I can’t believe that no one has mentioned Rambo yet.
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You know, on other boards, I have heard Europeans mention this in an effort to discredit Reagan.

“he was a terrible man, look what he CAUSED in Afghanistan. If you want to knw what I mean, see Rambo III.”

Seriously…

Afraid that posting a link might reveal either a very pathetic attempt at spin, or a severe case of dyslexia on your part? Assuming that the “other boards” and “Europeans” are not unfamiliar to the Key publishing boards, that is 😉

Christ I can’t wait till that bitch Thatcher karks it. Thats going to be a right giggle to read her eulogy.

Mainstream Media Fail to Serve Truth

Falsifying History

The mainstream media have sunk even lower than usual, wimpily discarding the truth.

Media: Mourning in America

If journalism is history’s first draft, the death of Ronald Reagan has caused a step-up in the mass production of falsified history.

It’s mourning in America.

The main technique is omission. People who suffered from the Reagan presidency have no media standing today. It’s not cool to mention victims of his policies in, for example, Central America.

President Reagan lauded and subsidized the contra guerrillas — extolling them as “freedom fighters” while they terrorized the population in Nicaragua, killing thousands of civilians. And he proudly funneled large-scale support to governments aligned with death squads murdering thousands more in Guatemala and El Salvador.

With all the media-fueled mourning in America, there’s been none left for the victims of Reaganite policies in Angola, either. His tireless support for the guerrilla forces of Unita “freedom fighter” Jonas Savimbi deserves much of the credit for making Angola the artificial limb capital of the world. Reagan saw to it that Uncle Sam walked in the bloody footsteps of colonial Portugal and apartheid South Africa to sustain Savimbi’s monstrous warfare.

“Every year since the mid-1980s, I have interviewed dozens of displaced peasants who described attacks on their villages by Unita, kidnapping of young men and boys, looting, beatings, and killings, while in hospital beds the rows of mutilated women bore witness to the mining of their fields,” journalist Victoria Brittain wrote in the New Statesman magazine a decade ago. “Defectors from Unita told more chilling stories of mass rallies at the headquarters in Jamba where women were burned alive as witches. These were not stories the outside world wanted to hear about Unita, whose leader was regularly received at the White House.” Very warmly. By Ronald Reagan.

Mainstream news outlets encourage us to mourn his passing but not to grieve a whit for his victims.

Reagan lavished big money from the U.S. Treasury on anti-Soviet mujahadeen — “freedom fighters” in Afghanistan who evolved into groupings like Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Yet his supposed idealism rarely gets a critical look through the obit-ommit media lens.

Since he passed away, American media outlets have drowned the country in nonstop veneration for Reagan as a symbol of devotion to principle. There’s precious little U.S. media space for the kind of reporting that Agence France Presse provided a few days after he died: “Reagan, determined to check arch-foe Iran, opened a back door to Iraq through which flowed U.S. intelligence and hundreds of millions of dollars in loan guarantees even as Washington professed neutrality in Baghdad’s war with Tehran. … Sales of UH-1H helicopters and Hughes MD-500 Defender helicopters were approved by Washington. Though sold as civilian aircraft, nobody objected when they were quickly converted for military use.”

President Reagan was in the habit of telling whoppers. His tales ranged far and wide: to deny environmental degradation, or blithely pretend that widespread human rights violations by U.S.-backed regimes didn’t exist, or denigrate low-income people in the United States. Yet now, more than ever, he’s being hailed as the Great Communicator.

Promoting huge tax breaks for multimillionaires and large corporations, he presided over an unprecedented transfer of wealth to the already rich at the expense of everyone else. But today’s dominant media images present him as a beloved populist hero.

That’s media mourning in America.

He’s being hailed as a champion of “small government” — yet he vastly increased the size of Defense Department budgets and methodically appointed federal judges who enlarged the intrusive powers of government.

President Reagan spoke out for labor rights in Poland while spearheading anti-union measures in the United States and avidly supporting regimes on several continents that repressed workers and oversaw systematic murders of labor activists. Now, rewritten media history is touting him as a friend to working people.

It’s media mourning in America.

He was a president so immersed in anti-gay bigotry and so bereft of non-Hallmark-style compassion that from the time the Centers for Disease Control announced the discovery of AIDS in mid-1981, until 1987, he couldn’t bring himself to publicly utter the name of the deadly disease — part of a policy approach that surely cost many thousands of lives. Yet he is being lauded by countless pundits for his sunny disposition.

Reagan thumbed his nose at basic civil rights legislation, including efforts to protect voting rights. In words and deeds, he conveyed disinterest in helping to move the country beyond the curse of racism.

But his media persona endures as a man with a big smile and an even bigger heart.

The mourning in America is overwhelming. But the country is starved for honesty.

by Norman Solomon
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Cue the line of “patriots” standing with their hands clamped firmly over their ears singing The Star Spangled Banner at the top of their voices interpersed with shamanic chants of “I’m not listening”.

Oh look, here comes one now…. 😀

I am sorry but a 600 ship navy is about as scary to the Soviets as a new 5 year plan to build 5,000 brand spanking new tractors would be to the US.

No worries mate you’ve gotta keep laughing haven’t ya? 😀

There are countless reports and interviews with these officials all the way up to Gorbachev and they all agree that Reagan and his policies had an impact!!

Soviet era officials agree he made an impact. How do you get that from impact to won the whole cold war? You talk of Salmon swimming but I think it is you that is trying to swim up waterfalls…

Garry you are doing the ‘Hahahaha!’ thing again how many times have I got to tell you?

I am sorry but a 600 ship navy is about as scary to the Soviets as a new 5 year plan to build 5,000 brand spanking new tractors would be to the US.

GarryB,
You missing one huge point!! ask the former Soviet Officials who were there!! There are countless reports and interviews with these officials all the way up to Gorbachev and they all agree that Reagan and his policies had an impact!!
You truly are dilusional! Do you ever feel like a Salmon swimming upstream!!
TTP

“Hahahaha… Yes, I am sure Gorby was scared out of his mind. I mean how could he secure his sealines of communications with an inferior navy… oops wait a minute he didn’t have any sea lines of communications. The range of Soviet SLBMs meant they could fire their missiles tied up in dry dock and still hit their targets. The Soviet Navy was otherwise expendible.”

Garry you are doing the ‘Hahahaha!’ thing again how many times have I got to tell you? It really makes it look like you are losing your grip. Honestly I’m just offering advice here from one nutcase to another. 😀

Ever heard of the 600 ship navy?

Hahahaha… Yes, I am sure Gorby was scared out of his mind. I mean how could he secure his sealines of communications with an inferior navy… oops wait a minute he didn’t have any sea lines of communications. The range of Soviet SLBMs meant they could fire their missiles tied up in dry dock and still hit their targets. The Soviet Navy was otherwise expendible.

You think the army that won the first Gulf War grew on trees?

Few trees grow to maturity in 6 months but I doubt a war in Europe would have lasted 6 months anyway.

Reagan helped win the Cold War for America.

I do agree he did help to win it, but to say he won it is rediculous and laughable.

The end of the Cold War was a good thing for most of the world.

Yes, of course, we are much safer now… lend me a dollar, I was buying a leather jacket on a Russian webiste but they tell me for an extra dollar I can have a bottle of ebola…. they don’t have any steak knives…

By being objective, you mean changing the subject when you can’t deal with issue.

Or perhaps questioning the other persons grip on reality might be a good choice too.

Yep. France did his share there. Dien Bien Phu was a disaster and when the US took over the result was even worst. Not the brightest page of our history.

Hand

You restore my faith in your objectivity. You mention the US and France. 🙂

Regards

Sauron

Hand

By being objective, you mean changing the subject when you can’t deal with issue.

Sauron

I didn’t change the subject. You mentioned the mess left by the soviets when they left Afghanistan. They left a big mess indeed.
However I don’t thionk we (France and USA) did much better when we left the Vietman back in the 70’s

Hand

By being objective, you mean changing the subject when you can’t deal with issue.

Sauron

Hand

Have you joined the group here who are not capable of standing in one place on a topic?

Regards

Sauron

Just trying to be objective mate. You should learn this word.

Multirole

Good post. I quite agree with you that Garry’s grasp on reality is quite weak at times.

Sauron

What accelerated arms build up?

Ever heard of the 600 ship navy? You think the army that won the first Gulf War grew on trees? The rest of your rant is such intellectually vacant diatribe that I seriously doubt you have a grasp on reality.

Reagan helped win the Cold War for America. We don’t all like him but admire him for being an effective President. For the same reason we also admire JFK. The end of the Cold War was a good thing for most of the world. If one Kiwi don’t appreciate it I could care less.

Accelerated arms build up, hardened ideological stance, undermined Soviet war in Afghanistan.

What accelerated arms build up? THe Starwars program cost money but didn’t result in any actual hardware being deployed in that decade. Medium range missiles were withdrawn from service, and the withdrawl from Afghanistan saved the Soviets money and got them some new hardware in the form of Blowpipe, which they were not that impressed with, and Stinger, which they learnt a lot from.

Soviet nuclear weapon production was still at a higher rate than in the US simply because they were just at the point of catching up. (The so called missile gap that the Americans identified led to them producing huge numbers of nuclear missiles and bombs… just as they started to mass produce these weapons to catch up they found that the soviets had far less weapons than they pretended to, but rather than not buld the new weapons they decided to go for superiority and make the weapons anyway. It was in the 80s that the Soviets caught up and started to edge ahead in numbers.)

Another US President, John F Kennedy, was just as uncompromising and ideological with regard to foreign policy.

Americans treat JFK as if his initials stod for Jesus F’n Christ. Americans treated the Cuban missile crisis as if they won it. Sure it was the Soviets that appeared to back down, but the removal of nuclear missiles from Turkey and the promise that Cuba will not be attacked are pretty major concessions for the mere withdrawl a a few missiles from Cuba.

Perhaps you would be more approving of his style of oration.

As I have said… he spoke like he was speaking to idiots. Personally I don’t like being spoken to as if I was a child by someone who is supposed to be in charge of a nuclear arsenal.

Sure, sure Arthur. In the alternate universe you sometimes dwell in, the evil Americans are to blame. The USSR who invaded Afghanistan and killed thousands and pulverized the place had nothing to do with giving OBL a start.

Nope, it was a contract with a civil engineer from Saudi Arabia to build aquiducts in Afghanistan by the name of Osama that was the problem. By the same token if the US hadn’t based troops in the holy land then OBL would never have used Boeing made cruise missiles with American trained pilots.

The Afghans themselves only completed what the USSR started (and couldn’t finish).

The Soviets built Schools and planted trees at a time when the CIA were just buying up chinese weapons and handing them over to any and all who put up their hands. Half of the weapons given went to Iranian back factions that did very little fighting but hoarded the weapons and used them on rival factions of mujahudeen.

Vietnam wasn’t a mess after the French and American left?

Yes, don’t forget the Americans left their best agent there and he is still doing the good work… what was his name? Agent Orange.

Hand

Have you joined the group here who are not capable of standing in one place on a topic?

Regards

Sauron

Arthur

Good try but no amount of double talk alters the facts. The Afghans themselves only completed what the USSR started (and couldn’t finish). Left a mess for others to clean up just as they did everywhere they went.

Sauron

Vietnam wasn’t a mess after the French and American left?

Arthur

Good try but no amount of double talk alters the facts. The Afghans themselves only completed what the USSR started (and couldn’t finish). Left a mess for others to clean up just as they did everywhere they went.

Sauron

The pulverising of Afghanistan only got worse when the Soviets left. The country (at least the city and basic infrastructure) was still pretty much intact in 1989. But by then, it was all to the mujaheddeen and all the other good guys from Rambo III to wreck the rest of the country. And one can’t say that the KGB funded and trained Osama, can one?