DamnYankee
Loyal to the end
Why are you afraid to answer it?You are right, it is a simple question.

Why are you afraid to answer it?You are right, it is a simple question.
He rejected detente and directly confronted the USSR through a policy of Peace through Strength...the Reagan Doctrine...
Supported for anti-communist rebel movements all over the world...
OBL isn't anti-communism.EXACTLY...and Reagan's bellicose foreign policy and support for 'anti-communist rebel movements'...has come home to roost.
OBL isn't anti-communism.
OBL was 'anti-communism' aka the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.
Reagan—and those around him—can be blamed for ignoring the rise of Islamic militancy in Afghanistan and for failing to see Gorbachev's offer to withdraw as an opportunity to clamp the danger.
Gorbachev had accepted that Afghanistan would become an Islamic country. But he assumed that Reagan, of all people, would have an interest in keeping it from becoming militantly, hostilely, Islamist.
After the last Soviet troops departed, Afghanistan fell off the American radar screen. Over the next few years, Shevardnadze's worst nightmares came true. The Taliban rose to power and in 1996 gave refuge to the—by then—much-hunted Bin Laden.
Ten years earlier, had Reagan taken Gorbachev's deal, Afghanistan probably still wouldn't have emerged as the "friendly, neutral country" of Gorby's dreams. Yet it might have been a neutral enough country to preclude a Taliban takeover. And if the Russian-Afghan war had ended earlier—if Reagan had embraced Gorbachev on the withdrawal, as he did that same autumn on the massive cutback of nuclear weapons—Osama Bin Laden today might not even be a footnote in history. (from my linked article)
Please link us to actual quotes that show Gorby and Reagan actually discussed this 'deal'. Because all your article shows is that Italy said the US wouldn't go for it. I would love to read more on this as I do think it was a major fault of Bush Sr. to not help Afghanistan in the transition after the troops left in 89.
wow.... you are starting to go off the deep end.
The 'first Bush attack'??? LMAO... that was a UN led effort to remove Saddam from Kuwait.
Quit revising history.
Here is an article that is very disturbing...
The Mujahideen, Afghanistan's freedom fighters, used the classroom to prepare children to fight the Soviet empire. The Russians are long gone but the textbooks are not. The Mujahideen had wanted to prepare the next generation of Afghans to fight the enemy, so pupils learned the proper clips for a Kalashnikov rifle, the weight of bombs needed to flatten a house, and how to calculate the speed of bullets. Even the girls learn it.
But the Mujahideen had a lot of help to create this warrior culture in the school system from the United States, which paid for the Mujahideen propaganda in the textbooks. It was all part of American Cold War policy in the 1980s, helping the Mujahideen defeat the Soviet army on Afghan soil.
The University of Nebraska was front and center in that effort. The university did the publishing and had an Afghan study center and a director who was ready to help defeat the "Red Menace."
In 1986, under President Ronald Reagan, the U.S. put a rush order on its proxy war in Afghanistan. The CIA gave Mujahideen an overwhelming arsenal of guns and missiles. But a lesser-known fact is that the U.S. also gave the Mujahideen hundreds of millions of dollars in non-lethal aid; $43 million just for the school textbooks. The U.S. Agency for International Development, AID, coordinated its work with the CIA, which ran the weapons program.
"We were providing education behind the enemy lines," says Goutier. "We were providing military support against the enemy lines. So this was a kind of coordinated effort indeed.
"I eventually was involved in some of the discussions, negotiations for removing the Soviets from Afghanistan. I was an American specialist in these discussions and many people in those discussions said just as important as (the) introduction of stinger missiles was the introduction of the humanitarian assistance because the Soviets never believed the U.S. would go to that extent."
"The U.S. government told the AID to let the Afghan war chiefs decide the school curriculum and the content of the textbooks," says CBC'S Carol Off. "What discussions did you have with the Mujahideen leaders? Was it any effort to say maybe this isn't the best for an eight-year-old's mind?"
"No, because we were told that that was not for negotiations and that the content was to be that which they decided," says Goutier.
There were those who opposed the text book project, such as Sima Samar who ran a school in those days, but opposition did little good.
"I was opposing but we had no choice," says Samar, who served as minister of women's affairs for the interim government that ran Afghanistan after the Taliban were driven out. "It was already done and… nobody had the freedom to speak against all those things."
"I was interested in being of any type of assistance that I could to help the Afghans get out of their mess and to be frank also anything that would help the United States in order to advance its interests," says Goutier.
American interests were well served. But after the defeat of the Soviet empire, the U.S. abandoned Afghanistan. The country descended into civil war. The U.S. gave almost no money to help rebuild after the war against the Soviets and no money to rewrite the school textbooks.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/afghanistan/schools.html
Quit being a nit picker, the majority of forces in Iraq, both times, were USA forces. I guess the word superpower only fits when you wish it to do so?
So.... instead of linking us to any sort of documentation on the alleged deal Reagan rejected, you link to yet ANOTHER unsubstantiated article?????
Next time just say 'I don't have any evidence' and leave it at that.
LOL.... it is not nitpicking to ask someone to be accurate. There is a HUGE difference between "The first Bush attack" and "The US led a UN coalition to liberate Kuwait."
One implies that Bush Sr. just up and decided to launch a war on Iraq.
The other shows that in response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, the UN decided to go in and remove Iraqi's from Kuwait. That coalition force was led by the US.
The word 'superpower' has NOTHING to do with it.
You right wingers are funny...it's as if there is 800 numbers like 1-800-CIA-true.
Fred Kaplan isn't some blogger. In the late 1970s, he was the foreign and defense policy adviser to Congressman Les Aspin, who became United States Secretary of Defense Les Aspin.
By Liberate Kuwait, you mean liberate the oil that Saddam was stealing from Kuwait, right.
Well, you call it want you want, I see it as the Bush attack.
yes, if at anytime children are an inconvienence it is Dem policy that they may be taken out in the yard and murdered. Funny how the right doesn't think the government has any business in medical care, until it comes to abortion.Bullshit again. That is simply a line the masters of the left have spoon fed to you. The trend started long before Reagan was in office. Ike was the last President to preside over a decline in US debt. Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter all continued adding to the debt year after year. Each getting progressively worse.
You are ignorant if you think Reagan was a proponent of big government or debt.
The champion for children.... unless of course the parents cant be inconvenienced... then you support killing those kids
The working poor are harmed consistently by the policies of the Democrats.
Tell us... what are the Dems doing for the homeless.
yes, if at anytime children are an inconvienence it is Dem policy that they may be taken out in the yard and murdered. Funny how the right doesn't think the government has any business in medical care, until it comes to abortion.
No. I mean the United Nations decided to go in and protect one of its nation members. The United States led the coalition because we are the largest contributor to the UN and we also possess the largest military.
ROFLMAO.... and THAT shows that you are just a complete partisan hack on this topic.
No, it shows I don't fall for all the propaganda, which party would I be hacking since I am not a Democrat or a Republican? The Libertarian Party? The Green Party? The Party of Free Thinkers?
No, it shows I don't fall for all the propaganda, which party would I be hacking since I am not a Democrat or a Republican? The Libertarian Party? The Green Party? The Party of Free Thinkers?