"Mr. Manipulator, Tear Down These Lies!"

[Rebel_with_a_cause]

My father sent this to me from one of his oft-visited websites.

http://www.politicalhardball.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=100&topic_id=86716&mode=full&page=

I would like to share some history, personally witnessed by me and participated in by several of those near and dear to me. It has to do with the fall of the Berlin Wall. The timing of my comments is motivated by the insanely skewed glorification of a play-to-the-folks-back-home line in a June 1987 speech by Ronald Reagan.

I would like to point out that what seemed to be the Brandenburg Gate backdrop for that speech was not real. It was a painted backdrop. To have stood in front of Brandenburg Gate would have meant standing in the no man's land between East and West Berlin.

The cheering crowds were not Berliners, but a carefully gathered group of U.S. military (in civilian clothes)and their dependents. Berliners were few and far between and selected carefully. The average citizen was kept well over a kilometer away (perhaps closer to two kilometers).

These two falsely represented aspects offer precedent for what we so so commonly see today with Shrub and Cheney.

The admonition to Mr. Gorbachev was designed to sound good to Americans. Berliners generally found it laughable as they saw, day by day, the American soldiers doing what they had done as the wall was constructed -- nothing. They saw, in ensuing days, some American soldiers actually assisting the GDR in preventing people from leaving the East. The last thing American presidents wanted -- and Reagan was not alone on this -- was an armed conflict over the Berlin Wall. Imagine what it took to build that 26-mile wall so quickly and recall please that despite the heavy presence of American military, there was no effort to stop its construction.

EDITED BY ADMIN: COPYRIGHT

"Baxter"

[teryang]

1. I think that you are correct

America basically didn't have a clue about what was happening "behind the wall." At the time it was noted as a major intelligence failure. The Korean government which sponsored trade with the "Warsaw Pact" states was conducting an aggressive policy of opening up Eastern Europe and Russia to commerce and cultural exchange in the late 80s, while openly promoting the obsolescence of the wall and cold war differences.

In 1988, "communist" athletes were feted in Korea much to the surprise of any Americans who even noticed. It was a two way street with outgoing eastern European Athletes shaking the hands of any "free" westerners they happened to meet. The theme song of the Olympics was Hand in Hand (we will overcome the wall). It was felt by South Koreans and their government that overcoming the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain mold would presage the collapse of the DMZ. The US then and now opposes any sunshine policy toward N.Korea.

[Art_from_Ark]

2. Interesting comments

The two Bushes opposed a sunshine policy toward North Korea, while Clinton was encouraging one. Keep Korea (and by extension, Japan) in fear, and you can sell them more weapons.

[teryang]

3. As the Chinese say

After listening to crazy pronouncements from Bolten, Chimp and Cheney, America has no policy in Northeast Asia.

Our policy rests on the outdated alliance system that depends on the North Korean South Korean bifurcation for existence. Although the neo-cons like Cheney say they will destroy N.Korea in so many words, they have articulated no policy for the post DMZ world. Bifurcation has more to do with great power maneuvering than ideological conflict. There is a strong possibility that peaceful commercial and social exhange between the north and south will cause the political differences to evaporate suddenly as the wealth of the Southern economy and culture grows too inviting. The US has no plans for this. That is why they oppose it. What then will be the justification for American forces in Japan? This is one reason I think the neo-cons have been agitating to inject American military forces back into the Phillippines.

[Art_from_Ark]

4. Oh, they can still justify US forces in Japan

After all, most are based in Okinawa, which is just a stone's throw from big bad China. And a lot of Japanese here on the mainland still seem to be apprehensive about China, although I've heard that Okinawans are not so concerned about a Chinese threat.

It's interesting that the chimpanzers were stirring up the pot with North Korea, then sold a bunch of military hardware to Japan, and I believe, South Korea as well. Now we have the US apparently redeploying troops from SK to Iraq.

[teryang]

5. Yes, it can be justified

But American troops are like nuclear power plants. Everyone wants the electricity but no one wants the plant or its effluvia in their neighborhood.

In any case, I'm talking about the current treaty structure. A treaty which openly is aimed at China in terms of a defensive alliance instead of using the N.Korean angle is much more provocative and doesn't exist at this stage. If Korean security issues were off the table hypothetically, how would such a new treaty address the Taiwan issue or mainland China. It presents a problem similar to that faced in Europe before WWI. The very existence of such a treaty creates instability and risk of war rather than security. This is the problem of negotiating "after DMZ" security arrangements.

This is no vision beyond selling weapons and manning the watchtowers. These "strong on national security" phonies haven't got a vision for dealing with increased Chinese power when the old devices no longer play to the world audience.

[Art_from_Ark]

6. Another very interesting point

I was not aware they cannot specifically mention China.

Unofficially, though, that is what they have been doing, in Okinawa at least. Okinawans wonder why so many troops are needed there, if the threat is North Korea? Because China presents another, potential, threat, they are told. And there have been some squabbles over the Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands which are claimed by Japan, China, and Taiwan. There is also the possibility of China invading Taiwan and pushing its claim to some of the Okinawan islands.

[Art_from_Ark]

7. Sorry to take your thread off on a tangent

I agree with your assessment. It was Berliners who brought down the wall. Having Reagan take credit for the fall of Communism is like having the 9th batter in the line-up get a bloop single to drive in the final run in a 10-0 game, and taking credit for the victory.

[teryang]

8. Thank you Art

I got off on the tangent, because the the lack of insight involves the same leadership group.

When I heard Dan Quayle speak in Korea in 1989, it was as if the world hadn't changed since 1953. Cheney's speech in Korea this year about "destroying regimes" reminded one of extreme right demands to roll back the Iron Curtain by force and "unleash" Chiang Kai-Shek.

A few days after the speech, a huge suspicious explosion took place near Sinuiju, North Korea, the high water mark of MacArthur's dubious and ill fated challenge to the Chinese.

[Moderator]

9. Rebel_with_a_cause

Per DU copyright rules
please post only four
paragraphs from the
copyrighted source.


Thank you.

DU Moderator

[Rebel_with_a_cause]

10. It came off a chatroom, from one of the posters on that site

Do copyright laws apply to chatroom posts?

Granted, the writer is excellent, but its only published source is a post on a chatroom, not the NYT (though I wish it were there as well).

[Snellius]

11. Thanks, rebel

I'm not sure what to make of this account, which itself suffers from selective perception (the Brandenburg Gate "backdrop", for example), but the general argument about the myth that "Ronald Reagan conquered the Evil Empire" needs to be debunked.

I used to be a historian once and I've had similar feelings regarding events in history in which I've participated or know very well, realities that get misconstrued or warped by the "conventional wisdom" or worse to the point of being true only in the realm of what we want to believe. It's amazing how painful just a lie can be. After all it's only in our heads. But lies cut to the very heart of things.

[progressivebydesign]

14. Also.. the wall was down when Reagan uttered those words. N/T

[Snellius]

15. Not true. The wall came down in 1989. 2 years after speech.

Remarks at the Brandenburg Gate
West Berlin, Germany
June 12, 1987

http://www.reaganfoundation.org/reagan/speeches/wall.asp

Erich Honecker, East Germany's head of state, had to resign on October 18, 1989.
The new governement prepared a new law to lift the travel restrictions for East German citizen.
At 06.53 pm on November 9, 1989 a member of the new East German government was asked at a press conference when the new East German travel law comes into force.
He answered: "Well, as far as I can see, ... straightaway, immediately."
Thousands of East Berliners went to the border crossings. At Bornholmer Strasse the people demanded to open the border and at 10.30 pm the border was opened there.
That moment meant the end of the Berlin Wall.
Soon other border crossing points opened the gates to the West
In that night the deadly border was opened by East Germans peacefully.

http://www.dailysoft.com/berlinwall/history/fall-of-berlinwall.htm

On edit: Physically, the wall in front of the Gate may have been only barbed wire. I was only there once and don't remember the wall directly in front of the gate. But I do remember a long no-man's-land, well-protected by dogs and guards, and formidable as any wall of stone.

[Rebel_with_a_cause]

16. It would have had to have been a "backdrop," wouldn't it?

When I visited Berlin (both sides) in '87, the gate was several hundred meters from where I was able to view it on the east side, and on the west side, as I recall, it was a bit too far from the high wall to be of much notice. Is my memory of that correct?

Today, there are stone boundaries in the street meandering near the Reichstag, bordering the edge of the park, crossing the street, the Brandenburg Gate to the left with Unter den Linden perpendicular but at a distance on the other side of the Gate, by the Adlon Hotel. So, Reagan couldn't have been that close to the gate to use it as a meaningful backdrop, right? There has always been a good view of the gate from the Adlon on the East side, but wasn't it blocked on the west?

A couple of years ago the gate itself was covered with an idealized material while it was undergoing renovation...had a zipper running up the front, and I think it was Clinton who was invited to help "unzip" the covering.

[Snellius]

17. Good riddle. This is the only photo I could find

(If Skinner turned off pictures, this is the url: http://www.arts.mcgill.ca/programs/history/faculty/TROYWEB/SearchingforReagansRosebud.htm)

Looks like the wall to me.

I was only there in 1968, at the height of tensions with the West, and all I remember was seeing the Gate at a distance from the other side with a formidable no-man's-land of barbed wire in between.

Maybe someone can help us out here. This would be a good one to debunk.

[PATRICK]

12. That raises a question

We know about Reagan's borrowed scripts from the Kennedys. JFK's "Ich bin ein Berliner" was not immediately comprehensible to the crowd, but what was his setting? After all they had a tank touching showdown before the wall not long before he arrived, like Eisenhower in the theater of conflict. I seem to remember more genuine crowds greeting JFK.

Reagan was also so sad in that this aged theatrical substitute mangling everything the Dems and "Greatest generation" stood for seemed to revive a glimmer of charisma hunger. Then he would go and do something so indefensible it had to be quickly forgotten, kneeling in front of the SS graves.

Then on the radio it is equally embarrassing to see people, reaching for compliments, honoring Reagan for what he never did, was incapable of doing and opposed. So pathetic this hunger for a king. I hope they never find one who really will give them the iron fist backhand.

[quinnox]

13. funny headline

I didn't read the post, but the headline gave me a chuckle.