The terrible legacy of the Reagan years

[Say_What]

<clips>

What isn't so easy to forgive is the Reagan Doctrine, sometimes known as Third World Rollback. Rollback was the American end of the proxy war fought between the two superpowers for power and influence in the developing world. The basis was childishly simple: my enemy's enemy is my friend.

...In Central America the doctrine required supporting the "contra" rebels in Nicaragua, and backing for the Guatemalan government which - during the Reagan era - may have killed more than 100,000 Mayan Indians. Reagan described the contras as being like America's "founding fathers" and Guatemala's hard man, Rios Montt, as "a man of great personal integrity".

Over the Atlantic and down a bit, and we have Reagan welcoming Jonas Savimbi of the Unita organisation to the White House and speaking of his murderous outfit in Angola winning "a victory that electrifies the world and brings great sympathy and assistance from other nations to those struggling for freedom". Actually what Savimbi was doing was prolonging a civil war in which the UN estimates that 300,000 children died directly or indirectly during the Reagan years, and Angola was covered in landmines. Human Rights Watch reports that Unita's indiscriminate use of landmines, caused there to be more than 15,000 amputees in the country by 1988, ranking the country alongside Afghanistan and Cambodia in the league of blown-off limbs.

Speaking of Afghanistan, the administration responded to the Soviet presence by arming and organising religious zealots to harass and defeat them. When the Soviets withdrew, the Americans lost interest. The Afghans were left with the zealots and the landmines.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1233817,00.html

[salin]

1. A horrendous legacy

but somehow Americans don't really care... until the fruit of hatred and terrorism wrought by these policies comes home to roost... and then they seem to believe that among the "enemies" are the socalled "america haters" who point these realities out... often pointed out to correct policy and strengthen the country in the future.

And here with Bush - we viciously bumble around pretending to be the old Reagan policies on steriods and handed a huge permission slip to do so.

[Martin Eden]

3. Never clean up your act

When your own dirty deeds come back to bite you in the ass, don't look beyond who it was that bit you. Never look at what you might have done to provoke the bite ... it's unpatriotic.

[struggle4progress]

2. "Saddam's foreign minister, Tariq Aziz, complained ...

Saddam's foreign minister, Tariq Aziz, complained to the British ambassador that, 'We get a far better hearing from the US than from the UK.' That sits badly with this week's eulogies."

[davidavisok]

4. regan

we're still paying taxes because of him.