From January 20, 1977 to January 19, 1981 James Earl Carter - our 39th President - managed to allow the Soviet Union to run rampant in Latin and Central America; much of Africa; Afghanistan and remain dominant in Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia while simultaneously allowing thugs in Iran to take - and keep - 52 American hostages for 444 days.
His great response? Boycotting the 1980 Summer Olympic games and barring Iranian oil from flowing into the U.S.
By the time he left office 40% of America's military personnel was living on foodstamps while our position as a world leader was diluted into a world joke.
Carter left office as one of our least-popular and weakest presidents.
For his accomplishments, he managed to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.
Seven years later, Barack Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize after only 37 weeks on the job. His great accomplishment towards world peace has been a speech to the Muslim world, a willingess to engage Iran in nuclear talks and the decision to remove missle protection defenses from Europe.
Meanwhile, Ronald Reagan has still not won the Nobel Peace Prize.
All he did - by the admission of his enemies in the Soviet Union - was end the Cold War and save millions from the ravages of nuclear war without firing a shot. During his eight years he accomplished more to save the planet from tyranny without war than every president in our nation's history. The record on this is clear. Go read about it for yourself.
Tell me please - how can two liberals - one who endangered the world with his weakness, and another who has done nothing to make the world a more peaceful place in his 200 plus days in office, win this award when a real savior of our earthly lives does not share in this honor?
I suppose the next award will be the Nobel Memorial Economics prize to Karl Marx.
God I love this Blog,
ReplyDeleteAs was stated within the article Ronald Reagan was a great President. He did so much and received little fame and popularity from it. But, I think it was because he wanted to do great things for the people, rather than make a name for himself. As for the Nobel Peace Prize, there has not been a bigger joke of an award than this one over the past 25 years. It seems to me that they pick the least likely person to nominate because they want others to get in on the laugh also. Obama will go down as the greatest president ever, with out doing anything to merit that personal nomination. I would think better of him if his biggest action would not have been to bring a personal friend of his and a cop that stopped him from what looked like breaking into a house together for a beer. Im sure that was a great time. Yes, it must have been very difficult to call someone a racist who was just doing their job. By the way, how is that whole trickle up economics thing doing?
From Chris Borglum, Valencia Community College professor:
ReplyDeleteReagan for the Peace Prize? Even if you don’t like Barry winning so soon (which is pretty silly, but does illustrate European disillusion with W.), don’t go being all silly about it.
Reagan supported contra death squads which are documented as using rape, torture, and indiscriminate killing of civilians to fight a duly elected leader (even if he was a dirty commie!). And as I’ve pointed out to you before, he held up the hand of the Guatemalan dictator who ordered the El Mozote massacre the day after those 100+ civilians were machine gunned and dropped in a well. After all, that guy was a supporter of “liberty.” And why is it y’all never give Gorbachev any credit for the end of Soviet hegemony? Do you think if Brezhnev had lived that that would’ve gone down without lots of death and ugliness?
History, Jack, gets in the way of hagiography all the time.
PS—why don’t you post this to your comments thing on your blog since I can’t? That way your readers can shell me. It’ll be fun!
First, Reagan did not support rape, murder, plunder, etc. by the Contras or anyone else. His support for the Contras was based on his belief - rightly, or wrongly - that it would help stave off the expansion of communism in that region. As a Libertarian I struggle with the idea of giving support in that form to those groups but he did not support them so that people would be raped and tortured. Even liberal professors should know that.
ReplyDeleteSecond, Gorbachev does deserve credit and has received that by those who understand what took place in the 1980s. Why can't liberals give Reagan any credit for FORCING Gorbachev to pursue Glasnost and Peristroika? Do you think he would have moved the Soviet Union in that direction without the economic pressure Reagan imposed on his nation? He has acknowledged that Reagan was responsible for creating the economic crisis that brought about reform. How can you, or any liberal for that matter, mention 100 people who were machine gunned and never mention the hundreds of millions that were saved by Reagan's efforts to end the Cold War? His insight into the inner workings of the Soviet system date back to the early 60's and his thoughts on how Communism could be ended predate his presidencny by 20 years. The Eastern Europeans owe their very lives and prosperity to Reagan. Ask the people of Poland what they think of him.
To hold him accountable for war crimes by the Contras without acknowledging truth in other areas of the 1980s is intellectually dishonest.
Oh Yes, I do so enjoy when scholastic giants argue. In honesty I must give points to the both of you for your arguments. I am surprised however that big words like Plausible Deniability and Code Reds do not come into play with your intellectual game of pong. The actual reality of the world of today is this, all presidents have given aid to some form of organizations that have used actions of questionable merit to meet their goals "didn’t America train Osama bin laden under presidential ok". I do not hear anybody blasting the others who shall not be named out of fear that I might disappear in the night. No, some people have always had some form a problem with Reagan. Just saying his name at an educated party is like playing rap at a formal ball. Yet, to me it is humorous how educated people can down someone who went from an actor to the president who worked so hard for the protections of Europe and us here in the greatest hypocrisy ever known "even if he did bankrupt the Soviet union by give us 5000+ nuclear bombs to deal with here". In reality Russia was a paper tiger, it was the ideology on communism that Reagan helped to destroy. That is why I give him Kudos. As Sun Tzu stated in the art of war “one who wins the battle without ever firing a shot is truly a tactical genius”, or something close to that. He did do so much damage to the communistic structure while avoiding war. And the biggest remembrance we have of him is the Ronald Reagan Turnpike. Yet, Weasels win the Nobel Peace Prize awards for doing nothing but destruction and lying. I am thinking that Bush should go ahead and purchase some trophy polish and write a speech. Because if we follow the hypocrecy then he should be the next winner. How @ss backwards is that??? As the saying goes, “only in America”.
ReplyDeleteDavid Huff
Seperationist
The [classical] liberal, of course,
ReplyDeletedoes not deny that there are some superior people --
he is not an egalitarian --
but he denies that anyone has authority
to decide who these superior people are.
-- Fredrich August von Hayek
(1899-1992), Nobel Laureate of Economic Sciences 1974
Source: "Why I Am Not a Conservative," postcript to The Constitution of Liberty [1960] (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1972), p. 402