[Vision2020] Defence, Deceit, and Deficits: Reagan's Unnecessary $1 Trillion Military Build-Up

[nickgier at roadrunner.com]

Greetings:

This is a little late for Reagan's 100th BD, but the Egyptian Revolution intervened.  Read my other articles on Reagan at www.home.roadrunner.com/~nickgier/reagan.htm and /RRMyths.htm

Next week's topic: George's Washington's Religion corrected because of Glen Beck's propaganda.

Nick
 
Defense, Deceit, and Deficits: Ronald Reagan’s Unnecessary $1 Trillion Military Build-Up
     
“Reagan’s ‘Team B’ analysis of the Soviet Union overwhelming the United States is recognized by intelligence professionals as a ludicrous fantasy.”

– Robert Parry, former Associated Press reporter

There has been a lot of hoopla surrounding the 100th birthday of Ronald Reagan. As a former two-term president, it is appropriate that he be duly honored. He was indeed a very effective speaker and he was able to make Americans feel good about themselves and their country. One of the goals of good communication, however, is to relay something truthful.  

Many of the things Reagan said were false, and most everything said about his achievements is untrue or distorted. For instance, the president who did indeed cut taxes – principally for the rich – also raised taxes on the middle class in six of his eight years in office. A bill to protect social security was the largest tax increase in United States history. As governor of California is was also responsible for a $1 billion one-year increase in that state.

A president who is praised for being tough turned tail and withdrew from Beirut after 220 Marines were murdered in their sleep. Even though his advisers encouraged him time and time again, Reagan refused to invade Panama – a task that the first President George Bush did with relish.  

Many of America’s current problems began during the Reagan administration:

* The easing of regulations on financial institutions led to the savings and loan debacle and a loss of $88 billion in federal aid that was never repaid. The Obama administration will end up making money from its successful attempts at saving the financial and automotive industries.

* When Reagan assumed office, the national debt that had accumulated over 200 years was $1 trillion. When he left office that number had tripled, and $7.1 trillion of the current $14 trillion debt was run up during the Reagan and two Bush administrations.  

* The GOP mantra of “No New Taxes,” a concept touted by Reagan and a catchphrase coined by George H.W. Bush, his vice-president and successor, has meant that meager investment in infrastructure and human capital will leave the United States far behind other countries – China, India, Brazil, even Europe – by the middle of this century.

* In addition to Reagan’s tax cuts, $1 trillion in new defense expenditures also added to the national debt without an appreciable increase in our security.  

After the successful negotiations with the Soviets during the Nixon and Carter years, the Reagan administration chose fear and misinformation to prolong the Cold War. One of the principal instigators was Paul Wolfowitz, the neo-conservative who helped George W. Bush deceive the American people about the threat posed by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.  Wolfowitz convinced Reagan that the CIA was not trustworthy, and that a separate “Team B” was necessary to get the “truth” out about Soviet superiority.  
     
In his memoirs George F. Kennan, author of the “containment” policy to stop Communism, writes that “the general effect of Cold War extremism was to delay rather than hasten the great change that overtook that country at the end of the 1980s.”
     
During the celebration of the Reagan centenary much has been made about Reagan’s great challenge: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Four days after the Berlin Wall came down USA Today asked a cross-section of Americans whom they thought was responsible for the collapse of Communism. A surprising 43 percent said Mikhail Gorbachev and only 14 percent chose Ronald Reagan. For Germans who lived through it, the answer was a more decisive 70-2 percent.  
     
No one “won” the Cold War because Gorbachev and Reagan agreed to end it peacefully and diplomatically. Reagan’s advisers were shocked when at the 1986 Reykjavik Summit in Iceland he proposed the total abolition of nuclear weapons. As Temple University historian Vladislav M. Zubok states: "It was Reagan the peacemaker, not the cold warrior, who made the greatest contribution to history."
     
Every president from Harry S. Truman to Reagan should get credit for our firm bipartisan stand against the Soviet Union, even though, tragically, both sides pursued policies that caused millions of unnecessary deaths in the Third World. Reagan stood at the end of the slow economic collapse of a failed ideology and had the good luck of dealing with a pragmatic Soviet leader.
     
Nonetheless, the military misadventures of Reagan and Bush II, based on fear and misinformation, have left at least $3 trillion for our descendants to pay. (I’m using the average of the estimated cost of the Iraq war.) That is about the same amount that Obama has added, but one-third was due to the recession, another third was a stimulus bill that saved 3 million jobs and the final third was the Bush-Obama plan to save the financial and automobile industries, which save another one million jobs. 

I’m sure that my grandchildren will view that as a good investment.
      
Nick Gier taught philosophy at the University of Idaho for 31 years.
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