David Corn: Reagan Supported Dictators ... As Long as They Said They Opposed Communists
Roundup: Talking About HistoryDavid Corn, in tompaine.com (June 9, 2004):
Aren't we mature enough as a democracy to memorialize our leaders with clear eyes? While the nation mourns one of its most popular presidents, it must be truthful in assessing his leadership. The very resolve being celebrated on op-ed pages across the country also led Reagan to ignore and sometimes sanction the brutality being committed in the name of fighting the "evil empire."
I have a vision. On the day that the remains of Ronald Reagan are transported from the US Capitol to the National Cathedral for the funeral services, the hearse will pass 800 black crosses.
Each cross will represent one of the men, women and children who were killed by the Salvadoran military in the village of El Mozote in December 1981. Each would be a reminder that the dead man now celebrated in the media as a lover of freedom and democracy oversaw a foreign policy that empowered and enabled murderous brutes and thugs in the name of anti-Sovietism. Many innocents in other lands paid dearly for Reagan's crusade.
Throughout his presidency, Reagan made nice with dictators - no matter how nefarious - as long as they parroted his opposition to communism. As soon as he entered the White House, his administration tried to normalize relations with Augosto Pinochet, the dictator of Chile, who was responsible for a bloody coup that overthrew a democratically elected (but socialist) government. The Reaganites also cozied up to the fascistic and anti-Semitic junta of Argentina, which tortured, slaughtered and disappeared its political opponents. And don't forget Reagan's attempt to woo Saddam Hussein, even after it was known that Hussein had used chemical weapons. (Reagan assigned this task to Donald Rumsfeld.)
Reagan may have pushed for democracy and human rights in the Soviet bloc,
but he cared little for these values elsewhere. He dramatically urged the destruction
of the Berlin Wall and supported the Solidarity movement in Poland. But he sent
money and assistance to regimes that repressed and murdered their people. While
visiting Ferdinand Marcos, the Filipino dictator, Reagan's vice president, George
H.W. Bush, toasted Marcos' "adherence to democratic principles." People
lost their freedom or died because Reagan and his lieutenants could not see
beyond their ideological blinders and cut deals with miscreants who shared their
anti-Moscow mantra. Not only did Reagan embolden torturers and murders, the
CIA, following his order to support the contra rebels in Nicaragua (who were
trying to oust the socialist Sandinistas), worked with suspected drug traffickers.
Who said so? Not conspiracy-theory nuts, but the inspector general of the CIA.
Years after the contra war, the agency's IG produced two reports that conceded
the CIA had enlisted the assistance of alleged drug-runners. At the same time
Nancy Reagan was preaching "Just Say No" to drugs. ...
comments powered by Disqus
News
- Josh Hawley Earns F in Early American History
- Does Germany's Holocaust Education Give Cover to Nativism?
- "Car Brain" Has Long Normalized Carnage on the Roads
- Hawley's Use of Fake Patrick Henry Quote a Revealing Error
- Health Researchers Show Segregation 100 Years Ago Harmed Black Health, and Effects Continue Today
- Nelson Lichtenstein on a Half Century of Labor History
- Can America Handle a 250th Anniversary?
- New Research Shows British Industrialization Drew Ironworking Methods from Colonized and Enslaved Jamaicans
- The American Revolution Remains a Hotly Contested Symbolic Field
- Untangling Fact and Fiction in the Story of a Nazi-Era Brothel