The Other Side of Reagan

[WilliamPitt]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24245-2004Jun8.html

The Other Side of Reagan

By Jefferson Morley
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 8, 2004; 8:19 AM

He was an "enigma" with a pathological" fondness for Latin American military dictatorships. He was an ally of Saddam Hussein. He understood the greatness of China and befriended India. He championed globalization ahead of his time.

He was Ronald Reagan in the eyes of the international online media.

It's not that most pundits outside of the United States don't like or understand the 40th American president who died Saturday. As the BBC noted Monday, newspapers around the world "bid a mostly fond farewell" to Reagan.

But journalists around the world, like their American counterparts, are now trying to write Reagan's story into their own national histories. Viewed from outside the perspective of the United States, Europe and Russia, Reagan's legacy sometimes takes a very different form than the eulogies of the Western press.

"The Iranian people have different memories of the 40th American president," said Iran's state-run radio network, Tehran Voice of the Islamic Republic. While others remember the arms race, Star Wars and speeches against communism, Iranians remember Reagan for "America's overt and covert support for Saddam " in the 1980s, including "the supply of intelligence, gained through espionage" that enabled Iraq "to deal a blow to Iranian combatants on the battlefield."

The Reagan administration's "strategic pact with Saddam...included the sale of chemical weapons" that "left hundreds of thousands of people wounded and martyred," the radio report said. "Those who perpetrated or approved of such crimes, such as the current American administration's Defense Secretary (Donald) Rumsfeld were not brought to justice."

...more...

[BJ]

1. And let's never forget PATCO!

The only Federal employees' union to endorse our Acting President during the 1980 campaign and how Reagan rewarded them for their loyality eight months after taking office! Link

[SheilaT]

4. Ah, yes. No one ever mentions that anymore.

Union busting, par excellence!

And Lane Kirkland, head of the AFL-CIO not only didn't stand up to Reagan's firing of the air traffic controllers, but sucked up to him big time over the next few years. I believe he led the AFL-CIO to endorse Ronnie in 84.

[2Design]

2. thank you ...interesting the statement that rumsfeld was not brought to

justice then or even now on his crimes against humanity......He approved and perpetrated crimes then as now.....

[nodictators]

3. Let's not forget Reagan's little-known alliance with Pol Pot and ...

...the Khmer Rouge.

The facts were exposed in a 1984 book, Reagan's Secret Wars.

The major media outlets mostly censored this monsterous fact.

However, after Reagan left office, Peter Jennings did a one-hour, little-noted, prime-time special on ABC-TV about the alliance.

About one month later, then-President George H. W. Bush, ended the alliance.

[DinahMoeHum]

5. The people in Latin American countries are glad he's gone.

It was not the best of times for them.

:nuke:

[bobthedrummer]

6. Ah, the history of Rumsfeld with it's many tangencies to the Republicans

through time and space, I love that fact being mentioned. Get the word out on these fascist war criminals, now.

There is no statute of limitations in the United States of America for murder.
NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW.

Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and the Manchurian Candidate by Maureen Farrell
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/FAR405A.html

[Squeech]

7. To the rest of the world he was a genial idiot

I travelled outside the US in 1984 and got to see some newspaper coverage from other countries. The consensus was, he was a nice man way over his head.

Which I suppose is what I think, except he was way too willing to be used as a tool of some very not-nice men, many of whom are still around pulling C-Plus Augustus's puppet strings today.

[ronatchig]

8. Mr. Pitt

First, let me thank you for your nightly summaries on Truthout, I find them both entertaining and very concisely informative. I truly hope that you find a way to inform the nation on an even wider scale.

As to your post here, the unvarnished truth of the Reagan-Bush administration's crimes and immorality on a Global basis needs to be shouted from the rooftops. The reediting of the true nature of this regime must be fought. In the weeks to come my hope is that the Oct. surprise, Iran-Contra debacle, Nazi-fecation of American military and law enforcement can reenter the National debate so as once and for all destroy the American Fascists' dreams of domination.

A photograph of "The Shining City on the Hill" must include the shanty-shacks of the oppressed on whose backs the city is built.