The Reagan Revolution

The Worldwide Legacy of the Reagan White House in World Affiars

 

 

America

  • In 1981, shortly after taking office Reagan intervened in the strike of American air-traffic controllers union, terminating all of the 11,000 employees. This was a paramount blow to unions, and a victory for the wealthy business owners. Ironically he supported the Solidarity Union of Communist Poland, while trying break unions domestically.

 

  • His doctrine of fiscal responsibility lead to dramatic cuts of social services. This was in line with us actions as governor of California where his cut of social services led to drastic homelessness among the disabled and mentally ill

 

  • Reagan promised lower taxes. His presidency was filled with promises of tax cuts, but were met with

 

  • Instead of lowering our national deficit as promised taxes increased. And his build up of the US war machine tripled our national debit
  • He gave credence to the fundamentalist Christian culture war by giving verbal support for school prayer and anti-abortion legislation; however, he took very little real action which conservatives care to ignore
  • While preaching about the virtues of getting the "government off the backs of the American people," his administration aided deregulation leading to greater corporate hold on the employee and consumer. He also aided a blow to privacy by supporting sweeping drug testing

  • He ignored the AIDS crisis that was at the forefront of a nationwide panic. While not funding treatment and research in the wake of the AIDS crisis, he did fund senior prescription drugs

 

 

Middle East

 

Afghanistan

He also supported the training, funding and arming of the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan; in essence building the forces of the future Taliban and of Osama Bin-Laden. The Mujahedeen were responsible for terrorizing the civilian population and shooting down passenger airliners. Reagan saw them as a better than the godless Communists

Iraq

The Reagan White House supported the sale of weapons and intelligence to Saddam Hussein for use against the Iranians during the Iran-Iraq war. In 1988 Sudam Hussein gassed 5,000 civilian Kurds; sanctions against Iraq was opposed by the Reagan White House, and legislation never passed congress

While the US "condemned" the use of chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq war, Rumsfeld visited several times to Iraq to market the idea of allowing the Bechtel Corporation build an oil pipeline to Jordan, which he turned down. In Bechtel 1988 after the gassing of the Kurds the Bechtel Corporation signed several contracts with Saddam Hussein. One was to build a massive dual-use chemical plant outside of Baghdad. The construction stopped only after the invasion of Iran into Kuwait, when the Bechtel empolyees were held in confinement. The last of the Bechtel employees did not leave Iraq until December 1990. By the time of the hand over of government to the Iraqi interim government Bechtel was bidding for $35 millon worth of reconstruction contracts. Saddam Hussein named Bechten as one of his sources for chemical weapons information in reports submitted to the UN.

Donald Rumsfeld and Saddam Hussein meeting for a second time to lobby Hussein to build an oil pipeline from Iraq to Jordan, on the day the UN confirmed the gassing of the Kurds; Baghdad, Iraq, December 20, 1983

Iran

The Reagan White House involved itself in arms trades with Iran in exchange for American hostages; actions which where illegal. The Iranians reported that chemical weapons were being used

Lebanon

Considered by many to be a terrible display of cowardice, Reagan ordered the evacuation of US forces from Beirut, Lebanon after military barracks were blown up in a terrorist attack led by Hezbullah. The Christian Lebanese were then aided by the Israelis in a failed resistance of the Jihadist puppet government set in place by Syria and backed by Palestinian terrorist guerrillas.

 

Latin America

 

Nicaragua

The Reagan White House aided the anti-communist guerrilla armies of Nicaragua, whom human rights groups say claimed the lives of 100,000, the UN accounts for at least 50,000 deaths of civilians, with mercenaries and arms

Guatamala

As in Nicaragua, the government of Guatemala was lent the services of the US Central Intelligence Agency and trained by the pentagon’s School of the Americas in Ft. Benning, Georgia in order to aid their anti-communist exploits during the Guatemalan civil war. The result was the genocidal extermination of 200,000 people, the vast majority being Mayan Indians. The born-again Christian dictator Gen. Efraín Ríos Montt was praised by Reagan who contended that the Guatamalan leader was given a "bum rap" and sent as much aid as Congress would allow]

 

School of the Americas in Ft. Benning, Georgia

 

El Salvador

Reagan supported the right wing government of El Salvador by assisting with approximately $8 billion worth of aide, arms and also use of CIA and military personal. George H. W. Bush personally visited San Salvador to attempt damage control, insisting “death squad murders" could cost them "the support of the American people." U.S. backing of a right-wing military state claimed the lives of approximately 41,050 civilians at the hands of the military and government death squads, 776 at hands of liberal guerrilla forces, at least 20 Americans (though actual figures are not known), Catholic Archbishop Oscar Romero, 6 Jesuit priests and 3 nuns and 1 female American lay worker who were executed. The White House denied involvement in any other capacity other than as advisors. However Secretary of State Alexander Haig and UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick seemed to justify the deaths of the women by stating that they were pro-Marxist “political activists.”

 

Honduras

He also supported the torture and murder squad of Honduras, known as Batalion 316, with CIA assistance and in turn the batalion assisted the contras (anti-communist forces) Reagan was dedicated to. Reagan called the contras "the moral equivalent of the Founding Fathers."

Scull of exicuted man, Guatamala

US ground forces in Honduras

Honduras

 

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