11-16-2005, 06:41 PM
Quote:Do you really think third-rate military dictators
would laugh at America and burn our flag in contempt
if Ronald Reagan were president?
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Unfortunately I do... and they did:
Lybia
Nicaragua
Cuba
Iran
Beriut
PLO regions
But the Soviet Union did not laugh. That\'s because after four years of appeasement, inaction in the face of aggression, and the gutting of the military industrial base under the Carter administration, Chairman Brezhnev understood that he was now dealing with a man who would not put the interests of bueracrats in the United Nations ahead of the intersts of his country (Hmmm.... that sounds familiar for some reason, I\'ll think of it).
Reagan began the largest military re-invigoration project in the history of the US in an effort to restore our standing on the world stage to superpower status in league with the Soviets. So while Reagan was sending the message to Moscow that the US was not going to continue its policy of weakening the military and allowing the Soviets to increase its already huge margin of superiority, he was also making it clear that the USSR would not stand unopposed in its STATED goal to expand and threaten domacracy around the world.
In less than ten years, the USSR went from making real progress toward military supremecy on a global scale, success in expanding its power both politically and territorially, and effectively destroying the US\'s ability to oppose them, to complete dissolution of the union and the birth of fledgling democracies across the Asian continent. The communist economic system could not keep pace with the US\'s capitalistic market in an arms race unless the US itself helped to sabotage itself along the way (see Carter above). The Soviet economy went bankrupt and had no choice but to dissolve and adopt a more robust form of economic and political reform.
So the answer to the question is yes, third world dictators and the people who follow them DO scoff at and burn images of our flag and of our strongest leaders. Such demonstrations are born out of fear. Fear that their power is about to leave them and they\'ll find themselves rotting in a spider hole somewhere. Those displays are intended to rally their countrymen behind them so that they are protected. Most military dictators are paranoid and cowardly.
It\'s the strength and resolve of our greatest leaders that they fear. Beware of the President who is NOT being burned in effigy somewhere around the world. That\'s the guy for US citezens to fear.