Saturday, June 05, 2004
RIP Ronald Reagan
Back when I was young, dumb, and conservative I was a big fan of Ronald Reagan. In the last five or so years I've learned enough to know how much damage he did to the world. Nevertheless, I'm not so cynical as to not be a bit sad about his passing, so here's to you, Ronny. I suspect I'll feel a bit of the same way about Kissenger when he finally bites it. I can respect these men as humans, but I can't escape the tragic lessons of their misguided policies.
Unfortunately, respect for the person has morphed into something of a cult when it comes to Reagan. The movement to have some public feature named in his honor in all fifty states, for instance, is a sign of his cult status. He seems to be bigger than that one guy Lennon was supposed to trump, and what's more he's stolen that one guy's fans. Reagan, like Bush, wasn't exactly "with it" when it came to foreign policy (or most other substantive issues), it was his team that did most of the heavy lifting. It's a bit beyond ironic, though, that so many players from his team are once again running about screwing up American relations in the Middle East and elsewhere. This is why Bush seems to be made of teflon -- most folks know he's not calling all the shots. I just hope Bush's personality cult doesn't grow to the same size and influence as Reagans. We can only have the world be mad at the U.S. once every twenty years or so. Too much of that and they'll decide not to play nice with the U.S. anymore.
I haven't posted for few days because I'm working out some ideas. One of these is how to deal with the myth (and the reality) of Al-Qaeda, especially the myth that Al-Qaeda could control Iraq and that an "early" (whatever in the world that means) troop withdrawl would be seen as a "victory" for Al-Qaeda. Part of the problem is finding solid information that Al-Qaeda is actually operating in Iraq; aside from statements by the CPA and other U.S. officials there isn't a whole lot of independent confirmation that this is the case. I can't say that U.S. intelligence is exactly trustworthy, thus I'm trying to nail down some hard evidence one way or another. Anyway, I'll post more about this when I have something approaching factual information.
Andrew 2:57 PM : |
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