Admittedly the Democrats are a lot closer to terribly bad than the Republicans but neither one of them is invited to date my daughters or sell me a car. Having said that let me say thank you for the compliment on my site...now back to the show. hehe...in case you forget what you said you will be indented, bolded, and italicized...jus cuz.
If you are as conservative as you say you are (and btw, nice website),
Whether I am or not is up to me. Whether others think so does not concern me.
surely you will agree that anything coming out of CNN ought to be viewed with great skepticism. The transcript you have provided provides quotes from McFarlane, Snow, etc.,
Yes but the problem you have is those quotes back up what I was saying not what you were saying. Here let me demonstrate...
but the majority of that transcript is nothing but editorializing by John Roberts and painting the picture CNN wants to put on display.
Gee that was quite a bit that I just posted and it is pretty damning that the Reagan administration blew it. Remember that I worked on the Reagan campaign...didn't mention that did I?
I have noted that since the U.K./Iran debacle this past week, there is a growing tendency on the part of some individuals to try and paint Ronald Reagan as somehow being negligent or less than engaged in the early years of the Islamofascist war on the United States, and yet the fact remains that Iran released our hostages the day Reagan was sworn in, and that wasnt because they thought he was nice guy and easy to deal with, far from it.
I was under the impression it was because he was making deals to release the hostages. But you think it was they were scared of the US? Or him personally before he had even gotten into office? If that is the case then having their Proxies blow the crap out of the Marine Headquarters/Barracks seems contradictory.
Reagan actually sank the better part of the Iranian navy as mentioned by poster ithinkBIG above, so while the U.S. actions following the Marines barracks bombing of 83 can be debated ad infinitum, the fact is that Reagan remained engaged in the Middle East, the U.S. did not leave Israel to fend for itself, when it came to the Straits of Hormuz, we kept them open and Iran paid the price for messing with us in that area, we bombed the Libyan bozo Gaddafi, and this all took place under the shadow of the continuing Soviet threat in the waning years of the Cold War.
I didn't claim he did everything wrong just that he didn't do the Marine Barracks right.
I note also, that McFarlane (quoted extensively in this CNN report) was only Reagans National Security Advisor for the better part of two years, 83 to 85. I have to also question just how stable McFarlane is, as he tried to off himself with valium in 87 claiming he failed his country due to the Iran-Contra nonsense.
You sure that you are not a leftist? Because that attack was straight out of the playbook. Attack the messenger not the message...for shame.
That isnt rational behavior, and I think it means that his statements ought to be viewed with at least a slight degree of skepticism. How many of his recollections are accurate? Who can say? I cant, and neither can you. Im not saying McFarlane is the bad guy, far from it but it would be absolutely SOP for a yellow journalistic enterprise like CNN to take advantage of someone who had been through that kind of trauma, both personally and professionally. I think the entire CNN product is questionable.
Perhaps you missed the other personalities:
Lieutenant General Snowden retired as Chief of Staff, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, in May 1979, after 37 years of active service which included combat duty in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. Lieutenant General Snowden served as a regimental commander in Vietnam; Director of the Marine Corps Development Center; Chief of Staff, U.S. Forces, Japan; and Operations Deputy of the Marine Corps with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Upon his retirement, Lieutenant General Snowden joined Hughes Aircraft International Service Company in Tokyo where he is currently Vice President, Far East Area.
"On October 25, the chief of naval intelligence notified Lyons of an intercept of a message between Tehran and Damascus that had been made on or about September 26, 1983. The message had been sent from MOIS [the Iranian Ministry of Information and Security] to the Iranian ambassador in Syria, Ali Akbar Mohtashemi
.The message directed the ambassador to contact Hussein Musawi, the leader of the terrorist group Islamic Amal, and to instruct [Musawi to] have his group instigate attacks against the multinational coalition in Lebanon, and to take a spectacular action against the United States Marines."
The ruling continues: "Lyons testified that he has absolutely no doubt about the authenticity or reliability of the message, which he took immediately to the secretary of the navy and [the] chief of naval operations, who viewed it, as he did, as a '24-karat gold document'."
If someone wants to put the blame on somebody for the current jihad that the West is facing, they need look no further than the traitor Jimmy Carter who set the whole thing in motion starting with the betrayal of the Shah.
Absolutely no argument there...the worst President of the last 100 years. Perhaps the worst President of all time.
Were mistakes made during the Reagan Administration? Of course there were, no Administration is fault free. But these convenient post-mortems of the Reagan years while we are engaged in the current war on Islamofascism serve only one purpose, to demoralize conservatives and boost the fortunes of the left.
No actually if we don't acknowledge mistakes we will continue to make them. Matter of fact that is exactly what we are doing as we watch President Bush continue the proud tradition of NOT holding States accountable for terror. Am I glad about Iraq and Afghanistan? You bet. Was WW2 over after we invaded Morocco and Sicily? Nope. The left will be defeated by our deliberate drive to defeat our enemy. Not by our halfway measures to appease them as well as defeat an enemy whose main purpose in life is our complete and utter destruction. But the left is another subject...maybe you can school us on your tactics...hehehe.
We have seen in the last decade the decline of the American government and the weakness of the American soldier who is ready to wage Cold Wars and unprepared to fight long wars. This was proven in Beirut when the Marines fled after two explosions. [ABC News, 5/28/1998]
This is still happening...we have not yet struck back at Iran for killing our soldiers either in Lebanon or in Iraq or probably in Afghanistan. Exactly how long will it take?
Those are powerful arguments you’ve assembled, and yet I still take issue with the characterization that we ran with our ‘ass between our legs’ (not going to let you forget that, lol), because that is simply not what happened. If Reagan had issued an immediate order to get all of our forces out of Lebanon the very next day after that bombing, THAT would constitute cutting and running, ala Jack Murtha but that isn’t what happened.
I agree with you that a stronger response was needed, and in retrospect Reagan should have either asked for Cap’s resignation or fired him when it became apparent that Weinberger was not on board with what Reagan wanted done in the area of retaliation.
Don’t think for a moment however, that I have any leftist leanings, my questions regarding Bud McFarlane were legitimate, and you know that if we were talking about a hypothetical Sandy Burglar in that position who had tried to kill himself, that there would be people raising the same issues about just how stable he might be. As I said, McFarlane wasn’t the bad guy, he was arguing FOR retaliation, Weinberger blocked it. But if CNN was exploiting McFarlane in order to smear Reagan, that would not surprise me in the least.
What I am reminded of in this exchange we’re having is how easy it is for anyone (including you or me) to look back and say with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight that we should have done this, or should have done that, but I recall Reagan saying words to the effect that his Administration would take responsibility for any mistakes that were made, if they at least were given credit for what they did RIGHT.
Your view on this post-mortem on Reagan policies regarding terrorism in general and Lebanon in particular is that we benefit when we identify errors made, and take steps to be sure those errors aren’t repeated. I’m in full agreement with that approach, but remember also that when such ‘analysis’ is presented by the premiere conservative-hating, left-leaning, and disloyal cable network of all time, the question must be asked “who benefits”?
You might say that America benefits if we avoid errors in the future. That may yet be the case. But when CNN and their affiliated America-hating brethren broadcast stuff like this, their agenda is NOT to ‘avoid errors’ in the future, their agenda is to retrospectively slant and taint history as THEY wish it to be portrayed, the focus being concentrated on what went WRONG in the Reagan years, not what went RIGHT, to emphasize mistakes, not the successes, and by so doing, they inject their ideological meme into the public consciousness to be parroted, repeated and embraced as gospel by those who work tirelessly to bring about an American defeat and a collapse of our way of life.
What we need as a clearly enunciated national policy, is that if terrorists mess with the United States, they will be killed. No ifs, ands or buts. They will die, and hopefully as horrible a death as is humanly possible. It should be an unconditional policy, which covers individual terrorists and their cells, to rogue states like Iran that seek to destabilize the entire Middle East. No negotiations, no conferences, no initiatives, no ‘road maps to peace’, I say bullsh*t on all of that yak-yaking, the best way to end the scourge of Islamofascist terrorism is to kill each and every last one of them, sparing NO one.
That’s the way I see it.
By the way, interesting note on your work in the Reagan campaign, did you also work in his Administration? I’m sure you have some stories to tell, I hope you’ll share them.