Reagan would have turned 102 -- and totally opposed Obama drone's policy -- today
News blogs, sports blogs, entertainment blogs, and more from Philly.com, The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News.
Reagan would have turned 102 -- and totally opposed Obama drone's policy -- today
Ronald Reagan was born on this date 102 years ago today. He died in June 2004 -- nearly three months before I started blogging -- but he's appeared quite a bit on Attytood, especially while and after I wrote a 2009 book about Reagan and his legacy called "Tear Down This Myth." Why write so much about a man who left the Oval Office 24 years, who died nearly eight years ago?
The main and most important reason is that the modern Republican Party has warped Reagan's legacy for its own 21st Century political purposes -- twisting his actual views and his official actions on everything from war to taxes into a right-wing vision that the Gipper himself probably wouldn't recognize. So it's useful from time to time to remind ourselves who Ronald Reagan really was -- and wasn't -- in order to beat back dumb ideas in the present.
Beyond that, I'm a huge fan of recalling our history, in general, because remembering where we've been can teach us a thing or two about where we are going now. As we debate reducing the federal deficit, fpr example, it's useful to remember that Reagan saw raising taxes -- something he did 11 times as president -- as part of the solution. The tale of how Reagan deregulated the savings-and-loan industry -- with disastrous results -- should have told warned us about deregulating the banksters, even though it clearly didn't.
Let's be clear that there was quite a lot about the real, non-mythical Ronald Reagan not to like -- his encouragement of a Gordon Gekko economy that created a yawning gap between the rich and poor, his embrace of death squads and other atrocities by U.S. surrogates in Central America, and his failure to address problems from the AIDS crisis to growing homelessness. But there's one overlooked aspect of Reagan's policy that I keep coming back to, because it's so relevant in 2013: His views on addressing international terrorism -- and on using techniques such as torture, military tribunals, and military strikes to combat them.
On that score, Reagan -- for all other flaws -- did a very good job of upholding the values that once seemed to be embedded in our national DNA -- a belief in our unique system of justice, and that "American exceptionalism" only meant something if the United States wasn't a nation that tortured people or bombed far-away countries willy-nilly.
In 1988, Reagan signed the UN Convention Against Torture, which was later ratified by the Senate in 1994. It states in part: "No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture." It also bars nations from transporting prisoners to other nations knowing they'll be tortured there -- the practice that we've come to call "rendition." The George W. Bush administration would later call the treaty that Reagan signed "quaint" as both waterboarding and frequent rendition took place during the 2000s.
In addition, the Reagan administration made it very clear where it stood on the question of whether terror suspects should be tried before traditional civilian courtrooms -- or by special military tribunals or commissions. In the late 1980s, after a spate of attacks in the Middle East such as the murder of cruise ship passenger Leon Klinghoffer. America ultimately took custody of several terror suspects -- who were tried before civilian judges and juries. In a major irony, the official who articulated Reagan's policy was Paul Bremer -- later to become the first overseer of post-invasion Iraq. Bremer said: "[A] major element of our strategy has been to delegitimize terrorists, to get society to see them for what they are -- criminals -- and to use democracy's most potent tool, the rule of law against them."
The question of drone strikes gets a little trickier -- since today's sophisticated flying death robots weren't around in the 1980s, But I think it's pretty clear where Reagan would have come down on both the "shock and awe" laid down on Iraq during the Bush years and on the expansion of drone strikes -- and the collateral damage that comes with them -- under President Obama. He would have almost certainly opposed both.
Here's a passage from "Tear Down This Myth" that explains:
After the June 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847 by Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon, which included the death of the Navy diver [Robert] Stethem, [Lou] Cannon wrote in the Post that Reagan stunned some of his aides, such as the bellicose Patrick J. Buchanan, with his unwillingness to use force in response to terrorism. "Reagan, always more tender-hearted when dealing with real people than with abstract ideas, decided that retaliation in which innocent civilians are killed is 'itself a terrorist act' -- a view he expressed publicly at his June 18 news conference," Cannon wrote. He noted that just two days later the president had to overrule a military response to an attack on Marines in El Salvador, and he wrote that "Reagan asked [National Security Advisor Robert] McFarlane whether an attack could be carried out without killing civillians -- a yardstick that surprised Buchanan." In fact, avoiding collateral damage to civilians and their property was a cornerstone of Pentagon thinking, and Reagan's, in the 1980s.
It's true that under Reagan, America did undertake a highly dubious invasion of Grenada and did drop bombs once, in Libya, in response to a terrorist bombing that killed two U.S. soldiers in Berlin. Those actions were the exception, though. History later revealed the list of proposed military moves he rejected was much longer, such as a blockade of Cuba to stop arms shipments to Nicaragua or an invasion of Panama -- something his successor George H.W. Bush didn't have a second thought about carrying out his first year as president.
This is important to understand, because it puts our messed-up present in the proper context. Reagan, indefatigable Cold Warrior and conservative advocate for American strength, did not believe in torture, rendition, military tribunals, or in military strikes with a high risk of killing innocent civilians. This was because he was simply upholding traditional American values, as virtually everyone understood them for more than two centuries.
It is what has happened in the last dozen years that is not normal, not America as most of us -- Reagan included -- have known it. Now we have gone so far off the rails that we have a president who -- while he was in college, during Reagan's first term -- once wrote a paper called "Breaking the War Mentality" and railed against "billion-dollar erector sets," but now thinks its OK to order the death of American citizens from flying robots if they are merely suspected of terrorist ties -- "even if there is no intelligence indicating they are engaged in an active plot to attack the U.S."
Maybe I'm being naive, but I'm thinking that if Ronald Reagan were here today he'd be wondering how we got to this point, this endless state of war with its slippery slope of moral justifications -- and how can we make it stop.
Yes, remember the booming 80s where jobs were aplenty, my union father was working days/nights/weekends, but our watchdog media made sure the homeless were on the news every night.
Now that U6 unemployment is through the roof, 1 in 6 children in poverty, food stamps are a reality for tens of millions, but somehow the homeless are suddenly nowhere to be found, at least according to our media masters. Oh, and "FUNEMPLOYEMNT".
What. A. Laugh.— teardownthisfishwrap- I don't think it's fair to compare Presidents/parties across the eras. @Chasing History -- I don't think Clinton would be accepted in today's Democratic party... Back in the 80's, Reagan did not have to deal with an "information society" -- people got their news from, well, the news! You didn't have the internet and the 24/7 news spin cycle to deal with. That doesn't mean that Reagan would have sacrificed his principles to appease today's conservatives -- I don't think anyone can answer that question.— IggleFan68
- "Now that U6 unemployment is through the roof, 1 in 6 children in poverty, food stamps are a reality for tens of millions, but somehow the homeless are suddenly nowhere to be found, at least according to our media masters. Oh, and "FUNEMPLOYEMNT"." The U6 rate has fallen by a greater amount than U3 over the past five years. The gap between U3 and U6 has decreased in the past five years. Your analysis, and the ideology it depends on, are total jokes. You're a joke, a goof. Yes, heavens, food stamps (and other social programs) have increased in the wake of a still deeply depressed economy. The horror! Which explains why right wingers need to suggest that "these people" WANT to be on food stamps (and other social programs) and don't want good jobs, to pay for everything needed and wanted. tear down = another decaying wh1te man.— Murrayman
- Murray, you'd have an easier time explaining quantum physics to your cat than explaining economics to fishwrapper.
— wokmaster - "These clowns might just actually filibuster the nomination of Obama's choice for Sec of Def." But wok, I don't think you realize -- Hagel once criticized Israel and implored the use of --- diplomacy.— Murrayman
- Murrayman, I think there are legitimate areas for debate around "the safety net". How long should the government provide food stamps/unemployment benefits -- depressed economy or not. The thing for conservatives to think about, is what I like to call the "law of unintended consequences", something which trips liberals up all the time. If you end unemployment benefits & food stamps, or make cuts in them, what are the downstream impacts to the economy? What is an effective plan to transition back to work?— IggleFan68
- Hagels made the mistake of publically stating that, in retrospect, we should never have gone into Iraq. This is the type of Secretary we need but the neocons STILL believe Iraq was a necessary war and will try their best to squelch any dissent. It's stunning how completely out of touch McSame, Butters and Mushmouth are from the voters of America.
As I am fond of saying.....Dopes, no change!— The Fundamentals of the Economy are Fine - Hagel has also said that James Hormel as the U.S. Ambassador to Luxembourg was "openly, aggressively gay." People in office for any amount of time have ample opportunity to say stupid things. Biden seems to do it once a week.— IggleFan68
- "I don't think Clinton would be accepted in today's Democratic party."
What are you basing this assumption off of?— wokmaster - Based off of Clinton's willingness to cross party lines, limit unemployment benefits, and work with Republicans to get things done. There is zero bi-partisanship in our gov't today, and it goes for both sides.— IggleFan68
- "Cross party lines", "work with Republicans to get things done", blah, blah, blah.
You must be forgetting the Democratic Convention last Fall. Democrats love Clinton. False equivalence between the Right moving to the far right and the Left who might be Center Left.— wokmaster 
Iggle, at first I thought you meant Clinton would be too "liberal" for today's Dem Party, and I would've agreed. You have to see it from a liberal's perspective - the Dem Party has so accommodated the center over the last two decades, that it has become - within itself - the "bipartisanship" you miss from the good old 90s. The GOP is in a whole other dimension these days.- ===]]] I don't think Clinton would be accepted in today's Democratic party... [[[===
What? Clinton was just about in the same ideological frame as Obama is. What are you talking about, Iggy?
Just because the Republican Party has institutionalized pandering to extremists doesn't mean that the Democratic Party has become similarly unhinged. By quite a few measures, we can easily see that the Republican Party has moved towards extremism during that time, while if anything, the Democratic Party has moved towards the middle.
— Talking point sleuth - Reagan's utterly repugnant Central American policy makes it difficult for me to see him and his administration in any light but a dark, nefarious one. As a former soldier who experienced that policy first hand, all I can say is that Reagan was not the warm, fuzzy hero as he's depicted these days by the wingnuts. There are corpses (mostly innocents) all over El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua who beg to differ.
We financed and backed militarily some vile regimes and trained their death squads at Fort Benning's School of the Americas, or the "Banana Republic Death Squad Charm School" as my Army buddies and I called it back in the 80s.
So, Will, you say "tom-may-to," I say "to-mah-to." Morally and ethically, waging "black ops" wars and killing innocent civilians, whether by proxy with death squads or drones, isn't much of a distinction in my book.
And if you think the black ops warriors in the 80s didn't use "torture, rendition, and military strikes with a high risk of killing innocent civilians," well, I'm sorry, Will, you're totally naive. Dude, we blew up an Iranian civilian jet liner and killed hundreds of innocents in just one case. We backed regimes like the Somozas, Pinochets, Marcoses, and Noriegas who tortured innocents with the CIA's blessing. The difference: Back then secrets were just better kept secret in many respects that are virtually impossible today.— Mr_Cool
- Andrew Sullivan
- Blinq
- Blogorrhea
- Blonde Sagacity
- Free Republic
- Instapundit
- James Taranto
- ScrappleFace
- The Corner
- Buzzmachine
- Eat the Press
- Editor and Publisher
- Media (Huffington Post)
- Media Bloodhound
- Mickey Kaus
- Pressthink
- Romenesko
- The Inksniffer
- A List of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago
- Above Average Jane
- BlankBaby
- Citizen Mom
- Keystone Blog
- Metroblogging Philadelphia
- Phawker
- Philadelphia - America's Hometown
- Philadelphia Will Do
- Philebrity
- Philly Future
- Phillyblog
- Phillyist
- The Clog
- The Next Mayor
- Welcome to Phillyville
- Young Philly Politics
- Afro-Netizen
- All-Spin Zone
- Atrios
- Bad Attitudes
- Billmon
- Booman Tribune
- CorrenteWire
- Fables of the Reconstruction
- iFlipFlop
- Kiko's House
- MyDD
- Philly (Dragonballyee)
- Rowhouse Logic
- Slacktivist
- Suburban Guerilla
- Tattered Coat
- upyernoz
- AmericaBlog
- Andy Borowitz
- BuzzFlash
- Crooks and Liars
- Cursor
- Daily Kos
- David Sirota
- Drudge Report
- Echidne of the Snakes
- Fire Dog Lake
- Glenn Greenwald
- Hullabaloo
- Jesus' General
- Jon Swift
- Josh Marshall
- Juan Cole
- Kevin Drum
- Mad Kane
- Majikthise
- Matthew Yglesias
- Oliver Willis
- Raw Story
- Swing State Project
- Talk Left
- Taylor Marsh
- TBogg
- The Carpetbagger Report
- Think Progress
- War and Piece
- Wonkette
- A Citizen's Blog
- Balls, Sticks and Stuff
- Beer Leaguer
- Dick Polman
- Phillies Nation
- Philling Station
- Shallow Center
- The 700 Level
- The Good Phight
