Sarah Palin continues giving interviews to only the friendliest of “journalists”, after all criticism of her is a threat to the first amendment. Today’s Wall Street Journal included a typical puff-piece by Kimberly Strassel that described “the press has brutalized the Alaska governor, playing gotcha with her record, digging through her family life.” Never mind the press does this to every high-profile politician and that Palin exploits her family life politically. Well what wisdom did Palin have to bestow on us?
She mentions that Ronald Reagan was able to “win the cold war without firing a shot”. Add this to her war with Iran. Apparently Sarah Palin was in outer space during the 1980s, blissfully ignorant of Reagan’s intervention in Afghanistan and Nicaragua.
First up is Reagan’s support of the Taliban in Afghanistan (something conservatives no doubt don’t want you to remember):
During most of the 1980’s, the CIA secretly sent billions of dollars of military aid to Afghanistan to support the mujahedeen-or holy warriors-against the Soviet Union, which had invaded in 1979.
The U.S.-supported jihad succeeded in driving out the Soviets but the Afghan factions allied to the US gave rise to the oppressive Taliban and Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda.
To be fair to Palin’s un-nuanced understanding of history, Reagan might not have “fired a shot” in Afghanistan, only armed and trained the “greatest threat to our country” (don’t forget Iraq too).
Reagan constantly supported and fueled bloodshed in Latin America:
The 8 years Reagan was in office represented one of the most bloody eras in the history of the Western hemisphere, as Washington funneled money, weapons and other supplies to right wing death squads. And the death toll was staggering-more than 70,000 political killings in El Salvador, more than 100,000 in Guatemala, 30,000 killed in the contra war in Nicaragua. In Washington, the forces carrying out the violence were called “freedom fighters.” This is how Ronald Reagan described the Contras in Nicaragua: “They are our brothers, these freedom fighters and we owe them our help. They are the moral equal of our founding fathers.”
To Reagan Nicaragua had to be re-conquered. He blamed Carter for having lost Nicaragua, as if Nicaragua ever belonged to anyone else other than the Nicaraguan people. That was then the beginning of this war that Reagan invented, and mounted and financed and directed, the Contra War. About which he continually lied to the People.
Reagan lied to the people, hoping people like Palin would never know the truth about having won the cold war “without firing a shot”. Add this to a growing list of reasons to be afraid, very afraid, of Sarah Palin ever reaching a higher office, as she clearly intends to do in the future.
(Cross Posted at Watership Down)
