In article ,
longwave wrote:

Telamon wrote:

In article , John Barnard
wrote:

Go back and take a look at history, Telamon. Eastern Europeans have a
history of standing up to the Russians. Budapest in 1956 and
Czechoslovakia in 1968 come to mind and it was a shame that the USA
decided to abandon those countries and do nothing. The Solidarity
revolution was a Polish revolution which had NOTHING AT ALL to do
with Reagan or the USA. Brenda Ann quite rightly pointed out that the
Poles and the East Germans stood up to the Russians of their own
accord. Poland, out of all the Eastern European block, has always had
the stones to fight back a little and retain some measure of
autonomy.

I've always liked Reagan but he sure as hell didn't have anything to
do with the Solidarity revolution.

Sorry go back and read it yourself. We outspent Russia in the arms race
bankrupting them. When Russia lost the arms race Gorby negotiated the
current state of affairs with Reagan. That's why things changed. The
Polish Solidarity was a help but not the reason. Besides Reagan gave aid
and assistance to the Solidarity union and other opposition groups in
eastern europe.

Neither you nor anyone else can pull this revisionist bull**** on me. I
saw this happen in real time.

You saw what you wanted to see. No single president should get the
credit for winning the arms race. We outspent the USSR for more than
forty years. Every president since Truman contributed to the ultimate
collapse of the USSR. Reagan happened to be president when the end came.

How can you say that I saw what I wanted to see? No one knew how things
were going to turn out. Stinking Liberals were calling Reagan an out of
control cowboy "Ronald Ray Guns" because they though he would start WW3
confronting the Russians. Reagan built up the military and forced the
Russians into bankruptcy trying to keep up. The eastern europeans saw
their chance to throw off the yoke of communism with the Russians in
their weakened state.

Reagan didn't just "happen to be there." He had a sense of destiny and
a job to do that took guts facing down the Russians and the left wing
in this country like Kerry that just wanted to give up and negotiate
with the Russians from a weak position.

You are right that it did not start with Reagan but he did finnish it.
If Kennedy was not assassinated he might have done it but Johnson,
Nixon, Ford and Carter didn't do it. Clinton would not have done it
either.

Through will and conviction he challenged the Russians forcing them to
focus on us in the arms race. It was world class poker game and Reagan
didn't bluff. The Russians finally ran out of money with a economy that
could not keep up with ours. Weakened from the effort they gave up the
hold they had on eastern europe since WW2 and the cold war was
basically ended.

--
Telamon
Ventura, California