President Reagan was the response of Americans to the obtuseness of previous administrations to Soviet criminality.
For reasons yet to be explained, Franklin Roosevelt chose not only to overlook Soviet genocides, but to do everything in his power to strengthen the Soviet Union.
1. But put aside FDR's hasty recognition of the slaughter and oppression by the USSR, why the ongoing acceptance of same by US governments?
What were the improvements in Soviet behavior that led to détente, rapprochement, treaties and summits?
Shouldn't our governments have known that Soviets never lived up to treaties? That détente was always a sham and a ruse?
2. In 1973, Brezhnev gave a secret speech to Communist Party leaders in Prague, declaring how the trickery was designed to allow Soviets to pretend to act as diplomats while building military strength and terror networks.
British intelligence exposed Brezhnev's secret, the just-between-us-Communists declarations to US officials (and leaked to the NYTimes).
John W. Finney, "Brezhnev Said to Assure East Europe that Accords with West Are a Tactic," NYTimes, September 17, 1973,
and William Beecher, "Brezhnev Termed Détente A Ruse, 1973 Report Said," Boston Globe, February 11, 1977.
3. Was it easy to overlook that, during the 1970's, Red Terrorists from Europe and the Islamic world struck at civilian targets from Italy to Sweden to Japan to Israel? Although often directed by Cubans, Arabs, and Czechs, they were bankrolled, trained, and supported by Moscow, and aimed at the West. Who knew?
Claire Sterling, whose 1981 book, "The Terror Network," inspired the Cold Warriors of the Reagan administration, knew, and revealed same.
a. "... her 1981 book "The Terror Network," which traced connections among terrorist groups around the globe.... William J. Casey, the Director of Central Intelligence in the Reagan Administration, had held up a copy of "The Terror Network" before a group of official intelligence experts and had "said contemptuously that he had learned more from it than from all of them."
Claire Sterling, 76, Dies - Writer on Crime and Terror - NYTimes.com
4. "Once again, the response of Western leaders to this Soviet assault on Western society was an 'official flight from reality,' as Sterling put it. She describes what was then a familiar mode of Western behavior: a mass avoidance of all the densely accumulating evidence that led to the conclusion that the Soviet Union was the culprit behind the chaos and terror. This led to a group hug delusion. "
Diana West, "American Betrayal," p. 227.
This phenomenon is familiar to Robert Conquest, who has observed the Western impulse to avoid judgment on Soviet crime through undue 'concentration on reputable or reputable sounding phenomena.' This leads to an attempt to tame the data or, perhaps more correctly, a mental or psychological bent toward blocking the real essentials, the real meaning.
Robert Conquest, " The Dragons of Expectation: Reality and Delusion in the Course of History," p. 99.
5. So, what is the reason to hide reality, to 'tame the data'?
"In the cases where facts are discarded for their gross incompatibility with principles of ideology, it comes down to a panicky impulse to avoid scrapping the ideology, especially if doing so necessitates the unpleasant exertions of self-defense. Surely, this defines a kind of mental cowardice, perhaps a new kind. The new Big Lie that arose in the 1970s was to save not only the Soviet conspiracy, but also Western face. Thus, the delusion that there was no such thing as Moscow-directed terrorism.....protected by a fresh onslaught of dezinformatsiya from the West as much as the East."
West, Op.Cit.
Those willing to accept reality supported Reagan. Those wishing to hide reality, attacked.
And it remains true to this day.
Correct, Liberals?
For reasons yet to be explained, Franklin Roosevelt chose not only to overlook Soviet genocides, but to do everything in his power to strengthen the Soviet Union.
1. But put aside FDR's hasty recognition of the slaughter and oppression by the USSR, why the ongoing acceptance of same by US governments?
What were the improvements in Soviet behavior that led to détente, rapprochement, treaties and summits?
Shouldn't our governments have known that Soviets never lived up to treaties? That détente was always a sham and a ruse?
2. In 1973, Brezhnev gave a secret speech to Communist Party leaders in Prague, declaring how the trickery was designed to allow Soviets to pretend to act as diplomats while building military strength and terror networks.
British intelligence exposed Brezhnev's secret, the just-between-us-Communists declarations to US officials (and leaked to the NYTimes).
John W. Finney, "Brezhnev Said to Assure East Europe that Accords with West Are a Tactic," NYTimes, September 17, 1973,
and William Beecher, "Brezhnev Termed Détente A Ruse, 1973 Report Said," Boston Globe, February 11, 1977.
3. Was it easy to overlook that, during the 1970's, Red Terrorists from Europe and the Islamic world struck at civilian targets from Italy to Sweden to Japan to Israel? Although often directed by Cubans, Arabs, and Czechs, they were bankrolled, trained, and supported by Moscow, and aimed at the West. Who knew?
Claire Sterling, whose 1981 book, "The Terror Network," inspired the Cold Warriors of the Reagan administration, knew, and revealed same.
a. "... her 1981 book "The Terror Network," which traced connections among terrorist groups around the globe.... William J. Casey, the Director of Central Intelligence in the Reagan Administration, had held up a copy of "The Terror Network" before a group of official intelligence experts and had "said contemptuously that he had learned more from it than from all of them."
Claire Sterling, 76, Dies - Writer on Crime and Terror - NYTimes.com
4. "Once again, the response of Western leaders to this Soviet assault on Western society was an 'official flight from reality,' as Sterling put it. She describes what was then a familiar mode of Western behavior: a mass avoidance of all the densely accumulating evidence that led to the conclusion that the Soviet Union was the culprit behind the chaos and terror. This led to a group hug delusion. "
Diana West, "American Betrayal," p. 227.
This phenomenon is familiar to Robert Conquest, who has observed the Western impulse to avoid judgment on Soviet crime through undue 'concentration on reputable or reputable sounding phenomena.' This leads to an attempt to tame the data or, perhaps more correctly, a mental or psychological bent toward blocking the real essentials, the real meaning.
Robert Conquest, " The Dragons of Expectation: Reality and Delusion in the Course of History," p. 99.
5. So, what is the reason to hide reality, to 'tame the data'?
"In the cases where facts are discarded for their gross incompatibility with principles of ideology, it comes down to a panicky impulse to avoid scrapping the ideology, especially if doing so necessitates the unpleasant exertions of self-defense. Surely, this defines a kind of mental cowardice, perhaps a new kind. The new Big Lie that arose in the 1970s was to save not only the Soviet conspiracy, but also Western face. Thus, the delusion that there was no such thing as Moscow-directed terrorism.....protected by a fresh onslaught of dezinformatsiya from the West as much as the East."
West, Op.Cit.
Those willing to accept reality supported Reagan. Those wishing to hide reality, attacked.
And it remains true to this day.
Correct, Liberals?
