Why did Reagan sell weapons to Iran?

Ummmm history shows that the Soviets were broke back in the 70's Reagan had little to do with them falling. So sad that the right thinks this over spender did this country any favors. The right like to blame Obama for fast and furious, however when you bring up Regan and Iran Contra they just pass it off. The right and their stupidity is funny

 

We play that game as Americans. A lot of other nationalities do too. We protect our leaders, our celebrities, and other people when we know that they were guilty of crimes committed. He was the President of the United States. Planning and CIA operations in Nicaragua had started on Carter's watch. Reagan was briefed and knew full well what was going on. But some people sit there and act as though that nothing being found that directly linked Reagan to anything criminal wasn't a coincidence. How often is it that the Big Guy takes 'The Fall'?

And at some point, to disagree with your earlier contention, we would have gotten involved with World War II anyway. Hitler would not have stopped at Europe.

 

As partisan bias and hackery and talk and rivalry and feuds are so awesome!

 

Indeed....Reagan WAS a traitor, and the right wing WILL continue to overlook him. That's what the right wing does. They're STILL mad over the BJ and will insist "how horrible it was he lied" while simultaneously defending traitors like Reagan, Cheney and Numbnuts Georgey.

 

Way to go genius. Now prove that Reagan personally gave the write off to violate the Boland amendment .

 

Reagan also knowingly let Marxist ideology infiltrate American public educational institutions. Not sure why the right is not aware of this.

 

Wrong, but nice try at history revisionism.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/europe/2001/collapse_of_ussr/timelines/1985mar.stm

http://www.paulrittman.com/USSRTimeline.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Soviet_Union_(1982–1991)

Educate yourself.

 

Once again, complete bull(*)(*)(*)(*).

"The Taliban (Pashto: طالبا&#1606, alternative spelling Taleban,[5] (ṭālibān, meaning "students" in Pashto) is an Islamist militant and political group that ruled large parts of Afghanistan and its capital, Kabul, as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan from September 1996 until October 2001. It gained diplomatic recognition from three states: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The main leader of the Taliban movement is Mullah Mohammed Omar,[6] and Kandahar is considered the birthplace of the Taliban."

From 1995-2001, the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence[13] and military[14] are widely alleged by the international community to have provided support to the Taliban.[15] Pakistan has been accused by many international officials of continuing to support the Taliban today, but Pakistan claims to have dropped all support for the group since 9/11.[16][17][18] Al Qaeda also supported the Taliban with regiments of imported fighters from Arab countries and Central Asia.[19][20][21] Saudi Arabia provided financial support.[22] The Taliban and their allies committed massacres against Afghan civilians,[23][24][25] denied UN food supplies to 160,000 starving civilians[26] and conducted a policy of scorched earth burning vast areas of fertile land and destroying tens of thousands of homes during their rule from 1996-2001.[27][28] Hundreds of thousands of people were forced to flee to United Front-controlled territory, Pakistan and Iran.[28]

"The sovereignty of Afghanistan was vested formally in the Islamic State of Afghanistan, an entity created in April 1992, after the fall of the Soviet-backed Najibullah government. ... With the exception of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hezb-e Islami, all of the parties... were ostensibly unified under this government in April 1992. ... Hekmatyar's Hezb-e Islami, for its part, refused to recognize the government for most of the period discussed in this report and launched attacks against government forces and Kabul generally. ... Shells and rockets fell everywhere.[39]"

"Meanwhile southern Afghanistan was neither under the control of foreign-backed militias nor the government in Kabul, but was ruled by local leaders such as Gul Agha Sherzai and their militias. In 1991, the Taliban (a movement originating from Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-run religious schools for Afghan refugees in Pakistan) also developed in Afghanistan as a politico-religious force.[44] Mullah Omar started his movement with fewer than 50 armed madrassah students in his hometown of Kandahar.[44] The most often-repeated story and the Taliban's own story of how Mullah Omar first mobilized his followers is that in the spring of 1994, neighbors in Singesar told him that the local governor had abducted two teenage girls, shaved their heads, and taken them to a camp where they were raped. 30 Taliban (with only 16 rifles) freed the girls, and hanged the governor from the barrel of a tank. Later that year, two militia commanders killed civilians while fighting for the right to sodomize a young boy. The Taliban freed him.[44][45]
In the beginning the Taliban numbered in the hundreds, were badly equipped and low on munitions. Within months however 15,000 students arrived from the madrassas in Pakistan.[46] The Taliban's first major military activity was in 1994, when they marched northward from Maiwand and captured Kandahar City and the surrounding provinces, losing only a few dozen men.[47] When they took control of Kandahar in 1994, they forced the surrender of dozens of local Pashtun leaders who had presided over a situation of complete lawlessness and atrocities.[47][48] The Taliban also took-over a border crossing at Spin Baldak and an ammunition dump from Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. In the course of 1994, the Taliban took control of 12 of 34 provinces not under central government control. Militias controlling the different areas often surrendered without a fight.[49] Omar's original commanders were "a mixture of former small-unit military commanders and madrassa teachers."[50]"

Nice try junior.

 

Obviously you haven't read a word I wrote, or you wouldn't ask such a stupid question. It was answered why they sold weapons to Iran. I surely answered why many think Reagan was so great. Hell even Poland erected a statue in his honor and named a park after him for helping bring down the Soviet Union and freeing millions of people who were once forced to be part of the Soviet Union.

Reagan stopped every move the Soviets made to expand their territory and influence. We do not have Soviet Backfire bombers in our back yard because he threw the Soviets and Cubans out of Granada before they could ever finish the airfield.

He fought the communist backed government in Nicaragua with the Contras even after Congress got cold feet and stopped funding them. He freed American hostages. Both through arm sales to Iran. Against the law, sure was. But did it work and was America better off, sure was.

Reagan ended the threat of the Soviet Union to us. Millions of people are living free because of Reagan. Now you know why we think so much of him.

 

Kohl Praises Reagan as Friend of Germany

archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/6/6/91330.shtml

Jun 7, 2004 – BERLIN – Former Chancellor Helmut Kohl praised Ronald Reagan on ...in bringing down communism and ending Europe's Cold War division.

 

Iron Lady praises a bronze Ronald Reagan | The Sun |News


www.thesun.co.uk/.../Iron-Lady-praises-a-bronze-Ronald-Reagan.ht...


Jul 5, 2011 – LADY Thatcher heaped praise on Ronald Reagan yesterday as a 10ft bronze statue of the ex-US president was unveiled in London.

 

Lol then why were coal miners eating coal and starving keep trying they could not even feed thier workers? They were broke and everyone knew it. The military build up of the 70's was largely the main cause. Furthermore thier was no incentives for the workers. Sorry you fail Maybe you should take a 5 th grade history class.

 

Warsaw to erect statue to Reagan - Free Republic

www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1705519/posts


Sep 21, 2006 – Polish admirers of Ronald Reagan say they will erect a statue of the late US president in Warsaw to thank him for helping to end communist ...

 

Many former members of the Reagan Administration are very familiar with the pivotal role global energy markets played in hastening the collapse of Soviet power. In the 2004 documentary In the Face of Evil: Reagan's War in Word and Deed, several former members of the Reagan Administration described how they implemented a comprehensive plan to bankrupt the Soviet Union. Most students of Cold War history are familiar with how the Reagan Administration baited the Soviets into a costly arms race and demoralized the Red Army by supporting the mujahadeen in Afghanistan. What is less well-known is the Reagan team's strategy of economic warfare against the USSR.

In 1983 CIA Director Bill Casey went to Saudi Arabia and cut a deal: in return for the latest American weapons (F-15 jets and AWACS planes), the Saudis agreed to open the crude spigots. The sustained surge in Saudi production not only made up for production lost due to the Iran-Iraq war, it collapsed world oil prices. At the time, the short-term cost of this strategy seemed high: oil shale and oil sands production in North America was mostly abandoned, and wildcatters from Alaska to West Texas went broke, costing the country thousands of jobs. But by the mid-1980s, the flood of cheap oil from the Middle East helped the U.S. and its allies whip inflation, end an economic recession, and bury the Soviet Union.

 

REAGANFOUNDATION.ORG | REAGANOMICS





www.reaganfoundation.org/economic-policy.aspx


The numbers tell the story. Over the eight years of the Reagan Administration: 20 million new jobs were created; Inflation dropped from 13.5% in 1980 to 4.1% by ...

 

What was the inflation rate under Jimmy Carter

wiki.answers.com › ... › US History › US Presidents › Jimmy Carter


Despite a sluggish economy, inflation reached as high as 14.8%, and interest rates reached as high as 18% during the period 1977-1981. By 1985-1990, this ...

 

When Jimmy Cotter Pin was president I saw an Iranian officer flunk an electronics test--they had to take our courses because they were sold our planes--and asked why he was so upset, sweat literally pouring down his face, and the instructor got angry and said, "they don't kill you if you flunk the course"; so I asked a question like yours while loading parts...and was told the other guy is worse.

 

Just because someone chooses to erect a statue in a provincial town in Poland does not confer greatness. The Albanians chose to erect a statue of an English comic in Tirana...

Oh, and by the way, there was no threat to America or Europe from the Soviet Union, as de-classified British Foreign Office documents have shown in their analysis. The 'Great Communist Conspiracy' was as false a political canard then as the so-called Muslim threat to the Western world is today.

 

I know the Left hate Ronald Reagan. They try and find anything the can to put him down. Yes he broke the law. But he did it for a good cause. But this man did more for the country and the world than many Presidents have through out our history. Millions of people are free today because of him. Millions more were working when he left office. He inherited high inflation and high interest rates under Carter and brought both down while also helping to bring down the Soviet Union. Yes, there was a period of hard times under Reagan, but they only lasted a few years. There were more hard years under carter. Try borrowing money to buy anything when you have to pay 18% interest on it. He has been praised all over Europe and has statues erected in his honor for helping to end communism and making the world safer. I have all the respect in the world for Ronald Reagan.

 

I don't remember a military build-up during the seventies. Was Carter part of that?

 

Yah, because Nicaragua (pop. 5.9 million), was such a threat to America!

 

They could have been a huge threat. They turned communist was buying Soviet Migs and the Soviets saw Nicaragua as a way of having more bases in our back yard. That is also why they tried to establish a big air base in Granada. Besides, Reagan was following the Monroe Doctrine. Remember what that is? I do even with my lowly GED education.

 

[video=youtube;R67CH-qhXJs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R67CH-qhXJs[/video]

 

The Monroe Doctrine (1823) is as outdated and anachronistic as its instigator is dead. Nicaragua was never a threat; American hegemony and geo-political positioning was Reagan's motivator. Besides, a distance of over 1000 miles is hardly in your 'backyard'.

 

Lame, so I guess being broke and trying to keep up with Reagan's military spending absolutely had nothing to do with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Nice try.

Notice how I provided sources to back facts, and you provided nothing but an inaccurate talking point, and a stream of jibber jabber.