Posted: 10/23/2009 11:02:26 PM EDT
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In your opinion, why did Reagan oppose sanctions against South Africa?
What are your thoughts on how he dealt with Communist Nicaragua? |
I can't speak for him, but I wonder if he thought SF would go to hell in a handbasket if the natives took over. Once again, history proved him right on the nose. 
As for Nicaragua, POTUS has long held irrational fears about Latin American tinhorns, IMO. Could be Sandista's were tied in to the cocaine trade directly? Could be they didn't want the rest of Central America to become one "viva` la reveluceion" (sp?) from one country to another? Disrupt free trade & tranquility of a sovereign nation? |
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Quoted: What are your thoughts on how he dealt with Communist Nicaragua? If you read the book Charlie Wilson's War, the CIA was engaged in a popular, well funded effort in Afghanistan at the same time it was fighting a losing battle in Central America that wasn't well funded (Iran-Contra was a scandal about funding it because Congress wouldn't) and which was unpopular. American involvement in Latin America touches the buttons of many radical leftists in the USA, who wanted to see the rebels in El Salvador and Nicaragua succeed. Reagan did the best he could there given the politics of Washington, but it was in accord and congruent with his efforts to stop the communists in Afghanistan. I dont know anything about Reagan's support of South Africa. From what I remember he was hands off if anything. I dont think he supported them. |
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Strictly from memory - and a poor memory at that - sanctions WERE imposed against South Africa.* I recall wondering how putting millions of people out of work would cure apartheid. I seem to remember IBM specifically pulling out. Mandela........sanctions set the stage for South Africa to go communist. Only the fall of the Soviet Union prevented Mandela from taking South Africa communist. 5sub *Sanctions were imposed against South Africa alright but only after congress overrode the Reagan veto in 1986. |