<

Reagan's Successes Abroad Hold Critical Lessons For The Present
Saturday, September 21, 2002
The Tampa Tribune

As Meese points out, even though the Soviets had been cheating on the Anti- Ballistic Missile Treaty, they knew they could not keep up with the United States' missile defense technology. Reagan's decision was a key moment in the Cold War. Unable to outmaneuver the unbending Reagan, the Soviets realized that “they would never be able to prevail over the United States.”

Former U.S. Sen. Connie Mack once remarked that what struck him about President Ronald Reagan's approach to foreign affairs was its simplicity and moral authority.

Mack, who was inspired to run for office by Reagan's election in 1980, said, “The Reagan Republican conservative foreign policy objective is freedom, and we will do whatever is necessary and build whatever is necessary and spend whatever is necessary to defend that freedom, both here and around the world.”

In contrast, liberals at the time saw peace as the overriding goal.

But Reagan and his allies such as Mack wisely recognized that without freedom, peace is of little value.

Reagan's brilliant leadership in combating the scourge of communist imperialism is worth remembering at a time when the nation requires that kind of resolve and moral clarity.

Former U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese, a confidant of the former president, recently recounted during a speech at Hillsdale College in Michigan how Reagan orchestrated the triumph over the Soviet Union. His comments are noteworthy, particularly since so many in the media continue to depict Reagan as, at best, a congenial but uninvolved leader.

* The Moral Decrepitude Of The Soviet Union
(More: Tampa Bay Online News Source)
2002 © The Tampa Tribune.

Dan