Reply #17: There are some problems with numbers 4 and 7

[RZM]

Not that they didn't happen, but the author gets some things wrong, especially about number 4.

The author makes it seem like Reagan personally handed the most extremist Afghans weapons and money on purpose, but US aid was actually mainly channeled through the Pakistanis, who had the right contacts/networks to get the stuff through. The Pakistanis deliberately funneled the aid to the most extremist elements in Afghanistan as to cultivate them as their exclusive proxies/pets in order to maximize Pakistani influence in a country that is so strategically vital to them, especially given their issues with India. They have continued to pretty much do the same thing ever since, as shown by the rapid deterioration of US-Pakistani relations recently.

Also, the notion that this all happened because Reagan was 'prepping for war' doesn't make much sense. US support of the Afghan rebels was much more in line with longstanding US Cold War policy that dated back to the Truman administration. The US and Soviets spent decades peddling influence and supporting proxies and such all over the third world (the term 'third world' itself has Cold War origins, after all).

http://www.amazon.com/Global-Cold-War-Interventions-Making/dp/052170314X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1323027669&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/World-Was-Going-Our-Way/dp/B000MKYKEK/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1323027684&sr=1-1

Number 7 seems more or less factually accurate, but it's a little odd that it's included on this list, which is mainly critical of Reagan from a left perspective. It would be more at home in a list of why conservatives shouldn't like Reagan, not why liberals shouldn't. Of course, the dividing lines on immigration are often tricky, since some mainstream Republicans (like Bush, Perry, and Gingrich) are less hostile to illegal immigrants than some Democrats and progressives are.