californiagold,

You write:
While Reagan rebuilt the US military, he also negotiated a deal with Gorby and the communists to reduce nukes.

First, he not only rebuilt the US military, he also conveyed a willingness to use it, and also very actively supported anti-communist insurgencies, made very clear his general commitment to fighting communism, and took actions that directly confronted the Soviet Union, notably deploying Pershing missiles in Western Europe (in NATO nations) and refused to give up SDI.

Second — and here’s the big point — it seems you see no connection between all of the above and the subsequent nukes deal, as if that deal, and the decline of the Soviet Union, the Eastern Bloc, and Soviet proxies around the world just happened to occur, not encouraged at all by Reagan’s buildup and general toughness vs. the Soviets and vs. communism generally. You don’t see the “strength” leading to the “peace”. You don’t get the concept of “peace through strength”.

Yes, he invaded Grenada. Do you think he did it to rescue medical students, or because an air strip threatened us? No, he did it to send a signal to the Soviets (and to Cuba) that he wasn’t shy about using force.

Plus I said “conveyed” a willingness to use force. There are ways to convey something without doing it. His rhetoric and his actions (rebuilding the military, deploying Pershings, sticking with SDI, supporting anti-communist insurgencies around the world fighting Soviet proxies, etc.) spoke volumes.

This started with my assertion that a President Ron Paul would bring non-interventionism that would be terrible for the U.S. and the world.

You reply first by implying the main difference Paul would bring is that he’d only take military action with a declaration of war by Congress. Which is silly, since he wouldn’t seek it unless (perhaps) we were already hit very badly. And you went on to equate Pauls non-interventionism with Reagan’s withdrawal from Lebanon, as if Reagan’s decision is somehow comparable to Paul’s non-interventionism and implies the latter is not unreasonable or unusual and wouldn’t have major adverse consequences. Equating Reagan’s decision with Paul’s non-interventionism was utterly, ridiculously absurd.

You then, albeit after prompting by gekster (who made a good point), go off with a big bluff that (you implied) the 9/11 commission didn’t assert any connection between al Qaeda and the withdrawal from Lebanon. I showed you that they did imply such a connection, as part of a general, long path toward 9/11.

So you then try to pivot to arguing that some people (no one on in this discussion, but some supposed other people) are supposedly (but not really, just in your mind) using Reagan’s withdrawal “as an excuse by some that conveniently ignore some of the more obvious conclusions coming from the 9/11 commission.” Geez, man. First of all, no one implied any such thing. Second, how many detours upon detours will you try to take this discussion on. Is that what you do? When you are shown to be full of it, you just erect some straw man pertaining to some tangent and try to divert the discussion in that direction?

Took me about two minutes to go to the 9/11 commission report and find this on page 96 of the report, just by searching the report on “Lebanon”:

In 1983 came Hezbollah?s massacre of the Marines in Beirut.President Reagan quickly withdrew U.S. forces from Lebanon?a reversal later routinely
cited by jihadists as evidence of U.S. weakness.

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/911/pdf/fullreport.pdf

So what’s your thing, californiagold, bluffing people by claiming you are sure that long reports don’t say particular things you want to claim, assuming that people won’t take the time to search the reports?

Lame, lame bluff, californiagold.

ok, I’ll pull back a bit. You didn’t claim certainty. But I still think it was a bluff. You were implying that someone else apparently had not read the report and that you had, and you were implying superior knowledge of the report. It took me two minutes to search on “Lebanon” on the report. Perhaps you didn’t realize it was that easy, or you wouldn’t have tried that tactic, and perhaps you would have done that two minutes of homework yourself before spewing that presumption.

And you don’t have to believe me. I have the URL and the page number. Go check.

As for your homework assignment to “read the entire report” (excuse me? On what basis are you implying I’m the one who needs to stop now and read the whole 567 page report??) and “post the primary conclusions regarding AQ’s motivations, you are trying yet another diversion. Their motivations are a different question. We are discussing whether or not the withdrawal from Lebanon was, directly or indirectly, a factor that gave them the impression they could achieve their goals by attacking us, and for that matter encouraged terrorists elsewhere.

And I’ll add this from Richard Clarke’s book, Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror. While criticizing Reagan’s intervention in Lebanon in the first place, but obviously referring ultimately to the consequences of the withdrawal, Clarke writes:

Reagan began what would become a misadventure that gave terrorists the impression they could attack the United States with relative impunity.

It’s near the bottom of page 39 of what I think is the hardcover. Here’s the URL (just copy and paste to go there)
http://books.google.com/books?id=8kdIMPo0ZE0C&pg=PA39&lpg=PA39&dq=%22gave+terrorists+the+impression+they+could+attack+the+United+States+with+relative+impunity.%22&source=bl&ots=fyX6EPn37k&sig=vSXEGDFOrrO7bS2xOvMAAm3Jpgo&hl=en&sa=X&ei=yD3sTs7pJoPf0QHGxO3VCQ&ved=0CCEQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22gave%20terrorists%20the%20impression%20they%20could%20attack%20the%20United%20States%20with%20relative%20impunity.%22&f=false