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Subtitles downloaded from Podnapisi.NET

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The american nation cannot,

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must not, and will not permit the

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establishment of another communist
government in the western hemisphere.

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If America's soul totally becomes poisoned
part of the autopsy must read Vietnam.

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Let us be united in peace

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let us also be united against defeat.

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For General Electric,

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here is Ronald Reagan

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Good evening ladies and gentlemen
tonight it's my pleasure to appear

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in the General Electric theater

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In 1970, attorney general John Mitchell
gloated:

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'This country is going so far right
that you're not going to recognize it.'

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But how much further to the
right could the US go?

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In 1970 there was Vietnam, Cambodia,
Laos, nuclear threats, surveillance,

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sabotage, dirty tricks, official lies,
racial polarization, crime,

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and still to come were war on drugs,
Chile and Watergate.

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But compared to the world that
Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush

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would usher in, one could almost
look back nostalgically on the

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Nixon era.

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Right-wing forces have always
operated freely and openly in

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the dark chasms of American life
where racism, militarism,

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imperialism and blind devotion
to private enterprise festered.

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The raw underbelly of fanaticism
has spun groups as disparate as

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the Ku Klux Klan

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Nazi party

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the Liberty League

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the American First'ers

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the John Birch'ers

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the McCarthyite's

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and the Tea Party

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spilling either hatred, bigotry or
simply ignorance of history.

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Beginning with Nixon's courting
of a new republican south

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and the success of George Wallace
as a third party candidate

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these forces migrated from the
fringes of American politics

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and the nether reaches of rationality
to a new home in the republican party

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which gradually banished its once
thriving moderate and liberal wings.

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Nixon had once said, domestic politics
interested him about as much as

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But on his watch, whether he liked it
or not, 18 year-olds won the vote

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censorship declined,

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and gays and lesbians emerged from the shadows.

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He established the EPA, the
Environmental Protection Agency

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supported the equal rights amendment

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and new regulations governing
the health of workers

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and even strengthen
the voting rights act.

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His former right-wing allies were
belatedly recognizing that

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this was not the 1950s anti-communist
hatchet man Richard Nixon they had known

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Though he was pulverizing southeast
Asia, he horrified the right when he

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turned around and, seeking to ease
the stresses of US land war in Asia,

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recognized red China in 1972.

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And on top of that, he went to
the Soviet union and signed the

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historic SALT 1 treaty, placing limits
on missile and anti-missile systems.

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When Nixon took the country off
the gold standard and imposed wage

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and price controls in 1971,
and then

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pulled all of remaining US troops
out of Vietnam in '73,

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it seemed he had lost his mind
and totally betrayed his base.

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By the time of Watergate, Nixon
had made far too many enemies

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on both left and right that
he could afford.

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Facing a probable impeachment,
he resigned on aug. 9, 1974.

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The presidency was now in the
hands of the amiable Gerald Ford,

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a man who, Lyndon Johnson said,

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could not fart and chew gum
at the same time.

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As we can see the Ford popularity is

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certainly on a sharp rise here

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Ford announced that our long
national nightmare is over.

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But, sending all the wrong signals,
pardoned Nixon:

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an absolute pardon onto Richard Nixon
for all offenses against the US which he,

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Richard Nixon, has committed or
may have committed.

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But, even more troubling for the
future was that, Nixon's fall

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brought out the deepest impulses of
rage and revenge from the core of

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Nixon's new republican party.

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His legendary anger became theirs,

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but now directed against
the government itself.

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Reinvigorated by anger at a
so-called liberal media which had

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played such a toxic role in their
mind in distorting Vietnam and

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driving Nixon from the presidency,

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a network of conservative think-tanks
as well as rich foundations

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invested large sums of money to push

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for their agendas.

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Among these was a radical return
to the concept of privatization

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that had been, in their minds, destroyed
by Roosevelt's loathed new deal.

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Roosevelt's old enemies, the
money class, were back.

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The burgeoning right-wing
network had little use for a

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relative moderate like Gerald Ford
and itched to put a

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real right-winger like former
governor Reagan of California

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into the white house.

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Bowing to pressure, Ford and
Donald Rumsfeld -a young congressman

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who'd made a name attacking the
Soviets in the '60s- engineered

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a major cabinet check-up known as
the Halloween Day Massacre in oct. '75.

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Rumsfeld, who Nixon had called a
ruthless little bastard, took over Defense.

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Kissinger, staying on at State, lost
his national security post to

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gen. Brent Scowcroft

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Bush took over the CIA and
Dick Cheney, a protégé of Rumsfeld's,

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replaced him as Chief of Staff.

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Vice-president Nelson Rockefeller,
a moderate, was forced off the ticket

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in '76.

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Rumsfeld helped block a new SALT
treaty, and Ford banished the term

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détente, associated now with Henry
Kissinger from the white house.

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But the people wanted change,
and in the interest of the presidency

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in 1976, the governor Jimmy Carter
a former peanut farmer and long time

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sunday school teacher from Plains,
Georgia who narrowly defeated Ford.

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Carter was anything but a typical candidate.

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He sought to end the arms race,
revive détente,

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restore America's moral standing and
learn from Vietnam, saying:

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Never again shall our country
become militarily involved

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in the internal affairs of another nation,

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unless there's a direct and obvious threat
to the security of the US.

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He said at the UN that the US
would cut its nuclear arsenal by 50%

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if the Soviets did the same.

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Following his gut, Carter scored some
significant early successes.

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He helped secure the Camp David Accords
in 1978

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leading to Israeli withdrawal from

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Egyptian territory captured in the 1967 war

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and established diplomatic relations

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between the two countries.

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He negotiated a SALT 2 treaty with the Soviets

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mandating a reduction in nuclear missiles

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and bombers.

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But Carter knew little about foreign policy
and had been deeply influenced by the

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ideas of Zbigniew Brzezinski, his national
security advisor.

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An ... professor and fierce anti-communist
he tapped the rising, though still little known,

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Carter from membership in the

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a group founded by Chase Manhattan Bank
chairman David Rockefeller in 1973

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to bolster the world capitalist order.

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With 180 elite members and offices
on 3 continents, most rejected the

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rigidity of right-wing anti-communism.

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But Brzezinski, like Kissinger before him,
marginalized the moral liberal

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secretary of State, and engineered a return

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to cold war orthodoxy.

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He bragged about being the first Pole
in 300 years in a position

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to really stick it to the Russians.

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Massive US arms sales to Iran,
half of all US sales worldwide,

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had kept the unpopular Shah in power, and
despite his dismal human rights record

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Carter shared a lavish
new year's eve in Tehran:

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There is no leader with whom I have
 a deeper sense of personal friendship.

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Iran, because of the great leadership
of the Shah, is an island of stability

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in one of the more troubled areas
of the world.

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Within a year the Shah had imposed
martial law, and his troops

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shot down 100s in the street.

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Fearing that Soviets would occupy
Iran's oil fields in this chaos

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Brzezinski warned Carter that
the US now faced

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Two months later the Shah fled
for his life.

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Ayatollah Khomeini returned from exile
demanding the Shah's return to face trial.

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Carter, under pressure from Brzezinski,
Kissinger and David Rockefeller

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allowed the Shah into the US
for medical treatment of his cancer

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infuriating the Iranian public:
The US embassy in Tehran has been

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invaded and occupied by Iranian
students.

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Americans inside have been
taken prisoner.

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In november, students burst into
the embassy and seized

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52 american hostages
whom they held for 444 days,

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effectively destroying Carter's presidency.

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Crises seemed to be flaring all over.

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Central america, after suffering decades
of poverty, brutality and corruption

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under US backed right-wing dictators,
was ready to explode by the late 1970s.

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In Nicaragua, the Sandinistas seized power
in july of '79

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Latin America’s first successful revolution

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since Cuba's 20 years earlier

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and began an ambitious program of
land, education and health reform.

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Brzezinski argued for military intervention

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fearing the revolutionary ... would
establish forces in neighboring

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Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador where
40 families had ruled for over a century.

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Right-wing death squad murders
and tortures increased

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and the progressive Salvadorian
archbishop Oscar Romero

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was assassinated in 1980.

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Later that year the FMLN insurgents were

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on the brink of another successful revolution

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when Carter, pressured by Brzezinski,
restored significant needed military aid

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to the government.

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Another storm was brewing in Afghanistan,

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an impoverished remnant from the
British empire where

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life expectancy was 40 years.

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Only 1 in 10 could read and
most lived as no-man's or farmers

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in muddy villages scarcely different
from when Alexander the Great

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had passed through 2000 years before.

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It was in july 1979 that Brzezinski had

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Carter sign a little known directive

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for secret aid to the Islamic
fundamentalist opponents

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of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul.

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In that day Brzezinski proudly noted that

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His intention was to drag them
into their own Vietnam.

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Brzezinski understood the Soviet's
fear that the

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Afghan insurgency might spark an
uprising by the 40 million muslims

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in Soviet central asia.

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He compared it in its effect on the US
to a communist insurgency in Mexico.

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The Soviets concluded correctly that
the americans were instigating the insurgency.

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possibly with help from China.

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But they still hesitated to intervene.

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Veteran foreign minister Gromyko knew that

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With their top heavy bureaucratically
ossified economy stagnating,

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the Soviets saw arms control as
their chance to finally escape

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the wartime treadmill.

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The provocation worked.

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President Brezhnev, a Stalin
unimaginative Soviet leader

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insisting the war would be over
in 3 to 4 weeks, launched

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a full scale invasion of 80,000
Soviet troops into Afghanistan

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on christmas day 1979.

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The inexperienced Carter
hyperbolically called the invasion

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the greatest threat to world peace
since WW2.

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A NY Times columnist felt compelled
to remind them of the Berlin blockade,

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the Korean war, the Suez crisis,
Cuban missile crisis, and

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the war in Vietnam.

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Carter withdrew the US ambassador
and took SALT 2 off the table.

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He cut trade between the
two countries,

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banned US athletes from the
upcoming Moscow olympics

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and sent his defense secretary
... Chinese leaders about

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military ties.

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He effectively extended the
Truman doctrine to the

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adjacent Persian gulf region,
including Iran

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which now would be regarded
as a US vital interest.

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Muslim nations condemned the
Soviet aggression.

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Saudi Arabia sent money, and
thousands of young muslims

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from all over the middle east now
began the journey to Afghanistan

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for jihad, holy war against the
Soviet infidels.

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Brzezinski traveled to meet with
the dictators of Pakistan and Saudi

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Arabia to work out financial and
military aid for the holy warriors

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who were particularly upset
over the Soviet supported

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government's reforms to emancipate
and educate their women.

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Brzezinski has repeatedly denied
having any regrets about

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fueling Islamic fundamentalism which
would blow back against US on 9/11

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and plague it for years to come.

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because your cause is right
and God is on your side.

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Later he would say:

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What is more important in world
history? Taliban or the collapse of

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the Soviet empire? Some agitated
muslims or the liberation of

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central europe and the end of
the cold war?

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At what price?

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In seeking to destroy the Soviet
empire, Brzezinski instead destroyed

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Jimmy Carter's presidency.

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Carter never fulfilled his promise
to reduce defense spending

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increasing it from 115 billion to
180 billion.

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Carter more than doubled the number
of warheads aimed at Soviet union.

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Carter even repudiated his earlier
criticism of the Vietnam war.

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Vietnam veterans became

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Carter's policies ironically in the end
laid the groundwork for the even

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more extreme actions that Ronald
Reagan would bring to the white house.

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It's morning again in America.
Today more men and women

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00:17:49,609 --> 00:17:51,695
will go to work than ever before
in our country's history.

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00:17:53,238 --> 00:17:56,616
With interest rates and inflation down
more people are buying new homes

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00:17:57,617 --> 00:17:59,911
and new families can have confidence
in the future.

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00:18:01,580 --> 00:18:05,250
America today is prouder,
and stronger, and better.

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00:18:06,126 --> 00:18:07,586
Why would we want to
return to where we were

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00:18:08,336 --> 00:18:09,963
less than 4 short years ago?

243
00:18:15,427 --> 00:18:18,513
There's never been a president quite
like Ronald Reagan with his

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00:18:19,055 --> 00:18:23,977
charm, humor, elegant good looks
and driving compulsion to

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00:18:24,394 --> 00:18:27,355
transform America into a
conservative fortress.

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00:18:27,814 --> 00:18:31,067
A foxy home-spun actor turned
General Electric pitchman,

247
00:18:31,735 --> 00:18:35,030
Reagan served 8 years as
California's governor.

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00:18:35,447 --> 00:18:38,950
He was underrated by many as
a B-actor in Hollywood,

249
00:18:39,409 --> 00:18:43,121
and titled his first autobiography
'where's the rest of me?'

250
00:18:59,304 --> 00:19:06,061
based on his 1942 movie Kings Row,
a gothic classic about small town America.

251
00:19:06,645 --> 00:19:12,192
In the film, his legs were amputated
by his girlfriend's sadistic surgeon father.

252
00:19:12,859 --> 00:19:18,323
The film marked his transition from
new deal liberal to cold war conservative.

253
00:19:19,324 --> 00:19:23,244
He had discovered his missing half
in his fight against communism;

254
00:19:24,120 --> 00:19:28,959
a fight that, as president of the Screen
Actors Guild, turned him into a highly

255
00:19:29,376 --> 00:19:35,048
public crusader against the red menace
as well as a secret FBI informer

256
00:19:35,715 --> 00:19:37,926
who denounced colleagues as communists.

257
00:19:38,677 --> 00:19:42,389
Political consultant Roger Ailes who
would later create Fox News,

258
00:19:43,056 --> 00:19:46,643
drawing on tactics he'd developed
with Richard Nixon, reminded the

259
00:19:47,102 --> 00:19:51,815
73 year-old Reagan 'he got elected
on themes, not details';

260
00:19:52,440 --> 00:19:55,193
happy thoughts like Morning in America,

261
00:19:55,735 --> 00:20:00,323
or the puritan belief that America
was the shining city on a hill.

262
00:20:00,990 --> 00:20:05,578
His critics were 'defeatists who would
blame America first'

263
00:20:06,246 --> 00:20:09,082
or there were dark fictional
themes such as

264
00:20:09,624 --> 00:20:13,586
We're in greater danger today than
we were in the day after Pearl Harbor.

265
00:20:14,003 --> 00:20:18,383
Our military is absolutely incapable
of defending this country.

266
00:20:18,925 --> 00:20:21,761
The facts never quite mattered
if there was a good punch line.

267
00:20:22,262 --> 00:20:25,432
He loved to repeat the story
about the Chicago welfare queen

268
00:20:25,849 --> 00:20:30,019
with 80 names, 30 addresses
and 12 social security cards

269
00:20:30,562 --> 00:20:33,940
who had a tax-free income
of 150,000 dollars.

270
00:20:35,024 --> 00:20:38,319
He preferred films to reading and
had visual aids, especially prepared

271
00:20:38,987 --> 00:20:43,158
on issues such as the Soviet threat
or the problem in the middle east.

272
00:20:43,908 --> 00:20:47,287
For meetings even with a few
people in the room, Reagan would

273
00:20:47,829 --> 00:20:51,666
read his lines like an actor from
3x5 index cards.

274
00:20:52,417 --> 00:20:56,254
At one meeting with US automobile
leaders he read from the wrong cards

275
00:20:56,713 --> 00:20:58,673
until he finally caught on.

276
00:20:59,215 --> 00:21:02,510
He liked to go home to his
beloved wife Nancy punctually

277
00:21:02,927 --> 00:21:06,973
late in the afternoon, exercise,
eat dinner in his pyjamas, watch TV

278
00:21:07,432 --> 00:21:08,600
and be in bed early.

279
00:21:09,184 --> 00:21:13,104
There is one sign the Soviets can make
that would be unmistakable,

280
00:21:14,439 --> 00:21:18,234
that would advance dramatically
the cause of freedom and peace.

281
00:21:19,903 --> 00:21:23,823
General Secretary Gorbachev,
if you seek peace,

282
00:21:24,908 --> 00:21:28,870
if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union
and Eastern Europe,

283
00:21:29,829 --> 00:21:38,379
if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate.
Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate.

284
00:21:43,176 --> 00:21:47,680
Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.

285
00:21:49,182 --> 00:21:54,229
Less than 2.5 years later, the wall
did indeed come crashing down.

286
00:22:01,778 --> 00:22:06,032
And by 1991 the Soviet empire
had collapsed.

287
00:22:07,575 --> 00:22:11,955
The cold war was over.
Many credit Reagan with winning it.

288
00:22:12,622 --> 00:22:16,668
Admirers lionized him as the
greatest president since WW2,

289
00:22:17,085 --> 00:22:18,628
one of the greatest ever.

290
00:22:19,170 --> 00:22:22,006
But the real story is far more complex.

291
00:22:22,882 --> 00:22:26,928
Reagan left behind a bloody trail of
death and destruction,

292
00:22:27,595 --> 00:22:32,183
but also came excruciatingly close
to achieving enduring greatness.

293
00:22:33,851 --> 00:22:38,523
Reagan's disengaged style and lack of
foreign policy experience left a void that

294
00:22:38,856 --> 00:22:42,902
the administration's anti-communist
hawks scrambled to fill.

295
00:22:46,197 --> 00:22:48,032
Leading the pack was William Casey.

296
00:22:48,908 --> 00:22:52,078
The movies could not have invented
a man like Casey.

297
00:22:52,954 --> 00:22:55,915
A catholic knight of Malta, he
attended mass daily and

298
00:22:56,374 --> 00:22:59,544
proclaimed Christianity to anyone
who asked his advice.

299
00:23:00,294 --> 00:23:03,673
Statues of the Virgin Mary filled
his mansion on Long Island.

300
00:23:04,465 --> 00:23:08,052
He'd been the head of the Securities and
Exchange Commission, and before that

301
00:23:08,511 --> 00:23:09,804
he'd worked with the OSS.

302
00:23:10,471 --> 00:23:15,601
According to Casey's deputy Robert Gates
the Reaganites saw their arrival as a

303
00:23:16,060 --> 00:23:17,270
hostile takeover.

304
00:23:17,687 --> 00:23:22,400
Casey had read Claire Sterling's ...
The Terror Network, and was convinced

305
00:23:22,817 --> 00:23:26,112
that Soviet union was behind
international terrorism

306
00:23:26,654 --> 00:23:30,700
including the recent assassination
attempt on the Polish born Pope

307
00:23:31,576 --> 00:23:32,785
and a fellow catholic.

308
00:23:33,411 --> 00:23:38,458
The head of the CIA's office for
Soviet analysis Melvin Goodman

309
00:23:39,125 --> 00:23:43,379
said that much of Sterling's evidence
was based on black propaganda

310
00:23:43,921 --> 00:23:49,719
anti-communist allegations that the CIA
itself had planted in the european press.

311
00:23:50,303 --> 00:23:53,890
Yet, Casey told analysts that he'd
learned more from Sterling than

312
00:23:54,223 --> 00:23:55,433
from all of them.

313
00:23:55,725 --> 00:23:59,896
Al Hague, the hardcore secretary of
State, agreed and thought

314
00:24:00,438 --> 00:24:04,609
the Soviets had tried to assassinate him
when he was the head of NATO in europe.

315
00:24:05,359 --> 00:24:09,197
Experts knew that the Soviets
actually disapproved of terrorism

316
00:24:09,947 --> 00:24:13,576
and had not supported the nihilist
terrorist groups of western europe.

317
00:24:14,243 --> 00:24:18,498
But Casey and Gates purged analysts
who refused to knuckle under,

318
00:24:18,956 --> 00:24:22,960
crippling the agency in such a way
that, when the Soviet union fell apart

319
00:24:23,252 --> 00:24:26,797
later in the decade, the agency
was unable to predict it.

320
00:24:27,924 --> 00:24:31,511
At his first press conference using
 the language of John F. Dulles

321
00:24:31,969 --> 00:24:36,349
and James Forrestal, Reagan quickly
reversed almost 2 decades of progress

322
00:24:37,099 --> 00:24:39,602
in easing cold war tensions when
he declared

323
00:24:40,270 --> 00:24:46,275
that the only morality they recognize
is what will further their cause

324
00:24:46,943 --> 00:24:49,654
meaning they reserve under themselves
the right to commit any crime

325
00:24:50,571 --> 00:24:53,616
to lie, to cheat in order to attain that

326
00:24:54,367 --> 00:24:56,911
America's morality, he insisted,
was different:

327
00:24:57,662 --> 00:25:02,041
I'd always felt that from our deeds
it must be clear to anyone that

328
00:25:02,458 --> 00:25:07,380
Americans were a moral people who had
always used our power only as a force

329
00:25:08,047 --> 00:25:09,257
for good in the world.

330
00:25:09,924 --> 00:25:14,595
In reality, Reagan's election encouraged
right-wing elites throughout the 3rd world

331
00:25:15,263 --> 00:25:19,642
to take back perceived losses of
land or power resulting from

332
00:25:20,184 --> 00:25:22,812
indecisive American leadership
since Vietnam.

333
00:25:23,604 --> 00:25:24,897
The methods would be cruel.

334
00:25:25,898 --> 00:25:29,819
The colonel who headed the US
advisory team in El Salvador said

335
00:25:35,199 --> 00:25:39,870
an apt description of US leaders'
efforts to test their new post-Vietnam

336
00:25:40,454 --> 00:25:44,250
counter-insurgency doctrines and
defeat uprisings without

337
00:25:45,042 --> 00:25:47,336
a large commitment of
US forces.

338
00:25:49,046 --> 00:25:53,551
Many top Salvadoran, Honduran and
Guatemalan army officers were trained

339
00:25:54,093 --> 00:25:58,472
at the US Army School of the Americas
in Panama, and then after 1984

340
00:25:58,931 --> 00:26:00,558
Fort Benning in Georgia.

341
00:26:01,017 --> 00:26:04,812
The emphasis on counter-insurgency
techniques honed from Vietnam

342
00:26:05,271 --> 00:26:06,230
was expanded.

343
00:26:06,564 --> 00:26:11,277
Visiting neighboring Honduras in 1982
Reagan met with Guatemalan president

344
00:26:11,610 --> 00:26:16,532
gen. Efrain Rios Montt, a born-again
evangelical Christian

345
00:26:16,949 --> 00:26:19,368
who'd recently seized power in a coup.

346
00:26:20,036 --> 00:26:23,080
Reagan complained that Montt
had received a bum rap:

347
00:26:23,414 --> 00:26:27,043
I know that president Rios Montt
is a man of great personal integrity

348
00:26:27,793 --> 00:26:28,878
and commitment.

349
00:26:29,211 --> 00:26:34,341
Roughly 100,000 Mayan peasants
living in the region of leftist insurgency

350
00:26:35,134 --> 00:26:39,263
would be killed between 1981
and '83 by the Guatemalan army.

351
00:26:40,473 --> 00:26:44,518
Across the Nicaraguan border in
Honduras, former members of

352
00:26:44,852 --> 00:26:48,898
Somoza's thuggish national guard
gathered with Casey's assistance.

353
00:26:49,440 --> 00:26:52,818
They plotted a return to power.
They called themselves the

354
00:26:53,611 --> 00:26:56,322
counter-revolutionaries or Contras.

355
00:26:57,114 --> 00:27:01,911
The war began in march of 1982.
Congress then banned the use of

356
00:27:02,244 --> 00:27:05,080
government funds to overthrow
the Sandinista government.

357
00:27:05,623 --> 00:27:12,838
But Casey and NSC official Oliver North
concocted a plot right out of WW2 OSS days;

358
00:27:13,964 --> 00:27:20,304
an elaborate, illegal operation aided by
Israeli arms dealers. The US sold missiles to

359
00:27:20,721 --> 00:27:26,727
its enemies in Iran at exorbitant prices and
used the profits to fund the Contras

360
00:27:27,645 --> 00:27:32,316
with Latin American drug dealers often
serving as intermediaries and receiving

361
00:27:32,983 --> 00:27:36,028
easier access to American markets in return.

362
00:27:36,821 --> 00:27:40,950
The 15,000 men Contra army
employing kidnapping, torture,

363
00:27:41,534 --> 00:27:46,664
rape and murder, targeted health clinics
schools, agricultural cooperatives,

364
00:27:47,206 --> 00:27:48,624
bridges and power stations.

365
00:27:52,461 --> 00:27:55,297
I was aware that resistance was
receiving funds directly from

366
00:27:55,631 --> 00:27:59,343
third countries and from private
efforts, and I endorsed those

367
00:27:59,552 --> 00:28:03,806
endeavors wholeheartedly. But
let me put this in capital letters

368
00:28:04,598 --> 00:28:07,226
I did not know about the
diversion of funds.

369
00:28:07,768 --> 00:28:11,689
Reagan and Casey lied to Congress
about what the CIA was up to.

370
00:28:12,147 --> 00:28:16,402
According to his deputy Gates,
Casey was guilty of contempt of

371
00:28:16,819 --> 00:28:18,571
Congress from the day he was
sworn in.

372
00:28:19,238 --> 00:28:22,741
Reagan defended the covert
war by saying in 1984:

373
00:28:23,617 --> 00:28:28,956
The Nicaraguan people are trapped
in a totalitarian dungeon by a

374
00:28:29,415 --> 00:28:33,669
dictatorship made all the more
dangerous by the unwanted

375
00:28:34,128 --> 00:28:39,925
presence of thousands of Cuban,
Soviet block and radical Arab helpers.

376
00:28:40,467 --> 00:28:42,219
He went so far as to call the
Contras

377
00:28:42,428 --> 00:28:44,513
the moral equivalent of our
founding fathers.

378
00:28:45,180 --> 00:28:48,475
His moral equivalence were
responsible for most of the

379
00:28:48,892 --> 00:28:53,272
deaths of the 20 to 30,000
Nicaraguan civilians during the war.

380
00:28:53,814 --> 00:28:55,774
Similar atrocities occurred in neighboring

381
00:28:56,233 --> 00:28:59,403
El Salvador, where US trained troops stabbed

382
00:28:59,945 --> 00:29:06,744
de-capitated, raped and machine gunned
767 civilians in the village of El Mozote

383
00:29:07,369 --> 00:29:12,958
in late 1981, including 358 children
under age 13.

384
00:29:14,585 --> 00:29:16,003
Congress ended up funneling almost

385
00:29:16,337 --> 00:29:18,964
 $6 billion to this tiny country

386
00:29:19,757 --> 00:29:21,592
making it the largest recipient of US

387
00:29:21,925 --> 00:29:24,094
foreign aid per capita in the world.

388
00:29:24,970 --> 00:29:27,598
Wealthy landlords were running
the right-wing death squads

389
00:29:28,057 --> 00:29:30,225
that murdered thousands of
suspected leftists.

390
00:29:31,226 --> 00:29:33,312
The death toll from the war
reached 70,000.

391
00:29:34,730 --> 00:29:36,815
I go, alright, just take her

392
00:29:40,402 --> 00:29:43,822
If you send her back they will
kill her, rape her, mutilate her

393
00:29:49,286 --> 00:29:51,121
You don't know what it's
like in El Salvador.

394
00:29:51,413 --> 00:29:55,793
The Salvadoran population of US
expanded 5 times, to half a million

395
00:29:56,210 --> 00:29:59,254
by 1990,
many of these illegal entries.

396
00:29:59,838 --> 00:30:04,301
Yet, Nicaraguan supposedly fleeing
communist oppression, if not the

397
00:30:04,843 --> 00:30:08,263
Contra war, were allowed into
the US.

398
00:30:09,014 --> 00:30:10,766
Many Salvadorans would turn back.

399
00:30:12,684 --> 00:30:16,522
Bogged down in protracted
proxy wars in Nicaragua and

400
00:30:16,855 --> 00:30:21,235
El Salvador, and haunted by the memory
of defeat in Vietnam which he called

401
00:30:22,069 --> 00:30:26,782
a noble cause, Reagan hungered
for an easy military victory to

402
00:30:27,115 --> 00:30:29,076
restore Americans' self-confidence.

403
00:30:30,953 --> 00:30:36,291
In 1983 a powerful truck bomb
set off by the anti-Israeli terrorist

404
00:30:36,834 --> 00:30:40,254
organization Hezbollah, the
Al-Qaeda of its time,

405
00:30:40,921 --> 00:30:45,926
blew up a US Marine barracks
in Lebanon leaving 241 dead

406
00:30:46,468 --> 00:30:49,638
and dealing another
devastating blow to US pride.

407
00:30:50,430 --> 00:30:55,143
Two days later US troops invaded
not Lebanon, but Grenada

408
00:30:55,894 --> 00:30:58,730
a tiny Caribbean island with
100,000 inhabitants.

409
00:30:59,815 --> 00:31:02,776
Reagan claimed it was a
Soviet-Cuban colony being

410
00:31:03,318 --> 00:31:08,782
readied as a major military bastion to
export terror and undermine democracy

411
00:31:09,575 --> 00:31:11,410
We got there just in time.

412
00:31:12,286 --> 00:31:16,790
As in one of his old Westerns, he sent
7,000 american soldiers into battle.

413
00:31:17,666 --> 00:31:22,045
Then in media, supposedly for their
own safety, he offered government

414
00:31:22,462 --> 00:31:26,508
footage instead. The entire op
was bungled from the start.

415
00:31:27,593 --> 00:31:31,096
19 soldiers died and more than
100 were wounded, as a

416
00:31:31,638 --> 00:31:33,181
small force of poorly armed Cuban

417
00:31:33,599 --> 00:31:35,142
construction workers resisted.

418
00:31:36,018 --> 00:31:37,352
9 helicopters were lost.

419
00:31:38,645 --> 00:31:42,357
The invasion from a military POV
was a farce, with the Army

420
00:31:42,816 --> 00:31:48,363
awarding almost 275 medals for
valor to 7,000 troops of whom

421
00:31:49,031 --> 00:31:51,992
only about 2500 saw a limited form of combat.

422
00:31:52,993 --> 00:31:55,037
Well lt. what are we waiting for?

423
00:31:56,246 --> 00:32:00,751
Alright you devil dogs
let's take this fucking hell

424
00:32:03,253 --> 00:32:07,633
Reagan proudly announced:
our days of weakness are over.

425
00:32:08,508 --> 00:32:14,306
our military forces are back on
their feet and standing tall.

426
00:32:15,057 --> 00:32:19,436
Halfway across the world, Reagan
and Casey transformed Carter's

427
00:32:19,978 --> 00:32:24,483
limited support for the Afghan
insurgents into the CIA's largest

428
00:32:25,025 --> 00:32:29,279
covert operation to date,
totalling over $3 billion.

429
00:32:30,364 --> 00:32:33,116
They channeled aid through
Pakistan's general Zia,

430
00:32:33,658 --> 00:32:37,704
a corrupt dictator who funneled
the arms and dollars to the most

431
00:32:38,038 --> 00:32:43,418
extreme Afghan-Islamist faction
under Gulbuddin Hekmatyar

432
00:32:43,835 --> 00:32:46,922
a man of legendary cruelty
whose forces were rumored to

433
00:32:47,547 --> 00:32:50,717
patrol the bazaars of Kabul
throwing viles of acid in the

434
00:32:51,259 --> 00:32:53,595
faces of women not wearing
full burkas

435
00:32:54,471 --> 00:32:57,057
and specialized in skinning
prisoners alive.

436
00:32:57,849 --> 00:33:03,105
The CIA provided the insurgents
between 2000-2500 US made

437
00:33:03,396 --> 00:33:04,606
Stinger missiles.

438
00:33:08,568 --> 00:33:12,155
The US helped both sides in the
bloody Iran-Iraq war.

439
00:33:12,739 --> 00:33:17,285
Reagan in 1983 sent special envoy
Donald Rumsfeld to Baghdad

440
00:33:17,744 --> 00:33:21,039
to re-assure Saddam Hussein
of US support.

441
00:33:22,457 --> 00:33:25,085
Under a license from the
commerce committee

442
00:33:25,627 --> 00:33:29,881
US companies shipped several
strains of anthrax later used in

443
00:33:30,215 --> 00:33:35,470
Iraq's biological weapons program
and insecticides for chemical warfare.

444
00:33:37,222 --> 00:33:41,268
As president, Reagan persisted
in the scare talk:

445
00:33:41,726 --> 00:33:44,437
So in your discussions of the
nuclear freeze proposals

446
00:33:44,896 --> 00:33:48,150
I urge you to beware the temptation
of pride, the temptation of blithely

447
00:33:48,817 --> 00:33:52,779
declaring yourselves above it all
and label both sides equally at fault

448
00:33:53,738 --> 00:33:56,908
to ignore the facts of history and
the aggressive impulses of an

449
00:33:57,367 --> 00:34:00,620
evil empire, to simply call the
arms race a giant misunderstanding

450
00:34:01,621 --> 00:34:04,791
and thereby remove yourself from
the struggle between right and wrong

451
00:34:05,458 --> 00:34:08,837
and good and evil.
Let us be aware that, while

452
00:34:09,296 --> 00:34:13,091
they preach the supremacy of the state,
declare its omnipotence over

453
00:34:13,425 --> 00:34:16,845
individual man and predict its
eventual domination of all peoples

454
00:34:17,596 --> 00:34:21,308
on the earth, they are the focus
of evil in the modern world.

455
00:34:23,268 --> 00:34:29,274
In late '82, although US was ahead
in every meaningful category, he said:

456
00:34:29,858 --> 00:34:35,113
Today, in virtually every measure
of military power, the Soviet union

457
00:34:35,530 --> 00:34:37,908
enjoys a decided advantage.

458
00:34:39,034 --> 00:34:44,164
And he amped up the defense spending
which, by 1985, had increased 35%

459
00:34:45,165 --> 00:34:47,334
over 1980 expenditures.

460
00:34:48,335 --> 00:34:55,884
The US arsenal now contained 11,200
strategic warheads, to the Soviet's 9,900

461
00:34:56,760 --> 00:35:00,347
New and upgraded weapon systems
rolled off assembly lines including the

462
00:35:01,139 --> 00:35:05,268
long delayed and very costly MX
program which moved missiles

463
00:35:05,727 --> 00:35:09,648
around loops that hid their precise
location, making them invulnerable

464
00:35:10,190 --> 00:35:11,733
to a Soviet first strike.

465
00:35:12,817 --> 00:35:15,654
Despite massive protests throughout
Europe, the US deployed

466
00:35:16,112 --> 00:35:19,824
ground launched cruise missiles to
Britain, and Pershing 2 missiles

467
00:35:20,241 --> 00:35:22,661
to west Germany in november '83.

468
00:35:23,662 --> 00:35:28,041
Some Soviet officials were convinced
that a US attack was imminent

469
00:35:28,458 --> 00:35:32,087
as relations reached their lowest
point in more than 2 decades.

470
00:35:32,504 --> 00:35:36,800
To finance this, he slashed federal
support for discretionary programs

471
00:35:37,217 --> 00:35:41,679
effectively transferring 70 billion from
domestic programs to the military.

472
00:35:42,263 --> 00:35:44,307
He waged war on labor and
the poor:

473
00:35:44,766 --> 00:35:48,019
If they do not report for work
within 48 hours, they have

474
00:35:48,478 --> 00:35:51,231
forfeited their jobs and will
be terminated.

475
00:35:51,773 --> 00:35:55,026
busting the Air Traffic Controllers
union, meanwhile giving

476
00:35:55,610 --> 00:35:56,903
elegant parties in the white house

477
00:35:57,445 --> 00:35:58,988
for his millionaire friends.

478
00:35:59,614 --> 00:36:02,367
A sense of the 1890's Gilded Age,

479
00:36:03,034 --> 00:36:07,163
the Four Hundred of American Society
returned to Washington.

480
00:36:08,623 --> 00:36:14,087
In june of '82 almost a million
people rallied against the arms

481
00:36:14,504 --> 00:36:16,589
race in NY City's Central Park.

482
00:36:17,549 --> 00:36:21,928
Among them was a young Colombia
undergraduate named Barack Obama.

483
00:36:23,138 --> 00:36:24,556
The movement unnerved Reagan

484
00:36:25,348 --> 00:36:26,891
who saw it as a serious threat

485
00:36:27,308 --> 00:36:28,601
to his re-election.

486
00:36:35,191 --> 00:36:40,196
Despite all his bluster, Reagan too
feared the possibility of war

487
00:36:40,655 --> 00:36:44,909
which he associated with the
biblical armageddon. After

488
00:36:45,451 --> 00:36:50,707
watching the enormously popular
1983 ABC tv movie The Day After

489
00:36:51,374 --> 00:36:53,001
Reagan wrote in his diary that it

490
00:37:10,852 --> 00:37:14,981
Whether influenced by his wife
or her astrologer we don't know,

491
00:37:15,523 --> 00:37:18,818
but concerned about the bad
blood he may have engendered

492
00:37:19,694 --> 00:37:22,530
Reagan began to rethink his
approach to the Soviet union.

493
00:37:23,197 --> 00:37:24,532
He later wrote in his memoirs:

494
00:37:25,491 --> 00:37:29,537
3 years had taught me something
surprising about the Russians.

495
00:37:30,538 --> 00:37:35,001
Many were genuinely afraid of
America and Americans.

496
00:37:35,793 --> 00:37:40,048
Incredibly, if this diary is to be
believed, it had never dawned

497
00:37:41,132 --> 00:37:44,844
on president Reagan that the
Soviets might indeed fear a

498
00:37:45,303 --> 00:37:46,512
US first strike.

499
00:37:49,015 --> 00:37:52,852
Hoping possibly to appease the
growing anti-nuclear sentiment

500
00:37:53,269 --> 00:37:59,067
in march of 1983, Reagan proposed
the strategic defense initiative, SDI

501
00:37:59,525 --> 00:38:04,113
a space-based defense shield
around the nation itself;

502
00:38:04,530 --> 00:38:06,824
or as his critics called it,
Star Wars.

503
00:38:07,408 --> 00:38:10,578
It isn't about retaliation, it's
about prevention.

504
00:38:11,204 --> 00:38:13,289
It isn't about fear, it's about hope.

505
00:38:14,082 --> 00:38:16,918
And in that struggle, if you'll
pardon my stealing a film line,

506
00:38:17,543 --> 00:38:19,212
the force is with us.

507
00:38:20,088 --> 00:38:22,256
The fantasy of star wars became
an enormously expensive

508
00:38:22,924 --> 00:38:24,550
anti-ballistic missile system.

509
00:38:24,884 --> 00:38:29,263
Despite the fact that no such Soviet
project existed, the pentagon had

510
00:38:29,722 --> 00:38:33,643
begun research in the 1970s
to counter a supposed Soviet

511
00:38:34,060 --> 00:38:36,354
breakthrough in energy beam weaponry.

512
00:38:53,996 --> 00:38:58,084
In march of 1985, an extraordinary
development changed

513
00:38:58,376 --> 00:38:59,585
the course of history.

514
00:39:00,253 --> 00:39:05,049
A 54 year-old agricultural expert
like Henry Wallace years before

515
00:39:05,633 --> 00:39:09,011
Mikhail Gorbachev came to power
in the Soviet union.

516
00:39:09,554 --> 00:39:14,475
Like Khrushchev, he had survived
with his diplomacy, with luck

517
00:39:15,017 --> 00:39:19,188
and with a rare degree of honesty,
a brutal obstacle course of inefficiency

518
00:39:19,605 --> 00:39:20,815
and lies.

519
00:39:21,357 --> 00:39:24,402
He'd travelled wildly in the west
and, like Khrushchev, sought above all

520
00:39:24,944 --> 00:39:26,487
to improve the lifes of his people.

521
00:39:27,488 --> 00:39:29,782
He saw the problem with clarity.

522
00:39:30,658 --> 00:39:33,828
To achieve parity with the US,
the Soviets were spending nearly

523
00:39:34,370 --> 00:39:37,874
a quarter of their gross domestic
product on defense.

524
00:39:38,416 --> 00:39:41,377
Defense production consumed a
highly disproportionate amount

525
00:39:41,794 --> 00:39:43,129
of the Soviet budget.

526
00:39:43,754 --> 00:39:48,050
Their planned economy, which had
stagnated since the late 1970s,

527
00:39:48,384 --> 00:39:51,971
was run by a military-industrial
academic establishment

528
00:39:52,638 --> 00:39:54,056
immune from reality.

529
00:39:54,515 --> 00:39:58,769
To revitalize society, he knew he
would have to slash military spending.

530
00:39:59,520 --> 00:40:03,691
Gorbachev set out to end the
arms race and redeploy resources.

531
00:40:04,567 --> 00:40:07,278
He also took steps to end the war
in Afghanistan,

532
00:40:07,945 --> 00:40:12,742
a conflict, he thought, from the beginning
was a fatal error and a bleeding wound.

533
00:40:14,619 --> 00:40:17,788
As a very young man he'd
witnessed the horrors of war,

534
00:40:18,122 --> 00:40:21,959
and in a series of extraordinary
letters to Reagan proposed,

535
00:40:22,501 --> 00:40:27,632
like Henry Wallace 40 years earlier,
friendship and peaceful competition.

536
00:40:29,383 --> 00:40:31,469
Reagan responded encouragingly.

537
00:40:35,389 --> 00:40:38,893
The two leaders met for the first
time in Geneva in november '85

538
00:40:39,769 --> 00:40:42,939
connecting on a human level, if
not a political one.

539
00:40:44,148 --> 00:40:47,318
Gorbachev continued writing letters
through 1986 calling for

540
00:40:47,735 --> 00:40:50,905
the elimination of all nuclear
weapons by 2000.

541
00:40:51,906 --> 00:40:53,866
It didn't change Reagan's mindset.

542
00:40:54,742 --> 00:40:58,579
The US announced plans for a new
series of nuclear tests and

543
00:40:58,913 --> 00:41:02,291
increased support for the
mujahideen in Afghanistan.

544
00:41:04,460 --> 00:41:10,383
In oct. '86 Reagan and Gorbachev
met in Reykjavik, Iceland

545
00:41:11,467 --> 00:41:16,055
The 2 leaders would come within
a few words of changing history forever.

546
00:41:18,265 --> 00:41:22,645
Gorbachev offered a stunningly bold
set of disarmament proposals.

547
00:41:23,396 --> 00:41:27,733
Even Paul Nitze, who had done
so much to harm relations

548
00:41:28,234 --> 00:41:32,446
between 2 countries, observed that
the Soviet proposal was

549
00:41:37,493 --> 00:41:41,539
Nitze and secretary of State George
Schultz urged Reagan to accept a

550
00:41:41,956 --> 00:41:43,833
sweeping arms control deal.

551
00:41:45,042 --> 00:41:49,088
Reagan turned to hardliner
Richard Perle who feared such

552
00:41:49,422 --> 00:41:51,382
a deal would strengthen the
Soviet economy.

553
00:41:52,341 --> 00:41:56,303
Perle warned that the agreement
would effectively kill Reagan's SDI

554
00:41:56,971 --> 00:41:58,139
or Star Wars plan.

555
00:41:58,806 --> 00:42:03,728
Perle and other advisors knew Reagan's
vision of SDI was a pipe dream,

556
00:42:04,270 --> 00:42:07,982
a fantasy. Only Reagan believed
it would work.

557
00:42:08,566 --> 00:42:13,154
When negotiations stalled, Gorbachev
urged Reagan to act boldly.

558
00:42:13,779 --> 00:42:17,950
Reagan shocked observers, 'it would
be fine' he said, 'if we eliminated

559
00:42:18,409 --> 00:42:22,204
all nuclear weapons'.
Schultz agreed: let's do it.

560
00:42:22,997 --> 00:42:28,002
Gorbachev said he was ready to eliminate
nuclear weapons if Reagan restricted SDI

561
00:42:28,544 --> 00:42:31,505
testing to the laboratory for
10 years.

562
00:42:32,923 --> 00:42:36,760
Gorbachev and Soviet scientists knew
that SDI would do nothing to

563
00:42:37,219 --> 00:42:41,932
protect US from a full scale
Soviet attack, but feared

564
00:42:42,475 --> 00:42:46,937
US moves to weaponize space and
recoiled at the thought of giving up

565
00:42:47,271 --> 00:42:53,152
the anti-ballistic missile treaty, the only
tangible constraint upon the arms race.

566
00:43:08,918 --> 00:43:13,297
Reagan explained that confining tests
to the laboratory would damage him

567
00:43:13,839 --> 00:43:17,218
politically at home.
They had reached an impasse.

568
00:43:19,303 --> 00:43:23,891
The meeting ended. As they were leaving
the building Gorbachev tried one last time

569
00:43:24,433 --> 00:43:28,312
Mr. president, I'm prepared to go
back inside right now and sign

570
00:43:28,938 --> 00:43:34,944
the documents we already agreed upon
if you drop your plans to militarize space.

571
00:43:35,611 --> 00:43:38,989
Reagan answered reportedly:
I'm very sorry.

572
00:43:40,199 --> 00:43:44,995
The US and Russia had come within a
hair's breadth of beginning the

573
00:43:45,454 --> 00:43:48,207
process of eliminating nuclear weapons

574
00:43:48,958 --> 00:43:55,631
thwarted by a Star Wars fantasy, that
had hardly entered the lab. in 1986.

575
00:43:57,049 --> 00:44:01,637
Gorbachev was furious and blamed
the failure on Reagan's plan to exhaust

576
00:44:02,638 --> 00:44:06,767
the Soviet union economically
through an arms race the US

577
00:44:07,434 --> 00:44:12,481
subsequently spent well over
$100 billion, with final cost projected

578
00:44:12,898 --> 00:44:14,316
to exceed $1 trillion.

579
00:44:15,317 --> 00:44:18,696
With the issue of multiple decoys
overwhelming this system,

580
00:44:19,154 --> 00:44:25,035
among other issues, the creation of
an effective Strategic Defensive Initiative

581
00:44:25,828 --> 00:44:29,540
to this day is still highy uncertain.

582
00:44:31,375 --> 00:44:35,754
Both sides hoped to revive the talks,
but before that could happen

583
00:44:36,296 --> 00:44:40,259
a scandal that same month rocked
Reagan's administration.

584
00:44:41,427 --> 00:44:46,140
In oct. of '86 a cargo plane was
shot down over at Nicaragua

585
00:44:47,224 --> 00:44:50,519
the only survivor admitted it was
a CIA operation.

586
00:44:51,520 --> 00:44:55,649
Congressional hearings revealed an
administration up to its eyeballs

587
00:44:56,108 --> 00:45:00,904
in illegality, corruption, blundering
and subterfuge involving American

588
00:45:01,238 --> 00:45:06,618
hostages in Lebanon, arms sales to
both Iraq and Iran, ill-fated attempts

589
00:45:07,036 --> 00:45:12,708
to cultivate non-existent moderates
in Tehran and collaboration with a

590
00:45:13,167 --> 00:45:18,630
whole set of unsavory characters
including Manuel Noriega in Panama.

591
00:45:20,257 --> 00:45:24,094
In a flagrant violation on Congress'
ban on government support to

592
00:45:24,553 --> 00:45:26,388
overthrowing the Nicaraguan government,

593
00:45:27,473 --> 00:45:29,892
Americans also learned that the CIA mined

594
00:45:30,559 --> 00:45:34,480
Nicaraguan harbors which provoked the
conservative icon

595
00:45:35,147 --> 00:45:38,233
sen. Barry Goldwater to scold Bill Casey

596
00:45:38,984 --> 00:45:42,905
I'm pissed off, he wrote, this is an
act of violating international law

597
00:45:43,572 --> 00:45:44,865
it's an act of war.

598
00:45:45,532 --> 00:45:50,913
Details of the murky convoluted operation
consumed much of Reagan's last 2 years.

599
00:45:51,538 --> 00:45:56,043
Pathetically he told a news conference
that he was not fully informed of the

600
00:45:56,919 --> 00:46:01,423
Iran policy, one aspect of which was
seriously flawed.

601
00:46:04,259 --> 00:46:07,638
that so much of this can go on and
the president not know it,

602
00:46:08,180 --> 00:46:10,599
he is the president of the US,
why doesn't he know?

603
00:46:11,141 --> 00:46:12,559
because somebody didn't tell him, that's why

604
00:46:14,520 --> 00:46:19,024
It was apparent that he had little
grasp of and less control over

605
00:46:19,441 --> 00:46:21,193
what his underlings were up to:

606
00:46:21,860 --> 00:46:24,821
A few months ago I told the
American people I did not trade

607
00:46:25,239 --> 00:46:28,951
arms for hostages. My heart and
my best intentions still tell me

608
00:46:29,493 --> 00:46:33,455
that's true. But the facts and the
evidence tell me it is not.

609
00:46:33,997 --> 00:46:38,252
As the Tower board reported, what
began as a strategic opening to Iran

610
00:46:39,127 --> 00:46:43,966
deteriorated in its implementation
into trading arms for hostages.

611
00:46:44,925 --> 00:46:48,095
This runs counter to my own
beliefs, to administration policy

612
00:46:48,762 --> 00:46:51,056
and to the original strategy we
had in mind.

613
00:46:51,932 --> 00:46:56,853
There are reasons why it happened.
But no excuses. It was a mistake.

614
00:46:57,396 --> 00:47:01,650
As an apology, it wouldn't have
worked for Nixon. But, perhaps

615
00:47:02,109 --> 00:47:05,612
Ronald Reagan had too kindly
an aura to have to defend himself

616
00:47:06,154 --> 00:47:07,572
much less go to prison.

617
00:47:08,115 --> 00:47:10,659
And the Washington establishment
apparently concluded that

618
00:47:11,410 --> 00:47:15,789
the country could not withstand another
impeachment or forced resignation

619
00:47:16,331 --> 00:47:18,709
and thus, allowed Reagan to
serve out his term.

620
00:47:19,584 --> 00:47:21,670
He left office a befuddled old man.

621
00:47:23,005 --> 00:47:24,965
His subordinates were not so lucky.

622
00:47:26,049 --> 00:47:28,343
Among those convicted of crimes were

623
00:47:29,011 --> 00:47:30,971
2 national security advisors, one of whom

624
00:47:31,430 --> 00:47:34,057
attempted suicide, as well as Oliver North

625
00:47:35,017 --> 00:47:37,853
and asst. secretary of State Elliott Abrams

626
00:47:38,645 --> 00:47:41,481
who would re-emerge in the
2nd Bush administration.

627
00:47:42,232 --> 00:47:44,651
Defense secretary Weinberger, Abrams and

628
00:47:45,110 --> 00:47:49,990
several others were convicted or indicted,
but pardoned by the next president.

629
00:47:50,782 --> 00:47:55,704
The CIA director cheated his fate,
dying of a brain tumor the day after

630
00:47:56,121 --> 00:47:57,664
the hearings began.

631
00:47:58,206 --> 00:48:02,794
Vice-president George Bush managed
to avoid prosecution. He insisted he was

632
00:48:06,423 --> 00:48:11,094
but in his private diary, which he never
thought he'd be forced to release,

633
00:48:12,012 --> 00:48:14,514
he admitted before the scandal
began to break

634
00:48:20,103 --> 00:48:24,900
As a result, the independent council's
final report noted the criminal

635
00:48:25,233 --> 00:48:28,612
investigation of Bush was
regrettably incomplete.

636
00:48:31,698 --> 00:48:35,827
In the midst of this sordid affair
Gorbachev wanting to salvage

637
00:48:36,286 --> 00:48:40,415
something came to Washington
in dec. '87 and signed the

638
00:48:40,832 --> 00:48:45,086
intermediate range nuclear forces
treaty, a major milestone.

639
00:48:45,962 --> 00:48:50,801
It was the first agreement ever to
destroy an entire class of nuclear weapons

640
00:48:51,968 --> 00:48:55,180
one in which the Soviet union
had superiority.

641
00:48:58,350 --> 00:49:02,854
In Afghanistan, Soviet withdrawal
began in may 1988.

642
00:49:03,730 --> 00:49:08,652
When the Soviets sought it out the US on
collaborating to curb Islamic extremism

643
00:49:09,194 --> 00:49:13,365
the US, having achieved its goals,
washed its hands of the problems

644
00:49:13,782 --> 00:49:15,325
that it had helped to create.

645
00:49:23,625 --> 00:49:28,547
Up to 20,000 Arabs had flooded
into Pakistan to join the jihad

646
00:49:29,089 --> 00:49:30,632
against the Soviet infidels,

647
00:49:31,716 --> 00:49:34,886
among them a very young
Saudi construction heir

648
00:49:35,428 --> 00:49:39,933
able to support an army of
volunteers, Osama Bin Ladin.

649
00:49:40,684 --> 00:49:43,770
Thousands more flocked to
Pakistan's madrasas where

650
00:49:44,187 --> 00:49:48,024
they were indoctrinated in radical
Islam and recruited for jihad

651
00:49:48,775 --> 00:49:53,488
often with books produced in
Omaha, Nebraska, with USAID funding

652
00:49:54,155 --> 00:49:56,199
and distributed by the CIA.

653
00:49:58,159 --> 00:50:03,415
The Saudi's in the 1980s spent
$75 billion to spread their brand of

654
00:50:04,082 --> 00:50:06,251
Wahabi extremism.

655
00:50:07,294 --> 00:50:09,796
A million Afghans had died in
the war.

656
00:50:10,213 --> 00:50:15,051
5 million, 1/3 of the population
had fled to Pakistan and Iran.

657
00:50:15,677 --> 00:50:21,391
In the late '80s Islamists linked to
Pakistani intelligence seized control

658
00:50:21,808 --> 00:50:23,018
of Afghanistan.

659
00:50:23,560 --> 00:50:28,481
One Rand Corp. analyst said that
the US had to throw the worst crazies

660
00:50:29,024 --> 00:50:33,069
against the Soviets. The reason we
don't have moderate leaders in

661
00:50:33,528 --> 00:50:37,365
Afghanistan today is because
we let the nuts kill them all.

662
00:50:38,450 --> 00:50:41,494
Among the victims of these
American armed and trained fanatics

663
00:50:42,370 --> 00:50:46,207
were Afghan women who were
driven back into the dark ages.

664
00:50:47,751 --> 00:50:51,463
Warned repeatedly that the fanaticism
he was unleashing would threaten

665
00:50:51,880 --> 00:50:57,177
US interests, Bill Casey insisted the
partnership between Christianity

666
00:50:57,635 --> 00:50:59,262
and Islam would endure,

667
00:51:00,055 --> 00:51:03,975
and in the spring of 1985
even backed the mujahideen

668
00:51:04,392 --> 00:51:06,269
cross-border raids into the Soviet union

669
00:51:07,270 --> 00:51:10,857
and the hopes inciting
Soviet muslims to revolt.

670
00:51:13,693 --> 00:51:18,615
Although Reagan left office in near
disgrace, conservatives have annointed him

671
00:51:19,074 --> 00:51:23,661
as one the nation's great presidents
crediting him with restoring America's

672
00:51:24,204 --> 00:51:30,752
faith in itself, after the failed presidencies
of Johnson, Nixon, Ford and Carter.

673
00:51:31,961 --> 00:51:34,506
But, what is Reagan's real legacy?

674
00:51:35,256 --> 00:51:38,426
Once a Roosevelt democrat, he
developed an extreme contempt

675
00:51:38,968 --> 00:51:40,929
for government that was legendary.

676
00:51:41,513 --> 00:51:45,308
Yet, he spent enormous sums on
the military while cutting social

677
00:51:45,767 --> 00:51:47,268
programs for the poor.

678
00:51:47,936 --> 00:51:49,479
He reduced taxes on the wealthy,

679
00:51:49,896 --> 00:51:53,108
doubled both the military budget
and the national debt,

680
00:51:53,608 --> 00:51:57,237
and in a revolutionary change
transformed the US from the

681
00:51:57,779 --> 00:52:02,033
world's leading creditor nation in
1981 into the biggest debtor nation

682
00:52:02,700 --> 00:52:04,369
by 1985.

683
00:52:04,786 --> 00:52:08,373
He deregulated industries,
eroded environmental standards,

684
00:52:08,832 --> 00:52:12,669
defiantly ripping down the solar
panels that Jimmy Carter had put

685
00:52:13,002 --> 00:52:14,212
on the white house roof,

686
00:52:14,838 --> 00:52:17,799
weakened the middle class,
busted unions,

687
00:52:18,341 --> 00:52:21,427
heightened the racial divides,
widened the gap between

688
00:52:21,761 --> 00:52:22,929
rich and poor

689
00:52:23,596 --> 00:52:27,433
greed, for lack of a better word, is good

690
00:52:27,851 --> 00:52:31,604
and abetted companies in
shipping manufacturing jobs abroad.

691
00:52:32,564 --> 00:52:35,942
He deregulated savings and loans
institutions, which led to the

692
00:52:36,526 --> 00:52:40,113
first giant too-big-to-fail
government bail-outs of

693
00:52:40,655 --> 00:52:43,741
troubled banks, and failed
savings and loans which by

694
00:52:44,492 --> 00:52:46,995
1995 would cost the taxpayers

695
00:52:47,787 --> 00:52:49,956
87 billion dollars.

696
00:52:51,583 --> 00:52:56,504
Under the guise of privatization and
Reagan's extolling of market's forces

697
00:52:57,380 --> 00:53:02,093
Wall st. went on an enormous
greed-is-good looting binge

698
00:53:02,552 --> 00:53:07,557
that resulted in oct. 1987 in
the worst stock market collapse

699
00:53:08,099 --> 00:53:09,559
since the great depression.

700
00:53:11,060 --> 00:53:17,317
In a parting gift to future conservatives
in 1987 the FCC, with Reagan's help,

701
00:53:17,859 --> 00:53:21,029
repealed the fairness doctrine which
had required broadcasters

702
00:53:21,696 --> 00:53:26,826
since 1940's to give adequate and
fair coverage to opposing views

703
00:53:27,243 --> 00:53:29,120
on issues of public importance.

704
00:53:32,081 --> 00:53:36,461
As a result, Rush Limbaugh and
talk radio exploded on the scene

705
00:53:37,086 --> 00:53:38,630
finding a massive audience.

706
00:53:39,172 --> 00:53:42,008
This and the gradual loosening
of the limitations on the number

707
00:53:42,467 --> 00:53:46,721
of stations a company could own
had, by 1996, enabled the growth

708
00:53:47,055 --> 00:53:49,223
of a right-wing media empire.

709
00:53:49,891 --> 00:53:54,187
With it came a number of interlocked
well-funded conservative think tanks

710
00:53:54,604 --> 00:53:58,191
that helped shape a new
Washington group think.

711
00:53:59,567 --> 00:54:02,862
Playing up fears, resentments and
hatred of government by the end

712
00:54:03,154 --> 00:54:07,116
of the '90s Clear Channel,
Rupert Murdoch's Fox News,

713
00:54:07,867 --> 00:54:11,037
Talk Radio Network,
Salem Radio,

714
00:54:11,913 --> 00:54:14,999
the USA Radio Network,
and Radio America

715
00:54:15,666 --> 00:54:19,796
as well as the proliferation of
cable TV networks had created

716
00:54:20,463 --> 00:54:23,299
a movement that would dramatically
lower the standards of

717
00:54:23,758 --> 00:54:25,802
Amerian political discourse, and

718
00:54:26,469 --> 00:54:30,098
in general doomed prospects for
progressive change.

719
00:54:30,723 --> 00:54:35,103
The Hoover institution at Stanford
a respected conservative mecca

720
00:54:35,645 --> 00:54:40,233
described Reagan as a man whose
spirit seems to stride over the country

721
00:54:40,900 --> 00:54:43,319
watching us like a warm and
friendly ghost.

722
00:54:43,986 --> 00:54:47,365
Even democratic presidents like
Clinton and Obama, whether

723
00:54:47,907 --> 00:54:52,411
pandering to conservative forces or
suffering from historical amnesia,

724
00:54:52,703 --> 00:54:57,500
would bow to pressure to flaunt
their religiosity, extol the virtues of

725
00:54:58,167 --> 00:55:02,421
a free capitalist market place,
perpetuate the myth of the universal

726
00:55:03,089 --> 00:55:07,051
middle class and trumpet the notion
of American exceptionalism.

727
00:55:07,927 --> 00:55:11,430
They would feed the insaitable
appetite of the military-industrial

728
00:55:12,056 --> 00:55:16,435
complex, expand the search for
threatening enemies at home and

729
00:55:16,894 --> 00:55:21,482
abroad, and move heaven and earth
to maintain the resulting empire.

730
00:55:23,109 --> 00:55:28,698
Even in Nicaragua, those scolded Reagan
won the long contra war, wrecking its

731
00:55:29,031 --> 00:55:33,161
economy and exhausting the local
population who would soon lose faith

732
00:55:33,744 --> 00:55:37,123
in the Sandinista's ability to bring
progress to the country.

733
00:55:38,082 --> 00:55:40,960
By 1990, the religious pro-Washington candidate

734
00:55:41,377 --> 00:55:44,547
helped by US funding as well as its embargo

735
00:55:45,089 --> 00:55:47,174
triumphed in a democratic election

736
00:55:47,717 --> 00:55:53,389
allowed by the supposedly communist
Sandinistas who stepped aside peacefully.

737
00:55:55,057 --> 00:55:58,769
As far as Reagan's much ... role
in winning the cold war,

738
00:55:59,687 --> 00:56:02,607
the lion's share of credit goes to
Mikhail Gorbachev,

739
00:56:03,482 --> 00:56:06,569
a true visionary, and it turns out
the real democrat.

740
00:56:07,111 --> 00:56:11,782
If Reagan had entered into the sincere
partnership offered by Gorbachev

741
00:56:12,366 --> 00:56:14,869
as Roosevelt did with Stalin in WW2

742
00:56:15,620 --> 00:56:17,496
the world would have been transformed.

743
00:56:18,164 --> 00:56:21,876
But Ronald Reagan, at the least,
let the chance to rid the world of

744
00:56:22,209 --> 00:56:25,922
nuclear weapons slip through
his fingers because he wouldn't

745
00:56:26,255 --> 00:56:28,424
let go of a space fantasy.

746
00:56:29,508 --> 00:56:34,680
Appreciating Gorbachev's extraordinary
effort, the leading Soviet expert on US

747
00:56:35,014 --> 00:56:40,353
warned his American counterparts:
We will do the most horrible thing to you.

748
00:56:41,020 --> 00:56:43,572
We will leave you without an enemy.

749
00:56:44,065 --> 00:56:46,025
Unfortunately, he was wrong.

750
00:56:46,609 --> 00:56:48,569
We're dealing with Hitler revisited.

751
00:56:48,986 --> 00:56:53,783
A totalitarianism and a brutality
that is naked and unprecedented

752
00:56:54,784 --> 00:56:56,202
in modern times.

753
00:56:56,744 --> 00:56:59,622
And that must not stand.

754
00:57:00,000 --> 00:57:03,071