Ronald Reagan: vader van de islamitische atoombom

How Ronald Reagan Brought Us the 'Islamic Bomb' - and Hid it From Congress
Door Paul Abrams, Alternet, 15 februari 2011

Both Congress and the public would have erupted, had they known that the price for sticking it to the Soviet Union was for fundamentalist Pakistan to become a nuclear power.

(...) no hindsight is needed to recognize the recklessness of providing a green light to Pakistan's development of nuclear weapons. From the outset, it was to be not only "Pakistan's deterrent," but the "Islamic bomb," potentially available to other Islamic nations (such as Libya that was on the road to acquiring it from Pakistan). And it was being developed by a nation that had seen its dictator, Zia al-Haq, impose Islamic law. There was no mystery about who Zia was, and how he saw the world.

Zie ook:

How Reagan Brought the World to the Brink of Nuclear Destruction
Door Tad Daley, Alternet, 7 februari 2011

[Pointe: de langzamerhand populair geworden zienswijze - zelfs bij een filosoof als Hans Achterhuis (in zijn boek Met alle geweld, 2008) dat Reagan juist door zijn ijzeren machtspolitiek de dreiging van een nucleaire oorlog wist af te wenden, is een rechtse vertekening en verdoezeling van de onverantwoorde, verschrikkelijke risico's die de man heeft genomen; K]

Reagan nearly started a nuclear war. It was everyday citizens, protesting the insanity of nuclear brinkmanship, who stopped him.

(...) [Reagan] may well have believed, as some of my nuclear abolitionist colleagues are pointing out this month, that the elimination of all nuclear weapons was a desirable and achievable goal. Yes, he did say, more than once, "our dream is to see the day when nuclear weapons will be banished from the face of the Earth."

But his nuclear policy rhetoric and actions, both prior to and during his first term in office, might well have banished all life from earth instead.

Before he assumed the presidency, Ronald Reagan said "the day of Armageddon isn't far off. (...) Ezekiel says that fire and brimstone will be rained down upon the enemies of God's people. That must mean that they'll be destroyed by nuclear weapons." He told voters that American national interests would best be served if the United States proceeded to build and deploy several new kinds of nuclear weapons and delivery systems - the B-1 bomber, the neutron bomb, the Trident nuclear submarine, and the MX nuclear missile. He denounced Soviet leaders as "monsters" and "godless communists."