Reagan

[PanzerJaeger]

That's completely disingenuous and I suspect you know that. It wasn't "losing" and then "winning" when Reagan signed a piece of paper.

Not according to Vincent Cannistraro, the CIA officer who was director of intelligence programs at the National Security Council.

I hate to repost source material, but it is directly applicable.

The problem, Cannistraro said, was that as the Soviets moved to escalate, the U.S. aid was "just enough to get a very brave people killed" because it encouraged the mujaheddin to fight but did not provide them with the means to win.

Conservatives in the Reagan administration and especially in Congress saw the CIA as part of the problem. Humphrey, the former senator and a leading conservative supporter of the mujaheddin, found the CIA "really, really reluctant" to increase the quality of support for the Afghan rebels to meet Soviet escalation. For their part, CIA officers felt the war was not going as badly as some skeptics thought, and they worried that it might not be possible to preserve secrecy in the midst of a major escalation. A sympathetic U.S. official said the agency's key decision-makers "did not question the wisdom" of the escalation, but were "simply careful."

In March 1985, President Reagan signed National Security Decision Directive 166, and national security adviser Robert D. McFarlane signed an extensive annex, augmenting the original Carter intelligence finding that focused on "harassment" of Soviet occupying forces, according to several sources. Although it covered diplomatic and humanitarian objectives as well, the new, detailed Reagan directive used bold language to authorize stepped-up covert military aid to the mujaheddin, and it made clear that the secret Afghan war had a new goal: to defeat Soviet troops in Afghanistan through covert action and encourage a Soviet withdrawal.

I'm not sure what role you expect a president to play in these types of activities. Reagan's vision and stated policy was to directly fund anti-communist efforts around the globe. He not only made Afghanistan a foreign policy priority, but signed a specific directive to fund a covert war, which carried significant political risk (as he later found out). He made the ultimate decision to vastly increase support to the Mujahideen including the critical Stinger missiles and deserves ultimate credit for the outcome.

To execute this policy, President Reagan deployed CIA Special Activities Division paramilitary officers to train and equip the Mujihadeen forces against the Red Army. Although the CIA and Texas Congressman Charlie Wilson have received the most attention for their roles, the key architect of the strategy was Michael G. Vickers, a young CIA paramilitary officer working for Gust Avrakotos, the CIA's regional head.[8][9] Reagan's Covert Action program assisted in ending the Soviet's occupation in Afghanistan.[10][11] A Pentagon senior official, Michael Pillsbury, successfully advocated providing Stinger missiles to the Afghan resistance, according to recent books and academic articles.[12]

By your logic, presidents are responsible for every single major event and policy that happens during their term.

Allow me a few rhetorical questions. Do you think that President Obama visits the Pentagon regularly to select targets and operations for Coalition forces? Do you think he had anything to do with current US Military counterinsurgency doctrine? Assuming your answer to both is 'no', should the president then not receive any credit for the outcome of his 'Surge'? After all, all he has really done is decide on a generalized policy goal.

What about healthcare? Does he deserve credit for getting that passed. He didn't author the bill, nor did he vote to pass it. All he really did was throw his support behind it and sign a piece of paper.

By your logic, presidents aren't responsible for any major policy enacted during their term, as none of them actually implement them.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Not according to Vincent Cannistraro, the CIA officer who was director of intelligence programs at the National Security Council.

I hate to repost source material, but it is directly applicable.

I'm not sure what role you expect a president to play in these types of activities. Reagan's vision and stated policy was to directly fund anti-communist efforts around the globe. He not only made Afghanistan a foreign policy priority, but signed a specific directive to fund a covert war, which carried significant political risk (as he later found out). He made the ultimate decision to vastly increase support to the Mujahideen including the critical Stinger missiles and deserves ultimate credit for the outcome.

By your logic, presidents aren't responsible for any major policy enacted during their term, as none of them actually implement them.

Hmmm. You are correct here. While this does not mean in any way that Reagan won the Cold War (which I still hold was Gorbachev's doing as well as an inherent broken economic system falling apart on itself)...yes you are probably right that ultimately, the success of the Afghanistan insurgents probably did rest on getting those Stinger missiles, which mean credit must be given to Reagan.

Don't ever let it be said that ACIN is a stubborn ass who doesn't admit when his arguments are shown to be incorrect or correct them.

By the way, my logic is that the president receives dozens of papers all about every topic in the world for him/her to sign and then it's lunch time. I don't consider a president incredibly responsible unless the president is actively aware about the issue and is involved deeply in the progress of the issue throughout the political process. In my opinion there are degrees of responsibility depending on the involvement of the individual president in the issue/subject. Some bills are just there for the president to sign off on, some bills/issues are undertaken by the president to be made a big deal. Each president is unique in their goals in that each president usually has personal ideas on certain issues that they want to make an impact in, more so then in others. The bills on issues that a president has put more time into then other issues bestow a greater responsibility on the president then the bills on issues he doesn't put as much focus on.

It might not be the best system, but in my opinion, blanket statements that if it was signed on his watch then he is solely to blame is less realistic especially given the nature of how the American political system works. In a division of power setup it seems odd to always point at the president as if the veto power makes him the arbiter of what passes or not as if there is no external Congressional, special interest or public pressure on him/her.

Overall, I still rate Reagan as below average. His domestic policies were still atrocious in my opinion. But, I will acknowledge that he did play a part in the Cold War turning out how it did, but is still enormously over hyped by the right in the country. Looking back in hindsight, perhaps it was foolish of me to think that the president of the United States would not have some involvement in the playing out of the USSR collapsing.

[PanzerJaeger]

Hmmm. You are correct here. While [B]this does not mean in any way that Reagan won the Cold War

Fair enough. I also agree that the idea that Reagan 'won' the Cold War is a gross oversimplification of events. His foreign policy was involved fomenting the general loss of confidence in the Soviet system during the end of the USSR, though.