Today’s Republicans lie about Ronald Reagan: he condemned nuclear weapons

Perhaps the most audacious whopper is that of many Republican candidates who claim the legacy of President Ronald Reagan and do not espouse his policies.

I have gathered some quotes of his on the abolition of nuclear weapons. It should be clear that he was not just concerned that bad people or countries should have the weapon, but that the weapon itself is bad.

Ronald Reagan, Republicans, and Nuclear Weapons HUFFINGTON POST : 09/30/2012 Listening to today’s candidates –at any level — one would not know that, historically, Republicans have been instrumental in advancing arms control, nonproliferation, and nuclear disarmament. That is, until the recent Bush administration. In fact, active Republican leadership was essential in obtaining the Biological Weapons Convention, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, and the Chemical Weapons Convention, to name but a few.

However, the current Republicans running for offices, both high and low, have forgotten this legacy of success in making America and the world safer based on the US value of the rule of law.

Of serious concern is that the men who brought us the eight-year anomaly of consistent failure now comprise Romney’s foreign policy team. Out of 24 advisers, 17 played significant roles in the Bush administration and contributed to an unmatched history of unprecedented catastrophes. These guys include Max Boot, John Bolton, Elliot Cohen, and Cofer Black. They constructed an era defined by lies to justify a war in Iraq, a distortion of American values that rationalized torture, the execution of an aggressive war of choice rather than necessity, degradation of the international legal order which the United States had spent decades to establish, and the execution of costly military ventures based on money borrowed from China.

Perhaps the most audacious whopper is that of many Republican candidates who claim the legacy of President Ronald Reagan and do not espouse his policies. In order to set the record straight, and in the hopes that some Republicans will indeed take up the Reagan mantle, or that some “mainstream” media will challenge candidates who claim Reagan as their model, I have gathered some quotes of his on the abolition of nuclear weapons. It should be clear that he was not just concerned that bad people or countries should have the weapon, but that the weapon itself is bad.

“We seek the total elimination one day of nuclear weapons from the face of the Earth.” — Ronald Reagan, Inaugural Address, 1985

“Our moral imperative is to work with all our powers for that day when the children of the world grow up without the fear of nuclear war.” — Ronald Reagan, from “Reagan’s Secret War” by Martin and Annelise Anderson

“A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. The only value in our two nations possessing nuclear weapons is to make sure they will never be used. But then would it not be better to do away with them entirely?” — Ronald Reagan, 1984 State of the Union…..

As these quotations make abundantly clear, President Ronald Reagan was for the total global elimination of nuclear weapons and not for their improvement and indefinite retention by any country. He saw this as a moral imperative and a U.S. and international security necessity. Those who claim otherwise are misrepresenting him and what he passionately advocated. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-granoff/president-ronald-reagan_b_1927491.html

October 3, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | history, USA

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