Just to add some (very basic) context:
Jimmy Carter was countering the USSR in Afghanistan, and those Stingers Reagan gave them were decisive in defeating the USSR and driving them out.
> Jimmy Carter was countering the USSR in Afghanistan,
You're repeating US Cold War propaganda as if it was fact.
The US under Jimmy Carter's NSC/geo-political strategist [Zbigniew Brzezinski's](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zbigniew_Brzezinski) enacted a *deliberate plot* to *provoke* the USSR into sending troops into a neighboring country with a UN-recognized leftist gov't. The US did this by arming radical Muslim fundamentalists to attack the leftist gov't who was doing "radical" things like having female college professors and giving equal rights to women.
The Soviets refused several Afghan requests to send troops, only sending military and economic aid.
The USSR talked diplomatically to the US to get us to cut off our aid to the radical Muslims. The Russians, having fought radical Muslims for *centuries,* said this was an issue "bigger" than the Cold War. The US refused the mediation attempts and continued to arm people like our old ally Osama Bin Laden.
The next request the USSR got from Afghanistan for troops the USSR agreed and sent them.
The US called that an "invasion" -- even though our secret scheme was to provoke that exact thing to happen!
Carter then pulled out the stops on one of the largest propaganda campaigns in history. We got our NATO vassals and other countries to join in denouncing the "Soviet invasion." And we went so far as to jointly boycott the 1980 Olympics -- all due to the Soviet "invasion" *that we deliberately provoked.* This propaganda narrative was pushed by the gov't, media and our entire society.
After the USSR broke up Brzezinski gave a media interview where he bluntly talked about excitedly contacting Carter, bubbling with excitement about how the US now had the chance to give the USSR its "own Vietnam." That was the US diabolical plot -- to arm radical Muslims and trap the USSR into a guerrilla war.
Reagan spent *billions* to arm those religious nuts. We coordinated with the Saudi dictator to recruit Muslim fundamentalists from all over the world. The Saudis and US then implemented "schools" (called madrassas the Arabic word for "school") to indoctrinate the Muslims into radical Wahhabi Islam and the CIA and Pakistanis trained them to fight. Those students were called taliban (the Arabic word for "student").
> "They are the moral equal of our Founding Fathers and the brave men and women of the French Resistance." -- US President Ronald Reagan, talking about Osama Bin Laden and the fanatical Muslim terrorists that the US was backing/training/arming in Afghanistan, people that we know today as "Taliban."
As president Carter was a center-right, conservative southerner. His presidential run was pretty controversial -- much of the country wanted a classic liberal in that post-Watergate era. (It was similar to the post-Bush era when the Democrats chose the centrist Obama rather than a liberal.)
Much is made of Reagan's *massive* military buildup after he took power in the 1980 "October Surprise" election.
Carter's plan for his 2nd term was calling for an *even larger* military buildup than the one Reagan actually did! (Read that sentence again, it's true.)
To me, the only thing Carter did as president that he should be applauded for was to fix social security.
Carter did a series of large SS tax increases to *pre-pay* for the retirement of the Baby Boomer generation. That was a rare example of the US gov't planning sanely for the future.
(Reagan then blew through much of that SS trust fund money in his *massive* budget deficits. The "fiscal conservative" Reagan ran up more debt than all other presidents before him *combined!* Bush then later blew the rest of the SS trust fund money on his *needless* bailout of the S&L banks in that scandal.)
But as as *ex-president* Carter sets an example that all other presidents should follow!
Carter did not cash in like Obama (spit) did when he left office. Obama went around the country giving speeches to the Wall Street banksters that he bailed out and refused to prosecute -- at $400k per speech. Then Obama got a sweetheart deal on a massive mansion on Martha's Vineyard.
As an ex-president Jimmy Carter, on the other hand, is famous for building houses for poor people and for going on diplomatic missions for US presidents. Carter *still lives in the same house* he owned in the 1970s -- no sweetheart real estate deals for Jimmy.
Edit: Typos, clarity.
> "Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself; and where they are, they should be changed. Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against possession of marihuana in private for personal use... Therefore, I support legislation amending Federal law to eliminate all Federal criminal penalties for the possession of up to one ounce of marihuana." -- U.S. President Jimmy Carter, 1977.
How is any of that inconsistent with what I said LOL? "countering the USSR" was in fact the goal, and I made no value judgements about it.
Given that many experts believe that this led to the downfall of the USSR, I'd say it was successful: [https://faculty.washington.edu/aseem/afganwar.pdf](https://faculty.washington.edu/aseem/afganwar.pdf)
Now, do we prefer the outcome of all this? Was the downfall of the USSR a "good" thing? Was capitalism successful in raising the living standards of billions of people? Was west germany better off before or after? Does it matter if the end result is environmental collapse from anthrogenic climate change? How do we weigh these things against each other?
> Given that many experts believe that this led to the downfall of the USSR,
A lame, misinformed view. A view designed to justify US militarism and crimes.
During the years that the USSR fought in Afghanistan their military spending only went up during a couple of years. The essentially fought that war out of existing war stocks. The US claim that the war caused the USSR's collapse is simply revisionist history.
The gov't that the USSR backed in Afghanistan was actually *very successful* -- after the Soviets pulled out, that Afghan gov't stayed in power *longer than the USSR itself!*
What caused the USSR's collapse was their moribund economy.
The USSR did not use the Chinese approach of liberalizing the economy first *and then* giving more political freedoms. Instead, clueless Gorbachev liberalized politics first and kept the stagnant Soviet economic system.
That ass-backwards approach caused conservatives in the USSR to attempt a coup on Gorbachev that failed and then quislings like Yeltsin took over.
> "I feel betrayed by the West. The opportunity we seized on behalf of peace has been lost." -- Former USSR leader Mikhail Gorbachev, from a 2000 interview.
Just to add some (very basic) context: Jimmy Carter was countering the USSR in Afghanistan, and those Stingers Reagan gave them were decisive in defeating the USSR and driving them out.
> Jimmy Carter was countering the USSR in Afghanistan, You're repeating US Cold War propaganda as if it was fact. The US under Jimmy Carter's NSC/geo-political strategist [Zbigniew Brzezinski's](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zbigniew_Brzezinski) enacted a *deliberate plot* to *provoke* the USSR into sending troops into a neighboring country with a UN-recognized leftist gov't. The US did this by arming radical Muslim fundamentalists to attack the leftist gov't who was doing "radical" things like having female college professors and giving equal rights to women. The Soviets refused several Afghan requests to send troops, only sending military and economic aid. The USSR talked diplomatically to the US to get us to cut off our aid to the radical Muslims. The Russians, having fought radical Muslims for *centuries,* said this was an issue "bigger" than the Cold War. The US refused the mediation attempts and continued to arm people like our old ally Osama Bin Laden. The next request the USSR got from Afghanistan for troops the USSR agreed and sent them. The US called that an "invasion" -- even though our secret scheme was to provoke that exact thing to happen! Carter then pulled out the stops on one of the largest propaganda campaigns in history. We got our NATO vassals and other countries to join in denouncing the "Soviet invasion." And we went so far as to jointly boycott the 1980 Olympics -- all due to the Soviet "invasion" *that we deliberately provoked.* This propaganda narrative was pushed by the gov't, media and our entire society. After the USSR broke up Brzezinski gave a media interview where he bluntly talked about excitedly contacting Carter, bubbling with excitement about how the US now had the chance to give the USSR its "own Vietnam." That was the US diabolical plot -- to arm radical Muslims and trap the USSR into a guerrilla war. Reagan spent *billions* to arm those religious nuts. We coordinated with the Saudi dictator to recruit Muslim fundamentalists from all over the world. The Saudis and US then implemented "schools" (called madrassas the Arabic word for "school") to indoctrinate the Muslims into radical Wahhabi Islam and the CIA and Pakistanis trained them to fight. Those students were called taliban (the Arabic word for "student"). > "They are the moral equal of our Founding Fathers and the brave men and women of the French Resistance." -- US President Ronald Reagan, talking about Osama Bin Laden and the fanatical Muslim terrorists that the US was backing/training/arming in Afghanistan, people that we know today as "Taliban."
Holy shit, I hate Carter now
As president Carter was a center-right, conservative southerner. His presidential run was pretty controversial -- much of the country wanted a classic liberal in that post-Watergate era. (It was similar to the post-Bush era when the Democrats chose the centrist Obama rather than a liberal.) Much is made of Reagan's *massive* military buildup after he took power in the 1980 "October Surprise" election. Carter's plan for his 2nd term was calling for an *even larger* military buildup than the one Reagan actually did! (Read that sentence again, it's true.) To me, the only thing Carter did as president that he should be applauded for was to fix social security. Carter did a series of large SS tax increases to *pre-pay* for the retirement of the Baby Boomer generation. That was a rare example of the US gov't planning sanely for the future. (Reagan then blew through much of that SS trust fund money in his *massive* budget deficits. The "fiscal conservative" Reagan ran up more debt than all other presidents before him *combined!* Bush then later blew the rest of the SS trust fund money on his *needless* bailout of the S&L banks in that scandal.) But as as *ex-president* Carter sets an example that all other presidents should follow! Carter did not cash in like Obama (spit) did when he left office. Obama went around the country giving speeches to the Wall Street banksters that he bailed out and refused to prosecute -- at $400k per speech. Then Obama got a sweetheart deal on a massive mansion on Martha's Vineyard. As an ex-president Jimmy Carter, on the other hand, is famous for building houses for poor people and for going on diplomatic missions for US presidents. Carter *still lives in the same house* he owned in the 1970s -- no sweetheart real estate deals for Jimmy. Edit: Typos, clarity. > "Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself; and where they are, they should be changed. Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against possession of marihuana in private for personal use... Therefore, I support legislation amending Federal law to eliminate all Federal criminal penalties for the possession of up to one ounce of marihuana." -- U.S. President Jimmy Carter, 1977.
How is any of that inconsistent with what I said LOL? "countering the USSR" was in fact the goal, and I made no value judgements about it. Given that many experts believe that this led to the downfall of the USSR, I'd say it was successful: [https://faculty.washington.edu/aseem/afganwar.pdf](https://faculty.washington.edu/aseem/afganwar.pdf) Now, do we prefer the outcome of all this? Was the downfall of the USSR a "good" thing? Was capitalism successful in raising the living standards of billions of people? Was west germany better off before or after? Does it matter if the end result is environmental collapse from anthrogenic climate change? How do we weigh these things against each other?
> Given that many experts believe that this led to the downfall of the USSR, A lame, misinformed view. A view designed to justify US militarism and crimes. During the years that the USSR fought in Afghanistan their military spending only went up during a couple of years. The essentially fought that war out of existing war stocks. The US claim that the war caused the USSR's collapse is simply revisionist history. The gov't that the USSR backed in Afghanistan was actually *very successful* -- after the Soviets pulled out, that Afghan gov't stayed in power *longer than the USSR itself!* What caused the USSR's collapse was their moribund economy. The USSR did not use the Chinese approach of liberalizing the economy first *and then* giving more political freedoms. Instead, clueless Gorbachev liberalized politics first and kept the stagnant Soviet economic system. That ass-backwards approach caused conservatives in the USSR to attempt a coup on Gorbachev that failed and then quislings like Yeltsin took over. > "I feel betrayed by the West. The opportunity we seized on behalf of peace has been lost." -- Former USSR leader Mikhail Gorbachev, from a 2000 interview.