Last Updated: Friday - 09/24/2010

Reagan's war plan still being followed

"America is too big for little dreams" said Ronald Reagan as he announced his candidacy for the second term in 1984.

In October 1983, the Associated Press reported Reagan, "considers it possible the world is heading towards the last judgment day and the decisive battle of Armageddon between good and evil, as predicted in the Revelation of John."

Thomas Dine, chairman of a committee to promote U.S. - Israel relations, quoted Reagan: "You know, I always go back to the old prophets in your Old Testament and to the signs that indicate the coming of Armageddon. I catch myself wondering whether we are the generation that will watch it unfold.

"I don't know if you have recognized any of these prophets in recent times, but believe me, they describe, without doubt, the times we live in."

Reagan was not only supported by an administration which included Weinberger, Jeane Kirkpatrick and Secretary of State George Schultz, but by a growing religious right and "moral majority."

American evangelicals, now numbering 98 million, have worked zealously to hasten the approach of the second coming. According to prophecies, this requires the rebuilding of the temple destroyed in 70 AD.

The influence these believers had on foreign and domestic policy was immense. In Reagan's vision, the world had to be cleansed of Palestinian terrorists, Latin American subversives and Korean communists.

After Sharon's brutal invasion of Lebanon, Israel reached new heights of dependency on American tax dollars. In 1984, this amounted to $4.1 billion in public and private money.

A key strategy in Reagan's policy to take on the forces of the evil empire was the development of the Rapid Deployment or Intervention Force.

The idea was the Pentagon should be able to fight two or three wars simultaneously, and with such speed and massive force it would catch enemy and domestic oppositions off guard.

There was to be no more repeat of the Vietnam syndrome.

In 1982, Air Land Battle, an army manual described war in the year 2000 - intensive, short and decisive.

Small units of highly trained special forces would be able to penetrate deep into enemy territory. The difference between the destructive powers of conventional and nuclear weapons would diminish.

Besides more serious physical casualties, more psychological damage should be anticipated.

In the battle of good against evil, "the most important threats to international stability" said Schultz, "originate in the Third World."

This is where the enemy "manipulates regional problems related to the explosive disparity between wealth and poverty."

Reagan immediately reduced the contribution to the International Development Agency by 25 per cent, pulled out of UNESCO and sided with the multinational NESTLE against the World Health Organization's campaign to promote breast feeding.

Successive administrations have pretty much followed the Reagan blueprint for global conquest. The most important aspect of continued dominance is access to energy and resources.

Like previous "wars against terror," that's what the current one seems to be about, notwithstanding the horror of Sept. 11.

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