It Seems So Simple Now

Freedom is better than totalitarianism.

“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” And the wall came down.

Germans were interviewed on television this weekend, honoring the man who removed their nemesis and reunified their country.

Freedom is better than totalitarianism.

“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” And the wall came down.

Germans were interviewed on television this weekend, honoring the man who removed their nemesis and reunified their country.

Defense is better and more moral than Mutually Assured Destruction.

The USSR was never going to be able to compete with the U.S. in the technology or money required to build missile defenses. By proving the point, we could break whatever confidence they retained in their system and encourage those who would overthrow it.

And it was overthrown.

A million immigrants gave Israel an unprecedented wave of productivity, culture, technological capability and desire for freedom.

America has national security interests abroad.

Honor, gratitude and support for a decent wage is what Americans owe to the soldiers who volunteer to risk their lives on behalf of American national security interests; the highest quality equipment, technology and training is what our government owes them.

And they would be our heroes.

Bosnians, Kosovars, Kuwaitis, Afghans, Iraqis would benefit later.

Perspective is a wonderful thing.

In the early 1980s, none of this was clear.

Those Germans (or their fathers) were probably some of the hundreds of thousands in the European nuclear freeze movement calling our President a cowboy and charging him with starting WWIII on their soil. Germans didn’t quite have the nerve then to call an American President a Nazi, but American intellectuals called him an “amiable dunce.”

Reflecting back on the 24 years since the start of the “Reagan Era,” the fundamental principles seem obvious and the outcomes inevitable. But was it always so clear that those military dictatorships in Central America didn’t have to become communist ones, and that Nicaragua and El Salvador could have competitive, democratic elections? Did we always know that one day Warsaw and Budapest would be among our best allies in Europe? Did we always know that Russia could be just another country with which we would have relations and not the feared engine of our destruction?

The outpouring of honor and respect for President Reagan isn’t simply what happens when someone dies. It is what happens when enough time passes for the new and revolutionary to become tested and seasoned. And when revolutionary principles are found to be strong and enduring.

To borrow a bit of Ronald Reagan’s optimism, we believe that some day, a free Iraqi people will learn about the President who had the vision that set into motion the forces and capabilities that produced the President that liberated Iraq.

And it will seem simple then.