Reading and watching the news during the week of June 7 was like a Ronald Reagan love-fest. It was Sainthood Time for Bonzo. With GR Press headlines like "Nation Mourns Coast to Coast" and "Americans, former leaders recall president as peacemaker," you'd think that the Pope died. So, I decided to write my own reflections on the man that some PR wizard referred to as "The Great Communicator."

I have particularly fond memories of Reagan. In fact, I cut my political teeth during the early Reagan years. While in college I was confronted with the US sponsored terrorist wars in Central America. Nicaragua was Reagan's obsession, so much so that he gave the green light to Oliver North, Elliot Abrams and friends to conduct an illegal covert war on teachers, health workers, farmers and students. The Reagan administration not only funded the Contras, they placed an embargo on the tiny country and then had the CIA mine its harbors. Not to be ignored the government of Nicaragua went to the World Court and in 1986 ruled that the US was in violation of International Law and "is under a duty immediately to cease and to refrain from all such acts of hostility, and is under an obligation to make reparations to Nicaragua for all injury." (Blum, Rogue State, 2000) Reagan's response was to ignore the highest court on the planet. Not the first time that Reagan showed contempt for International Law. In 1983 the US invaded the dangerous island of Grenada in order to protect the world's nutmeg supplies we were told. The United Nations voted against this invasion, to which Reagan responded "One hundred nations in the UN have not agreed with us on just about everything that's come before them where we're involved, and it didn't upset my breakfast at all."

While the US was beating up on Nicaragua, the governments of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras were making it a practice to murder their own populations. In Guatemala, under the dictatorship of Rios Montt, 20,000 people were murdered during an 18-month period in what Amnesty International called a "genocidal policy." Reagan's response was to say that Montt was receiving a "bad deal." In El Salvador the Reagan administration was providing $1.5 million in military aid daily, aid that left 80,000 people dead by 1989. In January of 1982, Reagan certified to Congress that El Salvador was "making a concerted effort to comply with internationally recognized human rights." Two days earlier the now famous massacre at El Mozote occurred, leaving nearly 1,000 civilians dead at the hands of the US trained death squads.

The banana republic of Honduras became in effect a US military outpost, with 10 bases being constructed during the 80s and used as a staging ground for the US war in Nicaragua. Not to be outdone, Honduras developed its own death squads in the 80s under the guidance of the US Ambassador John Negroponte (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/19981023.htm).

Jumping to another continent we can recall that the Reagan administration supported the despot Jonas Savimbi in Angola, a country which boasts more amputees than any other. In South Africa, Reagan and his gang did everything they could to continue the Apartheid regime until it became a political embarrassment.

In Afghanistan we can credit the Reagan administration for creating many of today's militant Islamic groups. The US in the 1980's gave billions of dollars through the CIA to the Afghan Mujahedin to fight the Soviet occupation, included in that band of US backed "freedom fighters" was Osama bin Laden. Mark Zepezauer, in his book Boomerang: How Our Covert Wars Have Created Enemies Across the Middle East and Brought Terror to America, makes the claim that almost every terrorist organization in the Middle East was at one time or another a US ally, particularly during the Reagan years of the Cold War. In fact, this is how Reagan became president. According to Gary Sick, author of The October Surprise, the Reagan election team brokered a deal with Iran to wait until after the 1980 elections before releasing the US hostages. In turn, the Reagan administration would give Iran $40 million in military hardware. Wait a minute, I thought the US hated Iran under the leadership of the Ayatollah Khomeini? It gets better. Being an equal opportunity arms supplier the US also gave millions to Iraq during the 80s in its war against Iran. In the early 80s Reagan sent one of his underlings, Donald Rumsfeld to Iraq to make more weapons deals with Saddam Hussein. There are declassified documents on that visit at the National Security Archive website at http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/press.htm.

Now on to the domestic consequences of the Reagan years. Reagan basically declared war on organized labor when he broke the air traffic controllers strike in 1982. The wage gap between workers and CEOs increased during the Reagan years by almost 100%, and taxes for the poor and middle classes increased while taxes for the rich were cut. Reagan stacked the Supreme Court bench with ultra-conservatives and said that most homeless people were "retarded." The Reagan era ushered in the most recent wedding between corporate America and government by appointing the former head of Wall Street's Merrill Lynch office, Donald Reagan, to Secretary of the Treasury. William Casey went from being the top man at the Securities & Exchange Commission to head of the CIA, and Sec. of State George Schultz came from being the CEO of Bechtel - a major weapons manufacturer. This mix of robber barons was bound to be bad for the democratic process. Daniel Friedenberg notes in his book Sold to the Highest Bidder: The Presidency from Eisenhower to George W. Bush, that "during the eight years of the Reagan presidency more than 225 appointees faced charges of criminal or ethical offenses."

So how is it that the news media can be so blind to this legacy? Not surprising since the major news media in the 80s treated Reagan with kid gloves. Investigative reporter Mark Hertsgaard, provides an excellent assessment of the Reagan years and the media in On Bended Knee: The Press and the Reagan Presidency. Fast-forward to the present and media critic Norman Solomon points out that ?the main technique of the media both during the Reagan years and in his death has been omission.? Those who were victims of his policies - the poor, welfare recipients, refugees, campesinos, workers and millions of corpses around the world "have no media standing today." They are not and will not be interviewed for their take on the legacy of the 40th president.

So, why dwell on what took place 20 years ago? First, if it isn't apparent yet I will spell it out. Look at the names of many of the Reagan gang that I have mentioned. Most of them are in the current administration, which should tell us something about the nature of US policy. Secondly, if we do not acknowledge the millions of bodies that have rotted in mass graves dug by Reagan's foreign policy, we can never begin to stop the current bloodbath being conducted by Bush jr. and company.

Postscript: Upon hearing that the Ford Museum was to allow the GR faithful a chance to pen their thoughts on Ronald Reagan, my office buddies and I went down to pay tribute. The security guard acknowledged our presence and then hovered over me as I wrote:

Jeff Smith is part of an Indy media effort in Grand Rapids called Media Mouse. Check out their daily Indy news reports and a new section called Iraq Watch, which provides weekly summaries of the ongoing US occupation.