Mr. Bush, Tear Down These Walls!
Posted on Apr 26, 2007
AP Photo / David Guttenfelder
U.S. troops patrol the area as an Iraqi worker rests on top of a security wall protecting the Palestine Hotel in cental Baghdad Thursday Sept. 25, 2003. The U.S. recently announced plans to build a security barrier around a Sunni neighborhood in Baghdad.
By Scott Ritter
"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” With those six words, President Ronald Reagan cemented his place in history. Uttered on June 12, 1987, with America’s “Great Communicator” standing at the base of the Brandenburg Gate, Reagan’s speech is seen by many as signifying the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union’s hold over Eastern Europe. Nearly two and a half years later, in November 1989, the Berlin Wall came crashing down, and with it decades of Soviet domination over East Germany and the other nations that made up the Warsaw Pact.
Reagan’s speech was full of the flowery rhetoric typical of polarizing political addresses. But it was also rooted in the principles and ideals at the very foundation of America. Reagan wasn’t simply on a political stump, gushing throw-away political promises. He was placing an ideological marker on the ground, establishing a rallying point around which people from all walks of life could assemble in the defense of freedoms not enjoyed on the other side of the Berlin Wall. He pointedly noted, in comparing the forces of democracy and those of communism, “… there stands before the entire world one great and inescapable conclusion: Freedom leads to prosperity. Freedom replaces the ancient hatreds among the nations with comity and peace. Freedom is the victor.”
For Ronald Reagan, the Berlin Wall represented the physical manifestation of the denial of freedom. As such, the infamous barrier was in fact an impediment to prosperity, reinforcing ancient hatreds among nations. Democracy didn’t automatically emerge victorious with the collapse of the Berlin Wall, however. In order for freedom to claim victory from the shadow of the Cold War, prosperity would need to take hold, and peace would need to reign. And indeed, in much of Europe since 1990 this is in fact the situation. Regardless of what one may think about him as a person or president, on this matter Reagan was right: Walls are a barrier to freedom, and as such represent the antithesis of American values.
It is strangely curious that many ideologues on the right wing of the American political spectrum so openly identify with Reagan. As President Bush’s popularity ratings continue to plummet, many old-time Republicans and political conservatives wax philosophical about the “good old days” when a real conservative held the highest office of the land. Yet these are the same people who, when asked to comment point by point about various aspects of the policies of the administration of President George W. Bush, will defend the establishment of barriers dividing the Iraqi city of Baghdad (as well as the parallel policy of fencing off entire Iraqi villages and neighborhoods), the construction of a wall on the border between the United States and Mexico, and the establishment of a missile defense “shield” (nothing less than a wall projected into outer space) over Europe. Reagan, a Republican president, rightly noted that those who defend freedom must oppose walls. The present-day Republicans seem to have forgotten this. .......(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/mr_bush_tear_down_these_walls/
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