Reagan: Bin Laden's Role Model It’s an article of faith amongst conservatives that ‘the greatest president we’ve ever had’, Ronald Wilson Reagan, brought about the demise of the Soviet Union, thereby ushering in a glorious new age of peace and prosperity worldwide. The cornerstone of this policy, they claim, was the brilliant strategy of accelerating the arms race. By doing so, Reagan forced the Soviets to spend more on their already bloated military budget, thereby starving other necessary government programs and driving their economy into the ground. Despite liberal arguments to the contrary, most scholars contribute at least part of communism’s fall to this strategy. Meanwhile thousands of miles away, the CIA was training the Mujahedeen of Afghanistan in the tactics of Guerilla warfare. They armed and trained Afghanis and others for the war of resistance against Communist rule, and some of the same tactics, weapons, and facilities have undoubtedly been used against our soldiers in Bush’s “War Against Terror”. The same skills that Bin Laden learned from the United States to defeat one “Evil Empire” are being used again to fight what he believes is another. Osama Bin Laden could very well be the best student the Reagan/Bush Republicans ever had. He is using Reagan’s cornerstone strategy for fighting communism against us. With 18 men and as many boxcutters, Bin Laden has attempted to sow the seeds of our self-destruction. We’ve been duped, and we need to change our approach to dealing with terrorism before it’s too late. The budget surplus at the time Bill Clinton left office was 300 trillion. After three years of a George W. Bush, we now have a 300 trillion dollar budget deficit. Even a C student at Yale could surmise that the Bush military budget of 415 trillion may have something to do with it. To give you some perspective, this is six times what the next 15 countries spend on their military combined. Could it be, perhaps, the Osama Bin Laden anticipated this response from the likes of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and George Bush? It would be a logical assumption on his part. Wherever Bin Laden is, he must consider it fine entertainment watching Donald Rumsfeld on CNN trying to explain how a missile defense shield could shield us from anthrax spores or terrorists with plastic explosives packed in their shoes. He must also enjoy the fact that Americans are being held without trial by John Ashcroft’s Justice Department, that ex-con John Pointdexter is in charge of the Total Information Awareness program, and that triple amputee war veteran Max Cleland was voted out of office in Georgia because his opponent, Republican Saxby Chambliss labelled him “soft on terrorism”. The Bush Administration is the Politburo of the new millennium, bungling its way into oblivion and falling into a trap of its own devising. The terrorists are winning because the actions of the Administration are completely and utterly predictable and ultimately self-destructive. Like Bin Laden himself, President Bush is all balls and no bearings. Our government has become a terrorist network’s Judo dummy. It is the duty of all freedom loving Americans to resist Bin Laden’s manipulation of our own government, whose current misguided policies fan the flames of terrorism rather than douse them.