A Very Thin Line-Iran/Contra question- private financing versus Congress

[liveoaktx]

oversight.

I'm reading two books right now, Firewall by Walsh and A Very Thin Line by Draper. I read last week that the Saudi Govt gave money to the Contras, 32 million total or $1 mil per month. I wondered what the Saudis got in return for this funding that was outside of Congress (since Congress had cut off govt money).

Chapter 26 AVTL- "The difference once came up in connection with soliciting money from "third countries". ... "Ollie believes we need to flag the possible option of a Finding permitting us to seek third country support. John (Poindexter) and I are both uneasy about raising this". They were uneasy because it was still understood that a Finding had to be communicated to Congress, which might not be in favor of the idea. "I didn't want to resurface the issue on the Hill and get an answer that we didn't want to hear"Poindexter explained.

Another issue was whether funds were appropriated solely by Congress. .... If UNAPPROPRIATED MONEY were used, Poindexter held, no accounting would be necessary. In the case of Secord's operation, Poindexter said "we are talking about private funds, third-country funds that really are outside the purview of the US government"

*****
Trying clumsily to explain what's disturbing to me about this and hoping that others have considered this issue. IF,as is implied in this book, the government can contract private funding that is outside the oversight of Congress, but causes the administration to act like a government within a government, that is, leeching off the official US government functions while doing shifty things outside, but with private funds, is the president "exempted from a constitutional imperative and the principle of accountability by the device of obtaining private or third country money?... The implication is that the president can make and implement his own foreign policy without or against the will of Congress so long as he uses unappropriated money, even from foreign countries. "

Question. Do you think Bush is doing this now? (The parallels between Iran/Contra and the Bush administration's actions now with regard to, for example, illegal spying, etc are uncanny)

[stillcool]

1. Great books....

I think what's going on now is the BCCI on steroids....or the Carlyle Group. I also think that war-profiteering and/or arms-sales is an ugly business, and always has been.
http://www.serendipity.li/_home.html
http://www.aliveness.com/kangaroo/L-overclass.html
If you flip over the rock of American foreign
policy of the past century, this is what crawls out ...

invasions ... bombings ... overthrowing
governments ... suppressing movements
for social change ... assassinating
political leaders ... perverting
elections ... manipulating labor unions ...
manufacturing "news" ... death squads ...
torture ... biological warfare ...
depleted uranium ... drug trafficking ...
mercenaries ...

It's not a pretty picture.
It is enough to give imperialism a bad name.
William Blum http://www.killinghope.org/

http://www.mosquitonet.com/~prewett/caqsmom25.1.html

[liveoaktx]

2. So.. two questions. (maybe more). First, in the case of the

Saudis giving money to Reagan to finance the Contras, how did they do it? And what did they get for it? They couldn't have given it directly to the US government, because Congress presumably would have questioned the source. If they gave the money directly to Reagan, surely it wasn't without any strings attached.

Secondly, bringing up Caryle. IF it's true that the Bush administration is using foreign money to finance various operations that are outside of the scope of Congress, do they do it via companies like Caryle, which acts as a money launderer, but because of Bush being in office, etc, favors are expected?

I'm sure this sounds a little naive, it hadn't occurred to me till I read tha part last night that the President could consider himself the sole organ for foreign policy and try to make an exception for receiving unappropriated Congressional funds.

[EFerrari]

5. A lot of those funds went to fund black ops, death squads

and pro US militias all over Central America but mostly in El Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala. :(

[stillcool]

7. I think they've usurped congress....

and left them in the dust. Not only because they have the established connections for say drug-running, weapons-sales, and laundering money...but also, because the Congress has given the Pentagon more power with less overisght than ever before.

[stillcool]

3. and also....with the Pentagon taking the lead...

on alot of the black-ops and intelligence that the CIA used to handle...they can and do funnel money at their discretion. The degree of power and money wielded by the Pentagon and it's business associates...I think, is the key to the whole fucking mess. How much of this has occured since 9/11 would be interesting to find out.

[liveoaktx]

6. As p 594 says "The question arises: Is the president exempted from

a constitutional imperative and the principle of accountability by the device of obtaining private or third-country-money? Since this is precisely what President Reagan did in the case of Saudi Arabia and Taiwan, these nations substituted for Congress in the making and carrying out of American foreign policy"

And I read that, though Senator Moynihan put in a bill to limit this... but it was VETOED by Reagan. So what's to stop the president now from believing he has a precedent to follow?

And if we wanted to find out where this money was going, could we?

[stillcool]

8. If I remeber correctly Reagan had that...

"questionable deniability"...and the Boland Ammendment was specifically written to prevent aid to the Contras....so Ollie etal., set up fund-raisers etc., from private citizens and foreign countries...as a non-government deal.
What we have now is actually much worse. Because of 9/11, and the laws that Congress passed relating to National Security, and the Pentagon's war-chest needs....there is no oversight. When you think of the government contracts alone....

[EFerrari]

9. "Plausible deniability"

but, it was questionable, for sure. :)

[stillcool]

10. OMG...I almost did a bushism....

...:toast:

[EFerrari]

11. A reverse one -- you were telling the truth

:)

[liveoaktx]

12. How much of it do you think involves third country financing?

[stillcool]

13. Today?...I don't know...

sometimes it seems as though we aren't a country at all...but a notch on the belt of a multi-national corporate bohemoth mass.

[EFerrari]

4. Sure he's doing it now. And he's preparing to fund "contras"

in Venuezuala in a much more overt and direct way.

There was a thread floating around here this week about a house bill to condemn Chavez for undemocratic behavior and the implication was that this program would need funding.

It's pretty easy to see where that one is going.

On edit: Isn't this why they've never submitted a clear budget for the Iraq war, for example?