Iran-Contra Felons Get Good Jobs from Bush

[donsu]

http://www.blythe.org/nytransfer-subs/Central_America/Iran-Contra_Felons_Get_Good_Jobs_from_Bush


Bush Employs Iran-Contra Veterans


Today, a half-dozen alumni of that episode have found prominent jobs
in the Bush administration.

The most recent is former National Security Adviser John Poindexter,
65. The retired admiral took over a new Pentagon counterterrorism
office last month.

Poindexter was convicted in 1990 on five felony charges of
conspiracy, making false statements to Congress and obstructing
congressional inquiries. He was sentenced to six months in prison,
time he never served.

An appellate court overturned the convictions in 1991, as well as
similar ones against former White House aide Oliver North, the Marine
lieutenant colonel who ran the illegal operation. The court ruled
that their testimony to Congress, for which they had been given
immunity from prosecution, had been improperly used against them.

-snip-

Another former Iran-Contra defendant is Elliott Abrams. He now serves
as Bush's special White House assistant for democracy and human
rights. An assistant secretary of state under Reagan, Abrams pleaded
guilty to withholding information from Congress, then was pardoned by
the first President Bush.

-snip-

Others given jobs by Bush:

--Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. Questions linger over
the former Defense Department official's 1986 contacts with Israel on
the Iran arms sales.

--U.N. Ambassador John Negroponte. His service in the 1980s as
ambassador to Honduras, which the U.S.-supported Contra rebels used
as a base, has drawn criticism.

--Budget Director Mitch Daniels. As Reagan's political director in
1986 and 1987, Daniels helped oversee a White House damage-control

-snip-

With Israel serving as an intermediary, proceeds from the secret U.S.
arms sales to Iran were funneled to anti-communist "Contra" fighters
in Nicaragua, which defied a congressional ban.

-snip-

He also suggested political payback is at work in appointments of so
many Iran-Contra figures. "They were good soldiers. They fell on
their swords. Good soldiers get rewards -- at least in this
administration," Blanton said.
----------------------

all of them belong in prison

the article says most americans don't know diddly about Iran/contra

Israel should own up to it's crimes

[blm]

1. What could have stopped this from happening?

The Clintons' Real Trouble with Truth

By Robert Parry
February 24, 2007

>>>>>

If a future historian is ever to understand what happened to the United States in this era – how the world’s greatest power so disastrously lost its way – that scholar should look back to the first Clinton-Bush transition in 1992-93, when Bill Clinton could have grasped a unique historical moment but didn’t.

Clinton was the first U.S. President to take office after the end of the Cold War. He could have ordered a long-needed historical review of what nine U.S. presidents had done, often behind opaque cloaks of government secrecy.

This review also could have assessed what damage those decades of secrecy, propaganda and deception had done to the core values of the American Republic. By revealing the truth, both the good and the bad, Clinton could have helped restore vibrancy to the democratic process by giving the voters the means to again be an informed electorate. ......

>>>

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/022307.html

[donsu]

3. he was busy being impeached by a hostile house/senate

it's a wonder he got anything done

[blm]

4. That wouldn't have happened, either, if he made the best decision for country in 1993.

With the books opened up to news reporters and historians in 1993, the GOP enablers of BushInc would have been hiding in shame or busy distancing themselves as much as they could.

They certainly WOULDN'T have controlled the house and senate in 1995.

[katsy]

2. Poindexter was the ba$tard that developed...

the death options scheme (futures market).

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F00714FE3D580C778DDDAB0994DB404482&n=Top%2fReference%2fTimes%20Topics%2fPeople%2fP%2fPoindexter%2c%20John%20M%2e