Iran/Contra Terrorists twenty years later
Iran-contra: 20 Years Later and What It Means
From The Nation - David Corn
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
http://antiracismdsa.blogspot.com/2006/11/irancontra-terrorists-twenty-years.html"It's the 20th anniversary of the Iran-contra scandal. Two decades ago, the public learned about the bizarre, Byzantine and (arguably) unconstitutional actions of high officials in the post-Watergate years. But many Americans did not absorb the key lesson: the Iran-contra vets were not to be trusted. Consequently, most of those officials went on to prosperous careers, with some even becoming part of the squad that has landed the United States in the current hellish mess in Iraq."
(Does this sound familiar?) "Conservatives for years--make that decades--have argued there was nothing really criminal about the Iran-contra affair and that it was merely a political dispute between the pro-contras Republicans in the White House and the Democrats controlling Congress...."
(Is there a parallel moment in an e-mail today?) "In a remarkable passage, Secretary of State George P. Shultz warns the president that White House adviser James Baker has said that "if we go out and try to get money from third countries, it is an impeachable offense." But Vice President George Bush argues the contrary: "How can anyone object to the US encouraging third parties to provide help to the anti-Sandinistas…?" "
(Iran has a lot of experience with American criminal politicos.) "The Iran arms-for-hostage-deal was also illegal--or so Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger thought. At a December 7, 1985 White House meeting, Weinberger argued the Iran missile deal was wrong and criminal, according to his notes of the session. Weinberger pointed out to Reagan that selling missiles to Iran would violate a U.S. embargo on arms sales to Iran and that even the president of the United States could not break this law. Nor, Weinberger added, would it be legal to use Israel as a cutout,..."
(Doing business with terrorists.) "On November 3, 1986, a Lebanese weekly revealed that the previous May National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane had secretly flown to Tehran. McFarlane's covert mission had been part of the arms-for-hostages deal--which now stood exposed."
(Here is the list of purps still doing the same old, same old.) "But history never ends. Twenty years later, Abrams is deputy national security adviser for global democracy in the George W. Bush administration. A fellow who admitted that he had not told Congress the truth and who had abetted a secret war ....
* Richard Cheney ... a member of the joint congressional Iran-Contra inquiry of 1986, taking the position that Congress deserved major blame for asserting itself unjustifiably onto presidential turf....
* David Addington - now Vice President Cheney's chief of staff .....
* John Bolton - the controversial U.N. ambassador .... participated in meetings with Attorney General Edwin Meese on how to handle the burgeoning Iran-Contra political and legal scandal ....
* Robert M. Gates ... was forced to give up his bid to head the CIA in early 1987 because of suspicions about his role ...
* Manuchehr Ghorbanifar .... has resurfaced as an important source for the Pentagon on current Iranian affairs, again over CIA objections.
* Edwin Meese - currently a member of the blue-ribbon Iraq Study Group ... attorney general ... criticized as a political exercise in protecting the president rather than a genuine inquiry by the nation's top law enforcement officer.
* John Negroponte ... ambassador to Honduras ... Negroponte's profile has risen spectacularly with his appointments as ambassador to Iraq in 2004 and director of national intelligence in 2005.
"As for the current relevance of Iran-contra, one could argue that the affair taught Reaganites and neocons a lesson, the wrong lesson: you can get away with it...."
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Perhaps that proved to be a mental trap. Especially if Congress has also learned its lesson: If you let them get away with it, the same criminals may eventually return to power and destroy the Republic with the same old rhetoric, lies, and crimes.