IRAN-CONTRA

Excerpt:

“Midshipmen will not lie, cheat, or steal.”

- First seven words of the United States Naval Academy’s Honor Code

“There is great deceit, deception practiced in the conduct of covert operations. They are at essence a lie. We make every effort to deceive the enemy as to our intent, our conduct, and to deny the association of the United States to those activities … and that is not wrong.”

- Oliver North

(*refernce the post HERE for the commentators thoughts on deception in warfare and the Christian position)

James 5:12

Above all, my brothers, do not swear—not by heaven or by earth or by anything else. Let your “Yes” be yes, and your “No,” no, or you will be condemned.

source

CONTENTS

THE OCTOBER SURPRISE

ARMS FOR HOSTAGES

REAGAN’S AND BUSH’S INVOLVEMENT

IRAN-CONTRA INDICTMENTS

THE AFTERMATH OF IRAN-CONTRA

THE OCTOBER SURPRISE

The Iran-Contra scandal can be traced to the October Surprise during the 1980 Presidential election between incumbent Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. In the fall of 1980, Carter was marginally leading Reagan in the polls with the election right around the corner. The release of hostages before election day presumably would have insured the election for Carter. The Reagan team conspired to negotiate a deal with Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran. Campaign manager William Casey and George Bush met with Iranian Prime Minister Bani-sadr in Paris in October, only weeks before the election and with Carter having a slight lead over Reagan. Part of the deal cut between the Reagan team and Iran was to provide military weapons which Iran desperately needed in its war with Iraq. As it turned out, the 52 American hostages remained captive in Teheran. Carter’s popularity continued to plummet, enabling Reagan to be elected in November, and ironically the hostages were returned at 12 o’clock noon on January 21, 1981 when Reagan was inaugurated.

The first meeting regarding arms-to-Iran occurred in July 1980 in Barcelona, Spain and not in Madrid as was initially reported. The Republican team met at the Hotel Princess Sofia and at the Pepsico International headquarters. The American team was led by Republican campaign director William Casey, who months later was to be named CIA chief by Reagan, and by Robert McFarlane, who later became National Security adviser under Reagan. Three months after Barcelona, a more important meeting took place in Paris. CIA agent Richard Brenneke testified that Bush was in Paris on Sunday, October 19, 1980 when he met with members of the Khomeini regime to consummate an arms package to Iran. Bush, along with Casey and other government officials, flew to Paris on a BAC 111 on Saturday evening, October 18. The plane arrived in Paris on Sunday morning October 19 at 8:40 a.m. European time.

While in Paris, the Republican team gave $40 million to the Iranian government as a gesture of good faith that the Reagan team was serious in dealing with the terrorist Khomeini government — and that the 52 American hostages should remain captive until after the November election. After the meeting, Bush had to quickly return to the United States in order to deliver a speech at the Washington Hilton Hotel. He departed France in an SR-71 reconnaissance plane, piloted by Gunther Russbacher. The plane was refueled by an Air Force tanker nearly 2,000 miles out of Paris. The entire return flight to the United States was less than two hours.

When news of the Paris meeting leaked out, the CIA moved quickly to cover-up Bush’s meeting. CIA agent Frank Snepp wrote an article in the Village Voice, stating that the SR-71 pilot, Gunther Russbacher, was not capable of flying an SR-71 and, therefore, his allegations were false. However, in an interview between government whistle-blower Rodney Stich and Russbacher, it was very clear that Russbacher had been trained in flying the SR-71.

Several other witnesses corroborated the story that Bush was present in Paris. Ari Ben-Menashea, a member of Israel’s Mossad and involved in the transfer of arms to Iran, stated that Bush was at the meeting. Also, Iranian Prime Minister Bani-sadr produced documents indicating that Bush was present. On the other hand, CIA agent Donald Gregg, who was on the flight to Paris, failed a polygraph test when asked about Bush’s presence.

The Secret Service unequivocally denied the fact that Bush was in Paris. Yet, the agency refused to allow any of its agents who were assigned to Bush at that time, to testify. Justice Department prosecutors called two Secret Service agents who swore that Bush was in Washington, D.C. on that weekend. The Secret Service claimed that Bush was in Pennsylvania on Saturday, October 18; however, the agency did not produce any evidence to indicate Bush’s activities on the following day.

Under pressure by the Republicans, both the House and the Senate initially refused to investigate the October Surprise. However, eventually in 1991, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee made a token gesture and superficially did look into allegations of improprieties. The investigation was virtually blocked, since the committee prevented investigators from traveling to Europe to interview witnesses; denied subpoena power to investigators; limited the time frame of the investigation; and limited the funds to investigate alleged illegalities.

In addition, the committee called Russbacher an imposter and refused to accept his sworn statements. The testimony of Brenneke was discredited. The committee claimed that he was in Portland, Oregon on the weekend of the October 19, 1980, since he had used his credit cards on that day on the west coast. However, Barbara Honegger, a member of the Reagan-Bush campaign team and one who claimed that Bush was in Paris on October 19, reported that a handwriting expert examined the credit card signatures and swore that they were not those of Brenneke.

A year after the Senate’s “investigation” of the October Surprise, the House October Surprise Committee, chaired by Lee Hamilton of Indiana, was formed. However, chief counsel Lawrence Barcella, Jr. lacked credibility, since he earlier helped to conceal clandestine CIA operations in Libya. Also, Richard Pedersen, another key member of the investigation committee, had been involved in corruption. The House committee followed the pattern of its counterpart in the Senate and refused to hear testimony from anyone who had evidence that Bush was in Paris on the weekend of October 19, 1980. In 1993 the committee issued its final report which mirrored that of the Senate committee: the October Surprise was fabricated.

If the October Surprise did indeed occur, there would have been potential enormous consequences: the possibility of impeachment of high level government officials, including members of Congress; criminal activities of Republican Party nominees Reagan and Bush; and the exposure of illegal CIA activities.

Five months after the October Surprise and two months into his first term, Reagan gave CIA chief Casey the green light to begin clandestine activities to attempt to overthrow the Nicaraguan Sandinista government. For three years the Contras only killed innocent Nicaraguans and were incapable of seizing any villages. This frustration, coupled with the American public’s opposition to Reagan’s dirty war, influenced Congress to cut off aid to the Contras.

ARMS FOR HOSTAGES

“Since United States contact with Iran, there’s been no evidence

- President Ronald Reagan, November 13, 1986

In 1984, the CIA chief for the Middle East, William Buckley, was kidnaped by the Hezbollah which was operating out of Iran. Close sources to Reagan confirmed that he would do anything to obtain the release of Buckley. However, he was murdered several months later. This was followed by more abductions: Benjamin Weir, Father Jenco, Terry Waite, assistant to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and several professors from the American University in Beirut. The CIA and the National Security Council now moved to attempt to negotiate with Iran.

The NSC was composed of Vice President Bush, Secretary of State George Shultz, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, CIA director William Casey, Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, and National Security adviser Robert McFarlane. On June 7, 1985, the NSC was given permission to deal with Iran which could exert pressure on the Hezbollah to release the American and British hostages.

The secret funding of arms, which was sold to “moderate Iranians,” was orchestrated primarily by North. Then the profits from the sales were used to send more weapons to the Contras in Central America. North controlled the secret and illegal treasury which financed “the Enterprise.” This consisted of CIA agents turned arms merchants, dummy CIA corporations, and clandestine Swiss bank accounts. The Enterprise took in $48 million in cash. Some was pocketed by arms dealer Albert Hakim and by General Richard Secord. Some of the money was funneled into the Middle East to pay for North’s failures in attempting to liberate the American hostages in Beirut.

Soon after the NSC was given permission to communicate with the Iranian regime, six separate arms deals took place.

**August 1985. 96 TOW missiles but no hostages were released. A DC-8 flew from Israel to Iran and transferred $1,217,410 into the Swiss bank account of arms dealer Ghorbanifar.

**September 1985. 408 TOWs were sold to Iran. One American hostage, Benjamin Weir, was released a day later.

**November 1985. 18 Hawk missiles were shipped to Iran via a Portugal and Israel. North arranged for the transfer of one million dollars which was placed into the bank account of Lake Resources, a CIA operated front to launder money in Florida. 80 Hawks were to be delivered; however, 62 were never delivered. North and Secord testified later that the money received covered the payment for the aircraft. $150,000 was actually spent for transportation, and $850,000 was diverted to the Contras.

**February 1986. 1,000 TOWs were sent to Iran in increments of 1,000 each and at $10,000 per missile. $10 million was placed in the account of Lake Resources. $3.7 million was used to pay for the TOWs. Of that amount, $6.3 million was profit.

**May 1986. $16.5 million was paid to the United States for spare parts for Hawk missiles. $6.5 million was given to the government, and $10 million was deposited in the bank account of Lake Resources. Two months later on July 26 Father Lawrence Jenco was released, and the remaining Hawk parts were sent on to Iran.

**October 1986. 500 TOWs were sold to Iran, David Jacobsen was released. $3.6 million was given to the United States. $2 million was paid for the missiles, while $1.3 million became profit.

On November 25, 1986, after a Lebanese newspaper broke the story of arms-for-hostages, Attorney General Edwin Meese revealed that illegal funds had been diverted to the Contras. Reagan downplayed the weapons which were delivered to Iran. He stated that TOW missiles were “hand held” and that they all could be “transported in one cargo plane.” Reagan also asserted, “The TOW anti-tank missile is a purely defensive weapon. It is a shoulder-carried weapon. And we don’t think that in this defensive thing — we didn’t add to any offensive power on the part of Iran.” The TOW missile weighed 56.3 pounds and was four feet long. The complete system required a crew of four people. In addition, TOWs could be used offensively by Iran to attack Iraqi tanks.

It took several days before North’s White House office was sealed, so he and his secretary, Fawn Hall, were able to shred damaging papers in this time period.

Reagan attempted to convince the public that his administration was not dealing with Khomeini but with “moderate elements” within the country. Reagan sent both McFarlane and North on a goodwill trip to Teheran to meet with Khomeini and to present him with an autographed Bible and a cake in the shape of a Bible. The Khomeini government refused to allow them to meet with anyone, and they only waited on the Teheran tarmac for several hours before returning to the United States. Because McFarlane’s frustration level increased and because he continued to wrestle with the unethical American covert operations, he resigned as Reagan’s NSC adviser and was replaced by Navy Admiral John Poindexter.

The next year, a joint Congressional hearing was created to investigate Iran-Contra. The committee granted immunity to North, thus forcing him to testify. North bragged that the United States carried out an illegal covert operation to fund the Contras in Central America. Since the Boland Amendment prohibited the funding of the Contras in their effort to overthrow the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua, the NSC sought other avenues. The first was to convince Congress to allocate funds for “humanitarian aid.” However, this money was used illegally to arm the Contras and was terminated after several months. Therefore, the NSC had to look for other sources of funds.

North testified that he took it upon himself to carry out “Operation Democracy.” He boasted that the profits from the illegal arms sales to the Khomeini regime were placed in secret Swiss bank accounts and that dummy CIA fronts such as Lake Resources in Florida. These funds were used to purchase weapons with which to arm the Contras in Central America. This was carried out by North along with Hakim, Secord, and Singlaub.

North skimmed $50,000 from a secret cash account which was set up by the Contras. Secord helped arrange for weapons which were illegally obtained with profits from the sales to Iran and then shipped south to the Contras. Hakim was a military sales agent who worked as a middleman with Secord. Hakim was quoted after President Carter’s aborted hostage rescue in Iran in 1979: “He couldn’t have been happier when the Carter administration needed.” Air Force General John Singlaub, who was president of the World Anti-communist League, became involved in raising funds overseas for the Contras in 1981.

On the domestic front, North solicited donations from various wealthy people. Claiming that communism was entrenched in Nicaragua and that it would move northward, he was able to solicit $80,000 from Adolph Coors. An $80,000 Cessna spotter plane, to be used in flights over Nicaragua, was purchased. North called wealthy widows, promising them photo sessions with Reagan if they made large contributions. One wealthy woman contributed $200,000 and was rewarded with a five minute meeting with Reagan. Billionaire Ross Perot supplied $2.3 million to North in an attempt to liberate Beirut CIA station chief Buckley in Lebanon. The sultan of Brunei contributed $1 million, and King Fahd of Saudi Arabia turned over $32 million.

North also lost more than $400,000 chasing false leads. An Iranian convince North that he was a Saudi prince with superior intelligence connections and was paid $15,000. An Armenian informant claimed that he knew the secret location of the American hostages. North slipped him $100,000, and he immediately disappeared in Syria. Lebanese “informants” received over $100,000 from North. Another Lebanese claimed that he had contacted Buckley, but it later turned out that Buckley had long been dead when he and North communicated. North also arranged for another informant to receive $200,000 of Perot’s money and $11,000 from illegal Contra funds in exchange for information. This informant produced no information to North.

“Midshipmen will not lie, cheat, or steal.”

- First seven words of the United States Naval Academy’s Honor Code

“There is great deceit, deception practiced in the conduct of covert operations. They are at essence a lie. We make every effort to deceive the enemy as to our intent, our conduct, and to deny the association of the United States to those activities … and that is not wrong.”

- Oliver North

“In the United States Naval Academy, nobody taught me how to run a covert operation.”

- Oliver North

This illegal financing — to operate an illegal war in Nicaragua — allowed a clandestine arm of the government to run itself. North was not accountable to anyone or to any agency. This was a direct assault on the American constitutional system. The laws of the United States were ignored and broken by a continuous series of lies. Presumably North believed that he was waging a war against the Sandinistas and many members of Congress.

REAGAN AND BUSH’S INVOLVEMENT

BUSH SEEMS TO LOSE HIS MEMORY. Plans to fund the Contras originally emanated from the office of the vice president. In the summer of 1982 Bush and Casey launched the Black Eagle Operation, a plan to ship weapons to the Contras through San Antonio, Texas and then on to El Salvador and Panama. According to a CIA operative, Bush agreed to use his office as a cover after Donald Gregg became the NSC adviser and coordinated the logistics of the operation.

Bush always claimed that he was “out of the loop” in the Iran-Contra scandal as well as the CIA’s involvement in drug trafficking while he was vice president. Plans to fund the Contras originally emanated from the office of the vice president. In the summer of 1982 Bush and Casey launched the Black Eagle Operation, a plan to ship weapons to the Contras through San Antonio, Texas and then on to El Salvador and Panama. According to a CIA operative, Bush agreed to use his office as a cover after Donald Gregg became the NSC adviser and coordinated the logistics of the operation.

In December 1983, Bush flew to Panama to meet with Noriega. This encounter was interpreted by Noriega as an appeal in training and arming the Contras. Jose Blandon was the top political aide to Noriega. When subpoenaed before the Senate investigating committee in 1988, Blandon testified that Bush asked for and received a commitment from Noriega to help secretly arm, train, and finance the Contras. In North’s 1989 trial, more evidence surfaced about the Bush-Noriega Contra connection. A Costa Rican-based Contra leader testified that he received $100,000 from Noriega in July 1984. Bush continued to plead ignorance about Noriega’s drug dealing activities. Blandon confirmed that the CIA used Noriega to funnel guns and money to the Contras and that Panama was used as a training base.

After the Boland Amendment outlawed further shipments of weapons to the Contras, the “Supermarket” began to covertly fly in weapons which were purchased with private funds. Bush always pleaded innocence, maintaining that he was never aware that funds were solicited from private individuals to purchase weapons for the Contras. However, a large amount of evidence indicated that Bush knew the precise details of how the “Supermarket” raised money and bought arms.

NSC adviser Gregg served in Vietnam with Felix Rodriquez, and later both worked in American intelligence. Rodriquez was recruited by Gregg to help supply the Contras with weapons. On September 18, 1984, Gregg claimed that he sent a memo to Bush, explaining the military and political aspects of the war. Gregg said that he told the vice president that the “Supermarket” was providing the Contras with about $1.5 million from private sources.

Telephone records proved that Gregg made a number of telephone calls from his home to the White House on December 15. Bush’s office officially acknowledged that Gregg and Rodriquez discussed Contra aid. The statement said that Gregg communicated with Rodriquez, but that they were never involved in directing, coordinating, or approving military aid to the Contras. Bush insisted that these contacts concerned weapons to El Salvador and not to the Contras.

On February 25, 1985, Poindexter wrote to Bush: “We want the VP (Bush) to discuss the matters with (Honduras President Roberto) Suazo.” On March 16, Bush flew to Tegucigalpa and met with the president and promised him that the United States would increase military aid to Honduras in return for helping support the Contras. Suazo was close to telling the White House that he would soon evict the Contras from Honduras. Bush assured the president that he would be rewarded if he would permit Contra camps in his country and if he would help to supply them with weapons.

White House aid to Honduras began almost immediately after Bush’s visit. Yet Bush categorically denied that he cut a deal with Suazo. The vice president said, “No implication, no quid pro quo, direct or indirect, from me to the president of Honduras.”

As vice president, Bush was a member of the NSC. He attended at least six documented meetings between May and October of 1986 and a total of at least 24 meetings in the 1980s. The arms-for- hostages plan was undoubtedly the primary agenda item at these meetings. One of the first meetings to discuss the plan to sell arms to Iran in exchange for American hostages held by the Hezbollah was on August 6, 1985. Bush was present when National Security adviser McFarlane outlined a scheme to attempt to retrieve the hostages.

Weinberger contended that Bush supported the arms-for-hostages, while he and Secretary of State George Shultz opposed the idea. Weinberger stated: “President Reagan decided to go with Israeli-Iranian offer to release our 5 hostages in return for the sale of 4,000 TOWs (anti-tank missiles) to Iran by Israel.” Weinberger’s notes read: “George Shultz + 1 opposed - Bill Casey Ed Meese (Attorney General) + VP favored.” Weinberger’s notes told of a straightforward swap of weapons for hostages: “Our 5 hostages in return for sale of 4,000 TOWs.”

Bush conceded that he supported the sale of arms but did not realize that it concerned the release of American hostages. Bush consistently said that he was “out of the loop.” In addition, he stated that Israel was not a third party in sending some arms to Iran.

After Reagan authorized the sale of arms to Iran on January 6, 1986, Shultz and Weinberger expressed their opposition. Weinberger confirmed that Bush was present at a White House meeting on the following day. The two cabinet members later testified to the Tower Commission that they disagreed with both Reagan and Bush on the arm’ sales. A few weeks later John Poindexter, the successor to McFarlane as National Security adviser, sent a memo to North acknowledging the high level opposition to the arms-for-hostages: “President and V.P. are solid in taking the position that we have to try.”

More evidence implicated Bush with the illicit funding of the Contra war after the Boland Amendment terminated congressional dollars. Ramon Milian Rodriguez, who served as the chief financial officer of the Medellin cartel, stated that Bush had connections with the Colombia cartels. Rodriguez informed Gregg in April 1986 that North was skimming profits from the arms sales. This directly implied that Gregg was aware of the efforts of North to arm the Contras. Yet Gregg maintained that he never informed Bush about the operation. The next month, Colonel Samuel Watson, an assistant in the NSC, met with Bush and Gregg to discuss the status of the Contras. The vice president was briefed on the status of the war, including the resupply network for the Contras.

On July 29, 1986, Bush met with Amiram Nir, Israel’s adviser on terrorism, at Jerusalem’s King David Hotel. Bush’s aide, Craig Fuller, took notes that explained that Nir hoped to gain the release of the hostages. According to Fuller, they discussed whether the arms destined for Iran would be delivered in separate shipments for each hostage as they are released. Bush later said that he could not recall much about the briefing and that he did not fully understand what Nir was referring to when he was talking about Iranian radicals. Bush said that he merely listened to Nir and that he did not know any details of the arms-for-hostages swap.

At his deposition during the Iran-Contra hearings, Contra leader Pastora testified that Bush was in the Contra resupply chain of command. Furthermore, records showed that after CIA operant Eugene Hasenfus’ was shot down over Nicaragua in October 1986, his first telephone call was made to the vice president’s office.

Despite the overwhelming evidence indicating that Bush was at several meetings where there were conversations concerning the arms-hostages swap, Bush continued to say that he was unaware of what transpired Even after the media broke the story, the vice president continued to maintain that he had been oblivious to the fact that illegal funds were being diverted to the Contras. Bush claimed that he had been informed by the Senate Intelligence Committee until a month later. The vice president contended that the entire operation to resupply the Contras was carried out privately and that no one in the White House was privy to process.

At the end of the Reagan administration, the Sandinista government still survived. Two years after Bush was elected president, Nicaragua was readying itself for the another election. The Bush administration pumped in $9 million to the 1990 election campaign of Violetta Chamorro. This is the equivalent of an enemy country spending $2 billion on an American election. It took Chamorro and 14 other parties to form the UNO coalition, and they barely defeated Daniel Ortega’s Sandinista Party. This brought to a close the 11 year war which cost the lives of more than 30,000 Nicaraguans. Most of the war’s casualties were civilians, since the goal of the Contras was to break the morale of those people. The United States government spent $300 million on the Contras, and private contributions never were totally accounted for. And the United States was able to sustain $15 billion in damage to Nicaragua’s infrastructure.

THE CHRISTMAS EVE PARDONS. In late 1992 — with only a month remaining in Bush’s presidency — Iran-Contra once again resurfaced. Bill Clinton had just defeated him in November in his bid for a second term. Reagan’s secretary of defense, Caspar Weinberger, was soon to be indicted for his part in Iran-Contra. Bush only had two months remaining before he would leave office. And Walsh was in his fifth year of investigating the players involved in Iran-Contra. Bush himself was well aware that there was a chance that he, too, could be subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury and perhaps be indicted.

C. Gordon Gray Reagan’s White House counsel for eight years, also served as Bush’s personal lawyer in those same years when he was vice president. In December 1992, Gray recommended that Bush pardon Weinberger as well as other Iran-Contra figures. If Bush pardoned only Weinberger, Gray believed, that would make it suspicious that the president would be covering himself. After all, Weinberger’s diary was in the hands of the independent counsel, and it contained evidence which could have implicated Bush. Additionally, possible personal testimony could also damage Bush’s credibility, since he had vehemently denied any role in Iran-Contra. Gray believed that all the high level Iran-Contra players should be pardoned. He believed that this would shield Bush from the charge that he was attempting to bring Iran-Contra to a swift conclusion so that he himself could never be implicated. The president had been convinced to go ahead and pardon Weinberger and other Iran-Contra figures who earlier had been convicted.

Gray contacted six high level officials who had been convicted of Iran-Contra crimes in order to see if they would accept a presidential pardon. Two CIA officials as well as former NSC adviser Robert McFarlane and former Assistant Secretary of State Elliot Abrams agreed to a pardon. Gray helped Bush write a three page memo explaining the purpose of the pardons. Bush said that “the five have already paid the price — in depleted savings, lost careers, anguished families — grossly disproportionate to any misdeeds or errors of judgment they may have committed.”

On Christmas Eve, December 24, Bush issued the pardons. The president stated that Weinberger had been pardoned “not just out of passion or to spare the 75 year old patriot the torment of a lengthy and costly legal proceeding, but to make it possible for him to receive the honor he deserves.”

Bush then hired Griffin Bell’s law firm of King & Spaulding to investigate himself. After only three weeks, King & Spaulding issued its findings: Bush was not implicated in any wrong-doings in Iran- Contra. King & Spaulding did in three weeks what Walsh had begun seven years before. Even though Walsh was not finished with his probe, the Christmas Eve pardons brought the Iran-Contra investigation to a conclusion. Walsh was angry.

REAGAN’S MEMORY ALSO FAILS. Reagan attended four NSC meetings, but he also contended that he knew nothing of illegal arms shipments to Iran and illegal weapons sales to the Contras. In November 1986, a Beirut newspaper broke a story which explained that American arms sales to Iran.

A month earlier on October 8, 1986 Reagan was asked at a news conference: “Was there any United States involvement in this fight over Nicaragua — carrying the arms — any involvement whatsoever?” Reagan replied: “I’m glad you asked. Absolutely not. While they (three Americans, including Eugene Hasenfus) there is no government connection with that at all.” Then after the Reagan administration acknowledged that the United States was selling weapons to Iran, Reagan stated on November 19, 1986: “To eliminate the widespread but mistaken perception that we have been exchanging arms for hostages, I have directed that no further sale of arms of any kind be sent to Iran.” Reagan was then asked, “Didn’t the United States condone shipments of arms to Israel and other nations?” Reagan denied this charge by saying, “We did not condone and do not condone the shipment of arms.” Then Reagan was asked, “Could you explain what the Israeli role was here?” Reagan’s response was, “No, because, as I say, have had nothing to do with other countries or their shipment of arms.”

On December 8, 1986, Reagan stated, “Let me just say it was not my intent to do business with Khomeini to trade weapons for hostages, nor to undercut our policy of anti-terrorism.” On March 26, 1987 Reagan stated: “With regard to whether private individuals were giving money to support the Contras, yes, I was aware that there were people doing that. But there was nothing to my knowledge, of anyone whom I was aware of.” Two days later Reagan said, “As a matter of fact, I was definitely involved in the decisions about (private) support to the freedom fighters. It was my idea to begin with.”

Reagan told the Tower Commission that he “approved the shipment of arms by Israel to Iran” but later said that he was “surprised that Israelis had shipped arms to Iran.” Then he said that he had incorrectly remembered both instances.

In his 1990 autobiography, Reagan wrote: “To this day I still believe that the Iran initiative was not an effort to swap arms for hostages. But I knew that it may not look that way to some people. Unfortunately, an initiative meant to develop a relationship with moderate Iranians and get our hostages home took on a new shape I never expected and was never told about.”

“Mistakes were made and I tried to rectify them, first by appointing the Tower board to investigate,

then by reorganizing the National Security Council so that no one there could ever again take it upon himself to set foreign policy. In time, my ranking in the opinion polls rose. However, that never made me feel happy as some might think; it was as if Americans were forgiving me for something I hadn’t done.”

“If I could do it over again, I would bring both of them into the Oval Office and say, ‘OK, John (Poindexter) and Ollie (North), level with me. Tell me what really happened and what it is that you have been hiding from me. Tell me everything.’ If I had done that, at least I wouldn’t be sitting here writing this book still ignorant of some of the things that went on during the Iran-Contra affair.”

In November 1986, Reagan explained the TOW missile sales: “The modest deliveries could easily be put into a single cargo plane.” He also stated that the TOW missiles could be hand-held. Additionally, Reagan denied that Israel was used as a third country to help deliver arms to Iran. John Tower was appointed by Reagan to head a commission to investigate Iran-Contra. In less than a year the Tower Commission exonerated Reagan of any wrong-doing. In 1989 newly elected President Bush appointed Tower to be his Secretary of Defense. Knowing that the Senate would not confirm his appointment because of allegations of womanizing and alcoholism, Tower withdrew his name, since it was impossible for him to receive a majority vote in the Senate.

Reagan ignored the warnings that he was waging an illegal and inhumane war. Instead he decided to put his men to work, cutting deals with right wing dictators in order to finance the Contras in exchange for drugs.

IRAN-CONTRA INDICTMENTS

It is not a crime to deceive the American public as high officials in the Reagan Administration for two years while conducting the Iran and Contra operations. However, it is a crime to mislead, deceive, and lie to Congress when Congress seeks to learn whether administration officials are conducting the nation’s business in accordance with the law. Lawrence Walsh was hired as a special prosecutor to determine precisely if this had occurred. He subsequently found several upper-level Iran-Contra participants in violation of the law.

Several American laws were defied:

• The National Security Act. Select committees in both houses must be informed of all intelligence gathering by the CIA.

• The Hughes-Ryan Amendment (1974). The CIA may only use funds which are intended for obtaining necessary intelligence. The CIA must brief at least eight separate Congressional committees in regard to any covert action other than simple intelligence gathering.

• The Boland Amendment (1984). The United States cannot use funds to support any military operations in Nicaragua unless appropriated by Congress.

• The Neutrality Act (1794). It is illegal to initiate, organize, and/or provide money for military action against any foreign country which the United States is not officially at peace with. The United States had officially severed diplomatic relations with Iran which had been officially branded a terrorist nation.

• February 26, 1987: The Tower Commission issued its report on Iran-Contra, reprinting hundreds of notes exchanged by McFarlane, Poindexter and North.

• January 19, 1989: On the last day of the Reagan presidency, the National Security Archive filed a series of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests together with a lawsuit against President Reagan, to prevent the imminent erasure of the White House electronic mail backup tapes. On the eve of Bush’s inauguration, District Judge Barrington D. Parker issued a Temporary Restraining Order, prohibiting the destruction of the backup tapes to the PROFs system.

• September 15, 1989: United States District Judge Charles B. Richey ruled that the National Security Archive and its co-plaintiffs, including the American Historical Association (AHA) and the American Library Association (ALA), have standing to sue President Bush, in order to force him to comply with the retention requirements of various records acts which potentially cover the White House e-mail.

• January 25, 1991: After one and one-half years of legal procedural wrangling, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld Judge Richey’s ruling, denying the Bush administration’s attempts to have the case dismissed.

• December 1, 1998–November 20, 1992: On request from the plaintiffs, Judge Richey added the White House e-mail from the lame duck Bush administration to the case, issuing a restraining order preventing the Bush White House from destroying its own backup computer records.

• January 6, 1993: Judge Richey ruled that computer tapes containing copies of e-mail messages by Reagan and Bush White House staff must be preserved like other government records because the December 1, 1998 electronic versions were not simply duplicates of paper printouts, but contain additional information beyond the paper copies.
  • January 11 and 14, 1993: Judge Richey issued specific court orders requiring that the Bush White House preserve its computer records. In press interviews, Judge Richey stated that despite his orders, he believed that the Bush administration was planning to destroy its e-mail files.
  • January 15, 1993: In an expedited emergency ruling, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld and modified the rulings by Judge Richey, holding that government officials could erase White House and NSC computer files, as long as they preserved, on backup tapes, identical copies of what was being erased.
  • January 19, 1993: President Bush signed a secret agreement with Don Wilson, head of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), purporting to grant Bush exclusive legal control over the e-mail tapes of his administration. A staff team from NARA took custody of thousands of tapes and disk drives, hurriedly removing them from White House offices to prevent incoming Clinton appointees from gaining access to them.
  • February 16, 1993: NARA career staff, who managed the transfer, described in an internal memo how the so-called “midnight ride” had violated NARA’s own rules for records transfers and how several sets of tapes ordered preserved by Judge Richey had been lost, erased or damaged.
  • May 22, 1993: Judge Richey cited the Clinton White House and the acting Archivist of the United States for contempt of court for failing to carry out his order to issue new and appropriate guidelines for the preservation of the computer records of the Reagan, Bush and Clinton White House staff.
  • August 13, 1993: The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit vacated Judge Richey’s contempt orders but upheld his overall decision that the Federal Records Act (FRA), requiring that complete electronic copies of e-mail messages be preserved by the White House, and by extension, government agencies in general. The appeals court remanded the case to Judge Richey to decide the issue of the dividing line between “agency” records covered by the FRA and presidential records covered by the Presidential Records Act.
  • March 25, 1994: In a brief filed in federal court, the Clinton administration declared that the National Security Council was not an agency, and should be accorded the protection from public scrutiny given to the President’s personal advisers. This argument attempted to remove the Clinton administration’s White House e-mail from the reach of FOIA requests and the FRA, arguing that all its documents were subjected only to the Presidential Records Act (PRA) and therefore not to court oversight.
  • December 13, 1994: The e-mail plaintiffs filed suit against the Acting Archivist of the United

  States to void the Bush-Wilson agreement, in American Historical Association et al v. Peterson.

  • February 15, 1995: Judge Richey rejected the Clinton administration’s arguments about the NSC’s status as “arbitrary and capricious… contrary to history, past practice and the law,” and declared that the National Security Council is an agency. The government subsequently appealed the decision, and the plaintiffs cross-appeal against a portion of Richey’s ruling that opened a loophole for senior NSC staff giving advice to the President.
  • February 27, 1995: In a separate opinion in the lawsuit over the Bush-Wilson agreement, Judge Richey declared the agreement “null and void,” writing that “No one, not even a President, is above the law.”
  • September 8, 1995: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit heard oral arguments in the case on the issue of Judge Richey’s decision and the agency versus Presidential status of the NS
• I’m here all week- S.S.

Here’s another fine example of American militarism at work and causing tension in the world. I believe in strong defense as much as anyone… but at a certain point defense becomes offense. There is a difference in military and militarism. This is a distinction that anyone wearing the name Christian should be well aware of.

Putin warns against U.S. missile “defense”

Russian president takes firm tone with visiting Rice, Gates during key talks

	Russian President Vladimir Putin, background right, and aides confer with U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, foreground right, and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on missile defense outside Moscow on Friday. View related photos
Dmitry Astakhov / Kremlin pool via EPA

Updated: 3:29 a.m. CT Oct 12, 2007

MOSCOW - In a tense start to talks on a range of thorny issues, President Vladimir Putin on Friday warned U.S. officials to back off a plan to install missile defenses in eastern Europe or risk harming relations with Moscow.

Addressing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the Russian president appeared to mock the U.S. missile defense plan, which is at the center of a tangle of arms control and diplomatic disputes between the former Cold War adversaries.

“Of course we can sometime in the future decide that some anti-missile defense system should be established somewhere on the moon,” Putin said, according to an English translation. “But before we reach such arrangements we will lose the opportunity for fixing some particular arrangements between us.”

Putin said Russia may feel obliged to abandon its obligations under a 1987 missile treaty with the United States if it is not expanded to constrain other missile-armed countries.

The pact eliminated the deployment of Soviet and American ballistic missiles of intermediate range and was a landmark step in arms control just two years before the fall of the Berlin Wall and later the breakup of the Soviet Union.

“We need to convince other (countries) to assume the same level of obligation as assumed by the Russian Federation and the United States,” Putin said. “If we are unable to obtain such a goal … it will be difficult for us to keep within the framework of the treaty in a situation where other countries do develop such weapon systems, and among those are countries located in our near vicinity.”

Putin pulls no punches
Rice and Gates appeared to reporters in the room to be taken aback at the firm tone of Putin’ remarks.

Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met Putin at his dacha, or residence, outside of Moscow to begin a series of high-level meetings on a range of touchy topics headed by Russia’s opposition to an American plan for a missile defense system in Europe.

On Thursday, Rice said plans to expand the U.S. missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic will proceed, but she wants to seek Russian suggestions for cooperation to address Moscow’s opposition to the program.

Shortly before the talks with Putin began, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov strolled into the dacha’s billiards room, where American reporters had gathered, for a cigarette break. He was asked whether he expected any breakthroughs in the talks.

“Breaks, definitely. Through or down, I don’t know,” he said.

The Pentagon plans to install 10 missile interceptors in Poland, linked to a missile tracking radar in the Czech Republic. The Pentagon says the system will provide some protection in Europe and beyond for long-range missiles launched from Iran, but Russia believes the system is a step toward undermining the deterrent value of its nuclear arsenal.

Rice said the United States would go ahead with the program as planned.

“We’ve been very clear that we need the Czech and Polish sites,” she said Thursday, although there’s “considerable interest” in Russian ideas for cooperation such as sharing a Soviet-era tracking station in Azerbaijan.

“We’re going to keep exploring ideas, we want to explore ideas,” she said. “We are interested in other potential sites as well and we may be able to find ways to put that together.”

Beyond the discussion with Putin, Gates and Rice also were to meet with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov. Rice and Gates also scheduled a dinner with First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, whose portfolio includes national security issues and who until recently held the defense minister’s job.

On Gates’ last trip to Moscow, in April, he explained a U.S. proposal for U.S.-Russian cooperation on missile defense, including information sharing and some joint experiments. So far the Russians have not responded, a defense official traveling with Gates told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

Rice acknowledged Thursday that she would welcome a face-to-face discussion with Putin about his future political plans, including his interest in becoming prime minister.

I was watching one of these YouTube clips just the other day. In the clip they started talking about the run up to the invasion of Iraq by the world’s only “sanctioned and ordained superpower(s)”. In the clip a concept was introduced that I wrote down in my notes because it had the ring of wisdom to it. The concept was the term “incestuous amplification”. I decided to see what else I could find about this term which apparently originated within the Department of Defense. Here are some of the definitions I found:

This one is from Phrase Finder

“Incestuous amplification” = “A condition in warfare where one only listens to those who are already in lock-step agreement, reinforcing set beliefs and creating a situation ripe for miscalculation”

(David Mulholland, “Scepticism mounts among defence and intelligence officials”, Jane’s Defence Weekly, 03/05/03)

More:

Incestuous Amplification
From Sourcewatch, a project of the Center for Media and Democracy

” … a conclusion that comes from other generals talking to each other. In the Pentagon we call this kind of positive reinforcement an “incestuous amplification” of one’s OODA Loop.

The existence of Incestuous Amplification shapes one’s Orientation by naturally distorting the Observations feeding that Orientation. (The observer sees what he wants to see rather than what is.) When this happens, the Decisions and Actions flowing from that Orientation become progressively disconnected from reality. This process pumps dysfunctional behavior into the OODA loop which then becomes magnified as the effects of the disconnected actions are fed back into the Incestuously Amplified Orientation. As any student of nonlinear dynamics or evolution knows, this kind of positive feedback loop can produce confusion and disorder and ultimately degenerate into chaos or extinction, if the organism becomes disconnected from its environment. Any hint of Incestuous Amplification is therefore a bright red flag.”
– The View From Mount Olympus Seen from the Cheap Seats, 12 June 2001 [1]

Refer also to the Groupthink article.

Groupthink is another related term. The SOURCE for the definitions of groupthink below also offers several examples of the groupthink principle at work.

Groupthink is “a concept that was identified by Irving Janis (”a forefather in the study of group dynamics”) [in 1972] that refers to faulty decision-making in a group. Groups experiencing groupthink do not consider all alternatives and they desire unanimity at the expense of quality decisions.”[1][2]

Groupthink is also defined as a “phenomenon wherein people seek unanimous agreement in spite of contrary facts pointing to another conclusion.”[3]

It is said that groupthink “occurs when groups are highly cohesive and when they are under considerable pressure to make a quality decision.” Some possible “negative outcomes” of groupthink include:[4]

* Examining few alternatives
* Not being critical of each other’s ideas
* Not examining early alternatives
* Not seeking expert opinion
* Being highly selective in gathering information
* Not having contingency plans

Some “symptoms” or “warning signs” of groupthink are:[5][6]

* Having an illusion of invulnerability
* Rationalizing poor decisions
* Believing in the group’s morality
* Sharing stereotypes which guide the decision
* Exercising direct pressure on others
* Not expressing your true feelings
* Maintaining an illusion of unanimity
* Using mindguards to protect the group from negative information

In a 1972 book, Victims of Groupthink: A Psychology Study of Foreign-Policy Decisions and Fiascoes, Irving Janis identified the Vietnam War and the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba as particularly compelling examples of how very smart people can collectively make very stupid decisions, noting that groups around the Presidents “made a series of assumptions … that were fundamentally deluded.” [7]

The term, coined in the model of newspeak, is used to describe the process where a group will come to a decision by each member agreeing with what they think the consensus will be, whatever private doubts they might have.

Another description, as it applies to education and group projects, is that “Groupthink is a process of gradualism that seeks to gently merge the followers into a pack with leaders, the hope being that the leaders will pull up those who typically reside on the low end of the motivation and achievement scale.”[8]

So, then my personal understanding and definition of “incestuous amplification” would be;
“when a group of persons begin to believe that the things they want or assume to be true are in fact true and beyond reasonable questioning.”

I personally think that it is the imperative that any freethinking, patriotic, responsible, moral, spiritual person should know, recognize,comprehend and guard against the onset of these concepts, incestuous amplification and groupthink. That would include Christians.

Excerpt:
On March 24, 1980 Oscar Romero was in church finishing up his homily when Oscar was shot. Some of his nuns ran up to the altar, but many stayed down in the church too shocked to even move. It was said that he was “gasping for breath and choking on his own blood” . One of the last things Oscar said was this prayer; “God’s reign is already present on our earth in mystery. When the Lord comes, it will be brought to perfection. That is the hope that inspires Christians. We know that every effort to better society, especially when injustice and sin are so ingrained, is an effort that God blesses, that God wants, that God demands of us.”

SOURCE:
http://www.ccds.charlotte.nc.us/History/Americas/04/ball/ball.htm

I have written before some things about the war in El Salvador, the war against Christian liberation theology and the U.S. “covert” participation in it during the 1980s. The last article I posted on this topic was a bit touchy because it bespoke of John Paul’s participation. This article is an excellent one about Father Romero. He is one of my heroes. Ironically he has been canonized. This month will mark the 27th anniversary since his murder. I truly admire a man like Romero who will die, unafraid, for his beliefs. Oscar Romero has my highest respect. Those that killed him and those who armed and backed the killers have none.

See more: http://geotheology.blogspot.com/2006/12/flashback-war-against-christian.html

Hear About Reagan and the Death Squads HERE

To make use of the Gates metaphor;
Matt. 7:13
Enter in through the narrow gate, for wide the gate and broad the way that leads to destruction, and many are they who enter in through it.

Is Congress Gates’ Keeper?
Robert Gates, Bush’s choice for defense secretary, has faced accusations and senate committees before
By Robert Parry

George W. Bush (L) escorts Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld from the Oval office after announcing his replacement, former CIA Director Robert Gates (R).

Robert Gates, George W. Bush’s choice to replace Donald Rumsfeld as Defense Secretary, is a trusted figure within the Bush family’s inner circle. But there are lingering questions about whether Gates is a trustworthy public official.

The 63-year-old Gates has long faced accusations of collaborating with Islamic extremists in Iran, arming Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship in Iraq, and politicizing U.S. intelligence to conform with the desires of policymakers—three key areas that relate to his future job.

The Bush administration is seeking to slip Gates through the congressional approval process by pressing for a confirmation before the new Democratic-controlled Senate is seated. In 1991, Gates got a similar pass when leading Democrats agreed to put “bipartisanship” ahead of oversight when President George H.W. Bush nominated him for the job of CIA director. At the time, the career intelligence officer brushed aside accusations that he played secret roles in arming both sides of the Iran-Iraq War. Since then, however, documents have surfaced that raise new questions about Gates’ denials.

For instance, the Russian government sent an intelligence report to a House investigative task force in early 1993 stating that Gates participated in secret contacts with Iranian officials in 1980 to delay release of 52 U.S. hostages then held in Iran, a move to benefit the presidential campaign of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

“R[obert] Gates, at that time a staffer of the National Security Council in the administration of Jimmy Carter, and former CIA Director George Bush also took part” in a meeting in Paris in October 1980, according to the Russian report, which meshed with information from witnesses.

Once in office, the Reagan administration did permit weapons to flow to Iran via Israel. The arms flow continued, on and off, until 1986, when the Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal broke.

Gates also was implicated in a secret operation to funnel military assistance to Iraq in the ’80s, as the Reagan administration played off the two countries battling each other in the eight-year-long Iran-Iraq War.

Middle Eastern witnesses alleged that Gates worked on the secret Iraqi initiative, which included Saddam Hussein’s procurement of cluster bombs and chemicals used to produce chemical weapons for the war against Iran.

Gates denied those Iran-Iraq accusations in 1991 and the Senate Intelligence Committee—then headed by Gates’ personal friend, Sen. David Boren, (D-Okla.)—failed to check out the claims before recommending Gates for confirmation.

However, in early January 1995, Howard Teicher, one of Reagan’s National Security Council officials, revealed more details about Gates’ alleged role in the Iraq shipments. In a sworn affidavit submitted in a Florida criminal case, Teicher stated that the covert arming of Iraq dated back to the spring of 1982. Iran had gained the upper hand in the war, leading President Reagan to authorize a U.S. tilt toward Saddam Hussein.

The effort to arm the Iraqis was “spearheaded” by CIA Director William Casey and involved his then-deputy, Robert Gates, according to Teicher’s affidavit. “The CIA, including both CIA Director Casey and Deputy Director Gates, knew of, approved of, and assisted in the sale of non-U.S. origin military weapons, ammunition and vehicles to Iraq,” Teicher wrote.

Ironically, that same pro-Iraq initiative involved Donald Rumsfeld, then Reagan’s special emissary to the Middle East. An infamous photograph from 1983 shows a smiling Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam Hussein.

Teicher described Gates’ role as far more substantive than Rumsfeld’s. “Under CIA Director [William] Casey and Deputy Director Gates, the CIA authorized, approved and assisted [Chilean arms dealer Carlos] Cardoen in the manufacture and sale of cluster bombs and other munitions to Iraq,” Teicher wrote.

Beyond the secret schemes to aid Iran and Iraq in the ’80s, Gates also stands accused of playing a central role in politicizing the CIA intelligence product, tailoring it to fit the interests of his political superiors, a legacy that some Gates critics say contributed to the botched CIA analysis of Iraqi WMD in 2002.

Before Gates’ rapid rise through the CIA’s ranks in the ’80s, the CIA’s tradition was to zealously protect the objectivity and scholarship of the intelligence gathered by the agency. However, during the Reagan administration, that ethos collapsed.

At Gates’ confirmation hearings in 1991, former CIA analysts, including renowned Kremlinologist Mel Goodman, took the extraordinary step of coming out of the shadows to accuse Gates of politicizing the intelligence while he was chief of the analytical division and then deputy director.

The former intelligence officers said the ambitious Gates pressured the CIA’s analytical division to exaggerate the Soviet menace to fit the ideological perspective of the Reagan administration. Analysts who took a more nuanced view of Soviet power and Moscow’s behavior in the world faced pressure and career reprisals.

In 1981, Carolyn McGiffert Ekedahl of the CIA’s Soviet office was the unfortunate analyst who was handed the assignment to prepare an analysis of the Soviet Union’s alleged support and direction of international terrorism. Contrary to the desired White House take on Soviet-backed terrorism, Ekedahl said the consensus of the intelligence community was that the Soviets discouraged acts of terrorism by groups getting support from Moscow for practical, not moral, reasons.

“We agreed that the Soviets consistently stated, publicly and privately, that they considered international terrorist activities counterproductive,” Ekedahl said. “We had hard evidence to support this conclusion.”But Gates took the analysts to task, accusing them of trying to “stick our finger in the policymaker’s eye,” Ekedahl testified.

Ekedahl said Gates, dissatisfied with the terrorism assessment, joined in rewriting the draft “to suggest greater Soviet support for terrorism and the text was altered by pulling up from the annex reports that overstated Soviet involvement.”

In his memoirs, From the Shadows, Gates denied politicizing the CIA’s intelligence product, though acknowledged that he was aware of Casey’s hostile reaction to the analysts’ disagreement with right-wing theories about Soviet-directed terrorism.

Soon, the hammer fell on the analysts who had prepared the Soviet-terrorism report. Ekedahl said many analysts were “replaced by people new to the subject who insisted on language emphasizing Soviet control of international terrorist activities.”

A donnybrook ensued inside the U.S. intelligence community. Some senior officials responsible for analysis pushed back against Casey’s dictates, warning that acts of politicization would undermine the integrity of the process and risk policy disasters in the future.

As the Bush Family grapples with the disaster in Iraq, it is turning to an even more trusted hand to run the Defense Department. The appointment of Robert Gates suggests that the Bush Family is circling the wagons to save the embattled presidency of George W. Bush.

Determining whether Gates can be counted on to do what’s in the interest of the larger American public is another question altogether.

SOURCE

comments:

To me, one of the most disconcerting allegations to date concerning Mr. Gates resume’ is this item quoted from the article above:

“For instance, the Russian government sent an intelligence report to a House investigative task force in early 1993 stating that Gates participated in secret contacts with Iranian officials in 1980 to delay release of 52 U.S. hostages then held in Iran, a move to benefit the presidential campaign of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. “R[obert] Gates, at that time a staffer of the National Security Council in the administration of Jimmy Carter, and former CIA Director George Bush also took part” in a meeting in Paris in October 1980, according to the Russian report, which meshed with information from witnesses.”

Needless to say- the whole twist concerning the release of those hostages has become part of the neo-con mythos. The whole thing went down in the days I was in Jr. high and High school. The word on the street was that the Iranians were so intimidated by the tough, no more foolin’ around Ronald Reagan- that they freed the hostages as soon as Reagan assumed office. Now, I will not sit here and tell you that I am a Carter apologist, a Democrat or a liberal (worthless labels) because I am none of those. However I will state that I always thought it was unfair that Carter was so reviled and Reagan got all the credit for this turn of events. In the last year I heard Carter commenting on this. He said that he had two goals on the issue when it was occurring. One was to get those hostages home alive and the other was to avoid a war. He said that he was very proud to have accomplished those goals- no matter what people thought of him or the way he handled the situation. He alleged that the leadership in Iran basically withheld the hostages until his watch was over to spite him and that the Iranian leadership had made an “arrangement” with neo-con elements in the U.S. intelligence community. Think what you will, or what you have been told to think about Jimmy Carter and this scenario- but the calculus on this does appear to add up. It goes without saying that the so-called conservative elements have parlayed the caricatures surrounding the resolution of the Iranian hostage crisis into a powerful mythology that not only kept the Republican “conservatives” in power for the last 30 years- but set into motion a series of events and stratagems that have helped build the crises we now face in the Middle East to a possibly catastrophic crescendo. If this allegation about the withholding of the release of those hostages for political posturing and propaganda purposes- what other response would be appropriate here than righteous anger and disillusionment? Even with the “its in God’s hands” attitude in place one has to marvel at the audacity and folly of these worldly elements we call “world leaders”.

Once again, my message is not to hate Republicans or Conservatives, Democrats or Liberals (all worldly and useless labels). It is simply to think and act with discernment and attempt to see through the propaganda smoke screen we have been enfolded by from worldly elements in every band of the political spectrum. The truth may not be pleasant- but it will set you free I am told.

Roots of Iraq Civil War May Be in ‘Salvador Option’

In January 2005, Newsweek reported that the Bush Administration was considering using the “Salvador option” against insurgents in Iraq:

The Pentagon is intensively debating an option that dates back to a still-secret strategy in the Reagan administration’s battle against the leftist guerrilla insurgency in El Salvador in the early 1980s. Then, faced with a losing war against Salvadoran rebels, the U.S. government funded or supported “nationalist” forces that allegedly included so-called death squads directed to hunt down and kill rebel leaders and sympathizers.

It should come as no surprise, then, that sectarian death squads tied directly to the Iraqi Interior Ministry are running rampant in Iraq. Today we learned that the head of the Baghdad morgue has fled the country in fear for his life after reporting that the units have killed more than 7,000 people since last summer. The death squads operate so openly that an American military official in Iraq said, “the amazing thing about this is…they tell you exactly what they are going to do.”

In a desperate bid to rescue a failed policy in Iraq, the Bush administration may have given the green light to a strategy that ends any hope of national reconciliation and finally tears Iraq apart along sectarian and ethnic lines.

– Ken Gude

And now here is a presentation separated into 5 parts about the death squads operating in Iraq:

Click the small arrow in the corner to stay on this page while watching.

pt. 2

pt.3

pt.4

pt. 5

Do the math.

I just had another thought; can this line of thinking possibly explain the missing billions of dollars that there were hearings about in Washington D.C. just the other day?
The SALVADOR OPTION?

Here’s the fair and balanced FOX take on it.

The Iran-Contra Scandal, 1991 Confirmation Hearings, and Excerpts from new book Safe for Democracy- the Secret Wars of the CIA

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 208

“Ye shall know the TRUTH and the TRUTH shall make you FREE” - John 8:32

Photos of deathsquad victims- 1980 El Salvador

LINK

So, is this whats going on????

Is this surge of violence in Iraq the doing of U.S. spooks and puppeteers!?

It sounds plausible. There are surely enough of the old guard neocons from the Reagan days kicking around in the presiding administration to warrant a the question as serious and legitimate consideration. The fact that blokes running around in Iraqi police gear killing lends further creedence. I don’t have enough info to make a judgement on this…but my gut says that there is something to it that has the ring of truth.

If this were true- would the Father, Son and Holy Ghost approve?

WIKIPEDIA ENTRY

It’ll be interesting to see what happens next. I am willing to give the man a chance but…He is out of the same crop as the last guy. I got of the boat with the neo-cons and the Republicans back during Iran-Contra scandal and the ill advised things the U.S. did during the Iran-Iraq war…like give chem weapons to Saddam (even after he gassed the Kurds) and train and arm the Mujahadeen who would of course turn on us and become the impetus for today’s war on terror. Gates was involved in all of it. That’s why he’s up for the job now. That’s quite a resume’.

video link:
http://play.rbn.com/?url=demnow/demnow/demand/2006/nov/video/dnB20061109a.rm&proto=rtsp&start=15:04

See this link for a rundown on Gates’ ties to Iran Contra:

http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_16.htm

More gates files:

http://www.motherjones.com/washington_dispatch/2006/11/Gates%20Files.html

Examine this link to review the sordid history of Contra atrocities.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contras#Contra_Atrocities

click the arrow for audio about this from Democracy Now!.

Published: September 4, 2006
Peter W. Galbraith, a former U.S. ambassador to Croatia, is author of “The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War Without End.”

WASHINGTON In his most recent justification of his Pentagon stewardship, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld reached back to the 1930s, comparing the Bush administration’s critics to those who, like Joseph Kennedy, the U.S. ambassador to Britain, favored appeasing Adolf Hitler. Rumsfeld avoided a more recent comparison: the appeasement of Saddam Hussein by the Reagan and first Bush administrations.

The reasons for selectivity are obvious. So many of Saddam’s appeasers in the 1980s were principals in the 2003 Iraq war, including Rumsfeld (and now Robert Gates).

In 1983, President Ronald Reagan initiated a strategic opening to Iraq, which was then in the third year of a war of attrition with neighboring Iran. Although Iraq had started the war with a blitzkrieg attack in 1980, the tide had turned by 1982 in favor of Iran, and the Reagan administration was afraid Iraq might actually lose.

Rumsfeld, whom Reagan had chosen as his emissary, visited Saddam in December 1983 and March 1984. Inconveniently, Iraq had begun to use chemical weapons against Iran in November 1983, the first sustained use of poison gas since a 1925 treaty banning that.

Rumsfeld never mentioned this blatant violation of international law to Saddam, instead focusing on shared hostility toward Iran and an oil pipeline through Jordan. Rumsfeld apparently did mention it to Tariq Aziz, Iraq’s foreign minister, but by not raising the issue with the paramount leader he signaled that good relations were more important to the United States than the use of poison gas.

This message was reinforced by U.S. conduct after the Rumsfeld missions. The Reagan administration offered Saddam financial credits that eventually made Iraq the third-largest recipient of U.S. assistance. It normalized diplomatic relations and, most significantly, began providing Iraq with battlefield intelligence. Iraq used this information to target Iranian troops with chemical weapons. And when Iraq turned its chemical weapons on the Kurds in 1988, killing 5,000 in the town of Halabja, the Reagan administration sought to obscure responsibility by falsely suggesting Iran was also responsible.

On Aug. 25, 1988 - five days after the Iran-Iraq War ended - Iraq attacked 48 Kurdish villages more than 150 kilometers from Iran. Within days, the U.S. Senate passed legislation, sponsored by Claiborne Pell, Democrat of Rhode Island, to end U.S. financial support for Saddam and to impose trade sanctions.

To enhance the prospects that Reagan would sign his legislation, Pell sent me to eastern Turkey to interview Kurdish survivors who had fled across the border. As it turned out, the Reagan administration agreed that Iraq had gassed the Kurds, but strongly opposed sanctions, or even cutting off financial assistance. Colin Powell, then the national security adviser, coordinated the Reagan administration’s opposition. The Pell bill died at the end of the congressional session in 1988.

The next year, President George H.W. Bush’s administration actually doubled U.S. financial credits for Iraq. A week before Saddam invaded Kuwait, the administration vociferously opposed legislation that would have conditioned U.S. assistance to Iraq on a commitment not to use chemical weapons and to stop the genocide against the Kurds.

At the time, Dick Cheney, now vice president, was secretary of defense and a statutory member of the National Security Council that reviewed Iraq policy. By all accounts, he supported the administration’s appeasement policy.

In 2003, Cheney, Powell, and Rumsfeld all cited Saddam’s use of chemical weapons 15 years before as a rationale for war. But at the time Saddam was actually gassing his own people, they considered his use of chemical weapons a second-tier issue.

The Reagan and first Bush administrations believed that Saddam could be a strategic partner to the United States, a counterweight to Iran, a force for moderation in the region, and possibly help in the Arab-Israel peace process. That was, of course, an illusion. A ruthless dictator who mounted an attack on his neighbor, Iran, who used chemical weapons, and who committed genocide against his own Kurds was never likely to be a reliable American ally.

Saddam, having watched the United States gloss over his crimes in the Iran war and at home, concluded he could get away with invading Kuwait. It was a costly error for him, for his country, and eventually for the United States, which now has the largest part of its military bogged down in the Iraqi quagmire.

Meanwhile the architects of the earlier appeasement policy now maintain the illusion that they have a path to victory, if only their critics would shut up.

Peter W. Galbraith, a former U.S. ambassador to Croatia, is author of “The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War Without End.”