Paying the Price Of Iran Contra-IF ONLY WE HAD DONE THE RIGHT THING BACK THEN...

[kpete]

It's about what I've called the Iran-Contrafication of nearly all of today's scandals. That is, the fear that:

This will all end up on the scrap heap of history, alongside Iran-Contra, as one of those nasty imbroglios about which the bulk of the American people retain darkish, vague memories, but no real resentment, because after all, nobody really did anything wrong or they'd be in jail. Nevermind that they were all pardoned by the president who oversaw and orchestrated their subversive activities.

I don't know if it counts if you only said it in a bar and never wrote it down anywhere, but back in 1988, when it became plain that absolutely nobody was going to pay a price -- criminal, civil, or in the case of the senior Bush, political -- for the staggering mess that was Iran-Contra, I was in the late, lamented Eliot Lounge in Boston, chewing it over with a friend who'd reported extensively on the scandal. I told him that the country was going to pay a fearsome price one day for having let these crimes go unpunished. That the whole business lodged something malignant deep in the government that needed to be roughly, and bloodily, excised. I believed an impeachment inquiry should have been opened on both the president and the vice-president. I believed that Beltway wise-man schemes like the Tower Commission and the Joint Congressional committee investigation would muddy the waters and likely would do more harm than good. (It was the committee that created the loophole through which ultimately squeezed, among other people, Oliver North.) I believed the whole thing should have been left in the hands of Special Prosecutor Lawrence Walsh, since the DOJ until Edwin Meese had been hopelessly entangled in the original cover-up.

..........

Tell me we're not paying for that now. Tell me we're not paying for tolerating a renegade theory of Executive power. Tell me we're not hearing how inconvenient and cumbersome and counterproductive the impeachment process of the Constitution is. Tell me the Democratic candidates aren't soft-pedaling the whole issue, preferring to micromanage the end of the kind of war that the renegade theory of Executive power makes not only likely, but inevitable. (Go back and read the minority report of the Iran-Contra committee. Go see who wrote the part about how the president has an inherent right to do stuff like this. Hint -- he has a lesbian daughter, a bad heart, and lousy aim.) Tell me the press isn't running away from the gravity of the whole business. Tell me you haven't heard some anchor-drone or another sigh about how hard it all is to understand. Tell me that Bush presidencies don't invariably come down to buying the silence of the people who can put you away. Tell me Alberto Gonzales isn't Edwin Meese, except less competent. Tell me that Elliott Abrams, John Negroponte, Michael Ledeen, and the rest of the Iran-Contra Legends Tour ever would have found their bloody hands back on the levers of government if we'd done what we should have done as a nation 20 years ago. Jesus, even Ghorbanifar's back in the news.

more at:
http://mediamatters.org/altercation/200707060004#3
via:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/8/134920/1667

[muntrv]

1. I say it goes back to Watergate and the subsequent pardon of Nixon. That's

when the GOP was given the license to kill.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. Agreed

Ford should have never pardoned Nixon before a trial. During that trial, all the dirty tricks--and dirty tricksters--would have been identified and placed in the public eye. If this had happened, creatures like Rove would never had been able to get back inplaes of power.

[Carolina]

13. Agreed times two

Cheney cut his teeth in the executive branch under Nixon, and George H W Bush who couldn't win an election on his own back then was given a leg up by becoming RNC chair with Nixon's help. The Nixon horror spawned the evil we have today because the pardon wiped the slate. It was an awful mistake... and after seeing SICKO tonight, we can even blame dastardly HMOs on the Dickster.

[Javaman]

29. Remember ford was on the warrens commision. he was saving his own skin...

all that would have come out as well.

[aquart]

3. I always said that's when morality and honor ended for the US.

At least, for the Republicans.

[mitchum]

12. Agreed...and I DESPISE all of those who mouth the line "that Ford...

pardoned Nixon in order to heal the nation"
Gerald Ford occupies a special place in the hall of infamy. He was instrumental in not one, but TWO of the biggest criminal cover ups in this nation:
Warren Commission whitewash
Watergate

[Lugnut]

20. Heal the nation was a crock

It was then and still is a festering sore.

[loudsue]

21. At the time, I was one of those who agreed with Ford....

but I was young & stupid, at the time. After Iran-Contra, I began to see the harm that can be done from not PUBLICLY RESPECTING the rule of law, and the courts, and the process of a trial.

But republicans DON'T, and probably never have, respected the courts, except when they & their cronies want to make a mockery of it... i.e., the Clinton years, or when they want to sue someone for a slight to their egos, all the while bad-mouthing "frivolous lawsuits".

The republicans are hypocrites of the highest order. "Tough on crime" my ass. They only want to be tough on crimes committed by people with darker skin, or DEMOCRATS, whichever suits their stereotype of the moment. Rob ONE liquor store, and you "deserve" jail for life. Rob an entire nation of the security of an undercover CIA agent/front company, and you deserve "a commutation". Their values are so horribly screwed up.

Ford should have let the country heal for the LONG TERM, not just that news cycle. And Clinton should have continued investigating & prosecuting the Iran-Contra scandal. The problem was, he was involved on the periphery of that, because so much of the drug running centered around Mena, Arkansas, and he knew all about it for a very long time.

:kick:

[karynnj]

40. I don't know if it was ever proven that Clinton knew that drugs were

flown into Arkansas. It is possible that he knew there was a CIA operation and that he and the state should ignore it. I never heard any reputable claim that. (I would believe he knew the other side that they were gun running. He was pro-contra and he may have been willing to close his eyes.

[The_Commonist]

46. Aw, c'mon! I knew about Mena...

...and I was just a dumb kid at the time, reading Overthrow magazine and Mother Jones. You telling me the governor of Arkansas didn't know what some stupid punk kid knew?

[abq e streeter]

37. "healing the nation"

But, but but, history has shown it was the right thing to do... I heard that on TV about a THOUSAND times when Ford died, without EVER hearing a dissenting opinion, so it MUST be true... (I'm new here, and a low-tech doofus to boot, and couldn't get the sarcasm emoticon to get added, but you get the point)

[volstork]

43. you are right on the money

with that assessment. If Nixon had faced trial, he would have dragged all of the henchmen down, including rummy and darth cheney. Poppy would never have seen the light of day, and we never would have been saddled with junior.
"The sins of the fathers are the sins of the sons."

[Rageneau]

4. nd thge blame goes to that quisling poltroon turncoat Lee Hamilton!!

Lee Hamilton is the corrupt Republicans' favorite Democrat. He is the one they make sure gets assigned to any "investigation" of GOP malfeasance. That's because Republicans know that "Whitewash Lee" can be counted on to cover up any and all despicable behavior by Republicans.

Lee Hamilton is a conservative Republican -- almost a fascist -- in the permanent employ of the BFEE.

His whole "I'M A DEMOCRAT" disguise is just that -- a phony pretense at being on the right side of justice and accountability.

I despise him.

[cosmicdot]

9. and, probably why he's part of The Nixon Center

on its Advisory Council, chosen for the 911 'investigation' and Bu$h's 'Homeland Security Advisory Council'

Board of Directors

Honorary Chairman: Henry A. Kissinger

Chairman: Maurice R. Greenberg (of AIG - American International Group)

Dwayne O. Andreas
Jeffrey L. Bewkes
Conrad M. Black
Charles G. Boyd
Tricia Nixon Cox
Julie Nixon Eisenhower
Robert F. Ellsworth (Vice Chairman)
Leslie H. Gelb
Henry A. Kissinger
Eugene K. Lawson
Joseph I. Lieberman
John McCain
Lionel H. Olmer
Peter G. Peterson
Richard Plepler
Pat Roberts
James Schlesinger
Brent Scowcroft
J. Robinson West
Dimitri K. Simes, Center President (Ex Officio)
John H. Taylor, Executive Director of Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace Foundation (Ex Officio)

Advisory Council

Chairman: James Schlesinger

David Abshire
Richard V. Allen
Christopher Cox
John Deutch
David Eisenhower
Susan Eisenhower
Evan G. Greenberg

Lee H. Hamilton

Rita E. Hauser
Josef Joffe
Donald M. Kendall
Peter Kovler
Charles Krauthammer
Robert C. McFarlane
Janne Nolan
Joseph S. Nye, Jr.
Alexei K. Pushkov
John E. Rielly
Peter R. Rosenblatt
William V. Roth, Jr.
Thomas A. Russo
Angela Stent
Marin Strmecki
Yuli Vorontsov

http://web.archive.org/web/20050205063607/www.nixoncenter.org/boardac.htm

http://tinyurl.com/pubbw

[Marnieworld]

34. excellent point

I cringe whenever the 9/11 commission or the Baker-Hamilton report is billed as "bi-partisan". Actually I gag. He has always been one their men- their long-time inside guy. It is so obvious and yet the Dems just keep acting as ifhe isn't. Makes you wonder.

[motocicleta]

5. I have many reasons for being the cynical fuck I am today.

But one of the best is the memory of being 17 and listening to all of those bastards say, "I don't recall", including Raygun, and knowing goddamn good and well that this was not the country I thought I was living in. Knowing that, in my good ol' USA, some scum that broke the law and then lied in the face of Congress would be punished but good, and if these liars and criminals weren't going to be punished, then I probably would never belong here like I thought I did.

Iran-Contra made this a country of criminals, for the first obvious time in my life. And it has never changed back, nor do I have much hope for the future. I'm starting to feel like Taxi Driver; one day a real rain is gonna come and wash all the scum off the streets.

[OzarkDem]

6. Democracy is hard

Its sometimes messy, ugly and difficult to do the work necessary to protect our Constitution and governing institutions.

It takes a lot of work and usually pisses off a few people (sometimes more than the usual 27%), but true leaders bite the bullet and put the popularity contest behind them.

We didn't do the hard work then and, yes, like a cancer that wasn't fully excised, it has returned and metastasized.

[calimary]

7. And this is one HELL of a worthy argument in defense of IMPEACHMENT!!!

There WERE no consequences at all. Nobody paid for it. NOBODY. And many of 'em were able to rise again, unfettered, unencumbered, in this administration, to do all the foul deeds they've committed.

THIS is why we absolutely MUST stop them, with IMPEACHMENT at the VERY least. There has to be a penalty paid. There HAS to be a price to pay for breaking the law this flagrantly and this frequently. There MUST be consequences and accountability. This wagging the finger and saying "bad dog!" to them and then turning around and going upstairs to bed is bullshit. There HAS to be a visible, public, punitive cost for this. Otherwise we will be going through shit like this again, and next time they'll lock it down so effectively we may not even know what happened at all until long after they've all skipped town. After all, they sure learned some effective lessons from Watergate, didn't they? They learned how to cover their tracks from that whole sordid affair, and they learned what NOT to do next time. And some of the same people came back for another turn at bat again, and sometimes yet again after that.

BTW - here's a GREAT thread with a GREAT strategy - from our own proud2Blib:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1267038

[Beam Me Up]

8. Twenty years from now, if we don't reveal 9/11 for what it is,

and do what needs to be done, we'll not even be able to have this lament about what we should have done. Hell, it could be too late tomorrow if we let these madmen keep control of OUR weapons of mass destruction.

[The Backlash Cometh]

10. This time we need to destroy their fucking reputations so that they can't get

away with buying a hamburger at McDonalds without showing I.D.

[bagrman]

11. Whens the tea part,y, Sheeple?

[Matsubara]

14. Definitely. Iran/Contra was much worse than Watergate, but the media trivialized it.

I remember all the comments about how snappy Ollie North looked in his uniform, and what a hottie Fawn Hall was, but nary a word on the priests and nuns and little kids that were murdered because of him, and little talk of the fact that he SOLD WEAPONS TO OUR TERRORIST ENEMIES.


It was infuriating then and it's just more of the same now.

:(

[nolabels]

15. Seems like much worse of the same to me

Career Justice Dept employees writing op-ed pieces to major papers decrying the place they work for as being stifled in rampant criminality. When has that happened :shrug:




The only part i don't get is about the rest of them. Since they are not involved in the criminal behavior, why are they silent :shrug:

[Marnieworld]

35. I was in high school at the time

And I think my first political thought, the first moment of my awakening was the cognitive dissonance that I felt when Iran-Contra didn't just destroy Poppy Bush. I remember watching him speak and wonder why he even had the nerve to run? Boy was I naive! I do recall it was an early bit of rage and bewilderment that the media just let it happen, pretended like nothing was wrong. I was only a teenager, hardly an expert or even a voracious reader of news or history and yet it seemed really fishy.
Now of course all of the emperors are butt naked but the media applauds their fashion sense. More of the same.

[AX10]

16. Democrats let the ball slip out of their hands on that one too.

[dysfunctional press]

19. another one of bill clinton's major fuck-ups. he was/is a dlc facilitator.

i can't understand why so many dems view him as some kind of super-hero...?

[OzarkDem]

33. Clinton wasn't elected until '92

A lot of this stuff was old news by the time he was elected, with the exception of Poppy pardoning Cap Weinberger.

The real downfall was when Lawrence Walsh declined to aggressively pursue the investigation. IIRC, everyone got immunity before they testified, making it easy to avoid conviction. Walsh was far too liberal in granting immunity to the crooks.

I recall when Walsh declined to retry Poindexter and North and closed the investigation, it was a real WTF moment.

You can also blame the lily livered Dems in Congress at the time who didn't aggressively pursue investigations. It was the beginning of GOP control of the news media and Dems were scared spitless of saying or doing anything that might get them criticized on the evening news, right or wrong.

[karynnj]

42. That's because the established Dems kicked out the Freshman Democrat

who had tenaciously investigated it when no one believed it - leading people to deride him as a conspiracy nut. He, however , was an excellent prosecutor previously and HE did not hand out immunity in his committee. It was for lying to Kerry that Abrams and North got in trouble.

[OzarkDem]

44. I was trying to remember

who handed out the immunity deals back then. Who is the Freshman Democrat you're referring to?

[karynnj]

48. John Kerry was the Freshman Senator

who was the only one willing to investigate claims that the Contras were gun running and drug running in the US. Kerry was told of these activities by some Vietnam Vets who trusted him. He investigated and found it worth looking into. Dick Lugar told him that if he could get a Republican to join him - he could investigate it via a sub-committee of teh Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Kerry was able to get Jesse Helms (!) to agree because he hated drugs.

When the case broke open and couldn't be contained, a joint Senate/House committee investigated as did a special prosecutor (Walsh). Here's a link I found to the joint committee (which gave the immunity). I used google to get it and am not familiar with it - they clearly do not think too highly of the committee and they seem to be very conspirasy oriented people. My memory from the time was that there was enormous grandstanding - and they turned North, who clearly broke multiple laws, into a hero.

Kerry was not offered a seat on the committee, but was given a subcommittee to investigate drug running and terrorism. (That led to him finding and eliminating BCCI a bank that was linked to terrorist and drug runners that controlled a couple US banks and bought off both parties.)
http://www.namebase.org/sources/PK.html

[dysfunctional press]

49. it was Clinton who didn't want congress to pursue investigations at the time...

"for the good of the country", naturally.

[Laelth]

17. Of course, kpete, you're right.

Not much else one can say except that we must make them pay this time.

Impeach!

k&r

-Laelth

[EVDebs]

18. I only regret that I have but one vote for Greatest Page, Kpete nt

[bobthedrummer]

22. k&r#38

[leftofthedial]

23. and the "democrats" in congress are doing the same thing all over again

but much, much worse this time around

[Solly Mack]

24. folks know my opinion already

K/R

[sce56]

25. I've said it before and I will keep on saying it ACCOUNTABILITY was killed along with JFK & RFK

I was mad as hell when Ford passed and I had to see all the flags at half staff for a flipping month! But I guess it was a true thing since he helped kill our democracy by hiding the truth to the CouDeTa that stole our democracy for good that black day 22 Nov 1963.



BBC Documentary showing CIA hit men at the Ambassador Hotel June 1968

[Babel_17]

26. I agree (K&R)

I've never forgotten and I don't hesitate to bring up that serial scandal when it's relevant.

[NoSheep]

27. I agree 100%. Watergate and Iran Contra set the stage for these crimes.

[EFerrari]

28. No kidding. Great post. K&R

[Mark Twain Girl]

30. Excellent. Truly. n/t

[Mark Twain Girl]

31. A double post, so let me edit to reiterate -- reeeeeally really excellent. n/t

[bbgrunt]

32. yes. It's our national karma and we will keep reliving it with evermore dire consequences.

[librechik]

36. Farewell, America (1969)

http://www.jfk-online.com/farewell00.html

Online: the French iintelligence services did their own investigation of who killed JFK and why. They assert that the assassination, along with the killings in 1968 of RFK and MLK, was the end of our American Experiement. We've been living in a dream world of illusory freedoms ever since.

[SammyWinstonJack]

38. Anyone here ever hear of Dresser Industries and the ties with Prescott bu$h, GHW bu$h,

and KBR and cheney? We were played!, well not all of us, but many were. This has all been about power/control of the energy industry, worldwide.

[OzarkDem]

39. Dresser was merged into Halliburton, IIRC

They were in the same league, selling oil drilling supplies and equipment.

[SammyWinstonJack]

41. Yes it did. Interesting reading on how that all played out. I was shocked, though I don't know why

I should have been. :silly:

[LiberalFighter]

45. North should had been executed

[slipslidingaway]

47. And now Bush appoints Alito & Roberts, if only we had done the

right thing :(