Iran-Contra Affair was TREASON that went unpunished.

[Octafish]

How? Poppy Bush pardoned his fellow conspirators.



No theory. Fact.

[Bonobo]

1. It's only a "conspiracy theory" until it's either proven or disproven.

[NightWatcher]

2. What happened to ol Casey right before Congressional hearings?

Oh yes. He went and got dead.

[Bonobo]

4. Worse.

"Hours before Casey was scheduled to testify before Congress related to his knowledge of Iran-Contra, he was reported to have been rendered incapable of speech, and was later hospitalized."

[certainot]

5. casey was at the root of the RW radio monopoly destroying democracy the last 25 yrs....

from "ABC and the rise of rush limbaugh"

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-libmedia.htm

[retired rooster]

36. those of you who do not remember the Business Men Coup de tat should take the time to read Certainot

cite. FDR let republicians off the hook on that attempt. Makes you wonder as to how many other attempts were started but never got off the ground.

[leveymg]

77. . . . and how many completed their 50 bombing missions, and were never shot down?

[Drew Richards]

83. 50? What are you talking about...it took 25 to rotate out IF you so choose...

Most brave men stayed in 29+, the end of their theatre or sadly death. No ideal where you got the 50 from.

[leveymg]

97. 25 it is. The point being that some of the Business Coup-American Fascist types -- Dulles, Prescott

Bush, Angleton, etc. -- parlayed plum World War 2 OSS/CIC postings into Cold War CIA fiefdoms and got their Rightwing coup in America. And, they didn't even have to worry about being shot down.

[Octafish]

6. Telegenic faces divided the public and a silenced player bought time.

Meanwhile, the main stories that these traitors traded arms for hostages, sold drugs to finance illegal wars, and were friendly with the same people who blew up the embassy in Beirut and blew up the Marines barracks at the Beirut airport a short time later got lost in the "debate."

[Bonobo]

9. It was by no means just WHAT they did... it was HOW.

It was a shadow government created to operate secretly to defy the will of the Congress and with no responsibility to elected officials.

[Octafish]

15. A shadow government that not only continues to the present day unaccountable to the people...

...but uses new technologies and laws that make them richer and more powerful killers.

[Bonobo]

17. It is the new normal, yup.

The CIA now kills openly. Destroys evidence openly.

And they have exploded in size with surveillance that would have been a science fiction wet dream when Iran Contra happened.

[Octafish]

22. It is the new normal, tragically. Frank Church and Otis Pike warned us...

...with their Senate and House investigations of the intelligence community in the 70s. That was, coincidently, the last time Congress openly investigated the intelligence community and reccommended reigning in their powers.

[IDemo]

63. Would that my state would ever elect another Frank Church

Between Church and Democratic Governor Cecil Andrus, Idaho was actually a fairly sensible place politically 40 years ago.

[Major Hogwash]

94. Umm, there will never be another Frank Church, he was one of a kind.

But, the pendulum swings like a pendulum do, and I wouldn't give up on Idaho just yet if I were you.

[Diclotican]

40. Bonobo

Bonobo

I wish President Truman had going true with his public treat about tearing CIA and the other intelligence systems apart in the early part of the cold war - specially as CIA and the rest was seldom able to get the right information, to the right time to the US president.. That be about the worsening situation in Europe, who wa going from bad - to worse.. The US president was put off guard when Stalin deiced to force the issue in Berlin - and closed off the western part of the city - and was trying to starving the western part in the Soviet occupied zone into submission.. And the CIA, and all the other agencies was also put off guard - and could for some time not even tell the president what it all was about.. It was not until Truman deiced to put an airbrigde from the western part of Germany - to Berlin that CIA and the others was able to put some on the ground - and discover what it all was about... He was also pissed off by other things who happened then - and CIA was not even able to tell him about it - before it all kind of blow up in his face...

The CIA have always killed, more in secret - but as time goes - specially after Bush jr got into office, more in the open than anytime before... And they have tools to their disposal that was not there when Truman was around.. But if they are getting more information from the new tools, and if, give it the President in the right time, is another issue... Sometimes I believe they on purpose are not giving the information they have - but screen it, so the President sometimes have not the right information he need when he have to do something...

And the Iran Contra scandal was one big issue, who should have getting allot more attention than it did - and where a lot more of the people involved should have been arrested - put on trial and convicted and facing long prison times.. When 75 percent of the american population believe Oliver North to be a hero - even as he lied and have continued to lie for the last 30 year when it came to the Contras scandal - then you know something is not right..

Diclotican

[annm4peace]

91. Agree

there are ret intelligence professionals calling cutting the budget of the CIA to shrink it down to drown in a bathtub.

[tomp]

41. the will of congress doesn't need much defying.

really it's more like the shadow gov't does what can't be openly approved. but there's a hell of a lot that can be openly approved.

[leveymg]

78. Read this excerpt from the Cong. Iran Contra Report with Libya and Syria in mind. Same games, redux

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/PS157/assignment%20files%20public/congressional%20report%20key%20sections.htm

As with Iran, Congress was misled about the N.S.C. staff's support for the contras during the period of the Boland Amendment, although the roles of the N.S.C. staff was no secret to others. North testified that his operation was well-known to the press in the Soviet Union, Cuba and Nicaragua. It was not a secret from Nicaragua's neighbors, with whom the N.S.C. staff communicated throughout the period. It was not a secret from the third countries - including a totalitarian state -from whom the N.S.C. staff sought arms or funds. It was not a secret from the private resupply network which North recruited and supervised. According to North, even Ghorbanifar knew.

The Administration never sought to hide its desire to assist the contras so long as such aid was authorized by statute. On the contrary, it wanted the Sandinistas to know that the United States supported the contras. After enactment of the Boland Amendment, the Administration repeatedly and publicly called upon Congress to resume U.S. assistance. Only the N.S.C. staff's contra support activities were kept under wraps. The committees believe these actions were concealed in order to prevent Congress from learning that the Boland Amendment was being circumvented.

It was stated on several occasions that the confusion, secrecy and deception surrounding the aid program for the Nicaraguan freedom fighters was produced in part by Congress's shifting positions on contra aid.

But Congress's inconsistency mirrored the chameleon-like nature of the rationale offered for granting assistance in the first instance. Initially, Congress was told that our purpose was simply to interdict the flow of weapons from Nicaragua into El Salvador. Then Congress was told that our purpose was to harass the Sandinistas to prevent them from consolidating their power and exporting their revolution. Eventually, Congress was told that our purpose was to eliminate all foreign forces from Nicaragua, to reduce the size of the Sandinista armed forces, and to restore the democratic reforms pledged by the Sandinistas during the overthrow of the Somoza regime.

Congress had cast a skeptical eye upon each rationale proffered by the Administration. It suspected that the Administration's true purpose was identical to that of the Contras - the overthrow of the Sandinista regime itself. Ultimately Congress yielded to domestic political pressure to discontinue assistance to the contras, but Congress was unwilling to bear responsibility for the loss of Central America to communist military and political forces. So Congress compromised, providing in 1985 humanitarian aid to the contras; and the N.S.C. staff provided what Congress prohibited: lethal support for the contras.

[tomp]

107. sure, but that is standard operating procedure in u.s. govt....

....and anyone in congress who doesn't know it isn't fit to be there in the first place. the real question is why hasn't this been cleaned up? secrecy is anti-democratic/liars should be punished. the answer is: congress is complicit, in bipartisan fashion. this is real american govt. 101. always a nice excuse to say "we were misled," other wise known as plausible deniability (for the gullible).

[KansDem]

54. Shadow government

[PufPuf23]

62. Stress Shadow Government and Boland Amendment

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boland_Amendment

During the early years of the Reagan administration, a civil war raged in Nicaragua, pitting the elected left-wing Sandinista government against CIA-financed Contra rebel groups. After the CIA carried out a series of acts of sabotage without Congressional intelligence committees being made aware beforehand, this led to the passage of the Boland Amendment by Congress and subsequent cutting off of appropriated funding for the Contras.

The Boland Amendment, proposed by Edward Boland, was a highly limited ambiguous compromise because the Democrats did not have enough votes for a comprehensive ban. The Amendment gained traction due to a widespread opposition among the American public to funding the Contras: Holly Sklar and Peg Strobel's public opposition to Contra funding at the time of Reagan's re-election at a consistent "trend of two to one." It covered only appropriated funds spent by intelligence agencies (such as the CIA). Some of Reagan's national security officials used non-appropriated money spent by the National Security Council (NSC) to circumvent the Amendment. No court ever made a determination whether Boland covered the NSC, and because it was a prohibition rather than a criminal statute, no one could be indicted for violating it. Opponents alleged that the White House violated the amendment. Congress later resumed aid to the Contras, totaling over $300 million. The Sandinistas were voted out of power in 1990, and voted back in later years.

The Boland Amendment prohibited the federal government from providing military support "for the purpose of overthrowing the Government of Nicaragua." It aimed to prevent CIA funding of rebels opposed to the Marxist provisional junta, the Boland Amendment sought to block Reagan administration support for the Contra rebels. The amendment was narrowly interpreted by the Reagan administration to apply to only U.S. intelligence agencies, allowing the National Security Council, not so labeled, to channel funds to the Contra rebels. In order to block this, the amendment was changed to prohibit any funds for military or paramilitary operations.[3][4]

Administration officials argued that the Boland Amendment, or any act of Congress would not interfere with the president's conduct of foreign policy by restricting funds, as the president could seek funds from private entities or foreign governments.[5] In this spirit, and despite the Boland Amendment, Vice Admiral John M. Poindexter, USN, and his deputy, Lt. Colonel Oliver North, USMC, secretly diverted to the Nicaraguan contras millions of dollars in funds received from a secret deal which some alleged had explicit presidential approval – the sales of anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles to Iran in spite of Reagan's public pledge not to deal with terrorists. In November 1986, a pro-Syrian newspaper in Lebanon revealed the secret deal[citation needed] to the world. This came as Democrats won back control of the Senate in the 1986 elections. In public hearings of a joint House-Senate committee convened for purposes of investigating the affair, Democrats sought to prosecute LTC North for his role. The final report published after the hearings blamed Reagan's passive style of leadership for allowing the conduct of foreign policy without involvement of any elected official. However, a later Congress repealed the Boland Amendment and resumed funding.[citation needed] Elections in Nicaragua subsequently ousted the Marxists from power; later elections brought them back into power.

[Berlum]

57. Did Republicans ever ask ANY questions about the Reagan-Republican FAIL with our Marine barracks?

[Octafish]

65. No, they are 'united' as a party in covering up their treason...

...let alone ignoring the rest of the illegalities conducted in the name of national security cough Cayman Islands.

Disciplined. Military like. Hierarchical, almost.

http://www.beirut-memorial.org/history/

No One Should Be Above the Law -- That's Why We Should Have Punished the Iran-Contra Traitors.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8152172

[druidity33]

89. The Taliban including a woman?

That doesn't seem likely...

[mwdem]

96. Translator?

Maybe.

[telclaven]

104. Oh For God's Sake, Learn Some Flipping History!

There were NO Taliban meeting with Reagan in 1985.

The Taliban did not come into existence until 1994 when Mullah Omar raised forces to stop the rape of local girls (and one boy) by local militia forces.

Yeah, sure, it makes for a great meme, but being factually incorrect destroys any point you try to make.

[ReRe]

24. Wowser... that quote by William Casey!

... that is one effing hell of a quote right there.

[slipslidingaway]

3. Too big to fail and too connected to prosecute ...

and that goes for both Repubs and Dems because they both watch out for one another.

Clinton turned his back on crimes and Obama turned his back on crimes ... it only gets harder to correct as the lines become blurred and each side roots for their team.

[Dustlawyer]

7. +1,000!!!

[slipslidingaway]

20. We have to face the truth before we move forward, thx nt

[Octafish]

8. True Buy-Partisanship

There's nothing like it, for the fortunate insiders. For everybody else, tough luck.

Nowadays, whistleblowers are prosecuted and persecuted, while traitors get great jobs and banksters not only are forgiven for their crimes, they get bonuses.

[slipslidingaway]

23. Sure is nothing like it and the word BUY ...

is so true. But who really pays attention ... go team!

Who was the UBS whistle blower that was jailed while Obama played golf on Martha's Vineyard with one of his largest campaign contributors and the head of UBS?

Who cares, we need to look forward

[Octafish]

37. Bradley Birkenfeld

Last edited Mon May 27, 2013, 10:41 AM - Edit history (1)

The Game that goes on and on: a Swiss Bank, a President, and the Permanent Government

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x636228

[slipslidingaway]

105. Thanks Octafish and the "liberal" media was nowhere in sight :( nt

[tex-wyo-dem]

12. Pretty cool how that works, eh?

Rethug administration commits borderline or blatant treasonous acts, subsequent rethug admin pardons those that get in hot legal water and/or dem legislators pull impeachment off the table and implore "we must move forward" and ignore all illegal acts by previous administration.

All in service of their corporate masters.

Pretty cool scam they have going on...yay!

[slipslidingaway]

27. Yes what a scam, a few have gone there...

on both sides, but they are considered delusional.

We need to keep the 1% in power, so go team!

Team over issues

[grasswire]

13. ...and FDR turned his back on the coup attempt against him

Got to go along to get along.

And the ghouls and grifters keep attacking the Constitution and the People.

[slipslidingaway]

29. Sometimes saying silent can advance an issue and help the majority ...

but I think we have moved far beyond helping the majority to helping the minority. Hard to know when the tipping point will occur and even harder to stand up when you think it is time.

I really think the Dems missed a major opportunity to not only highlight the crimes of the Bush admin but also on the economic front with HC playing a large role for the coming boomers, unless they had no no idea of the numbers of people moving to Medicare.

Dems are always playing defense

Time for a change, no one votes for second best forever.

[starroute]

10. Dick Cheney also did his part

As the ranking Republican on the House Select Committee to Investigate Covert Arms Transactions with Iran, he saw to it that nothing would come out to implicate Bush. In return, he was appointed Secretary of Defense in Bush's cabinet.

[Berlum]

61. The 'evil-empire' Iranians that the Republicans fellated will use their US weapons

...against our American sons and daughters in uniform. Remembering this on Memorial Day, and remembering how the chickenhawk Republican cabal has empowered America's enemies, must make every American citizen stop cold and recognize what's has been going down.

[Octafish]

75. Sneer defended War Inc.

...and stood up for Empire...

Understanding the Iran-Contra Affairs

EXCERPT...

Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-HI), the chair of the Senate Select Committee, called the hearing to order by saying he hoped that the facts of the “sad affair” would be revealed. Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-IN), the chair of the House Select Committee, predicted that the hearings would prove that “many things went wrong.” Sen. Warren Rudman (R-NH), vice chair of the Senate committee, asked if the “foreign policy process” was “flawed” or “simply ignored.” Rep. Dick Cheney (R-WY), the ranking Republican on the House committee, largely defended President Ronald Reagan and the power of the Executive Branch.

CONTINUED...

http://www.brown.edu/Research/Understanding_the_Iran_Contra_Affair/thehearings.php

...officially reported to the American people that there was no conspiracy...

Minority Report

EXCERPT...

The bottom line, however, is that the mistakes of the Iran-Contra Affair were just that — mistakes in judgment, and nothing more. There was no constitutional crisis, no systematic disrespect for ‘the rule of law,’ no grand conspiracy, and no Administration-wide dishonesty or coverup. In fact, the evidence will not support any of the more hysterical conclusions the Committees’ Report tries to reach.

CONTINUED...

http://www.brown.edu/Research/Understanding_the_Iran_Contra_Affair/h-thereport.php

...then he spearheaded the program to piratize the Pentagon.

Cheney's Multi-Million Dollar Revolving Door

News: As Bush Sr.'s secretary of defense, Dick Cheney steered millions of dollars in government business to a private military contractor -- whose parent company just happened to give him a high-paying job after he left the government.

By Robert Bryce
Mother Jones
August 2, 2000

EXCERPT...

In 1992, the Pentagon, then under Cheney's direction, paid Texas-based Brown & Root Services $3.9 million to produce a classified report detailing how private companies -- like itself -- could help provide logistics for American troops in potential war zones around the world. BRS specializes in such work; from 1962 to 1972, for instance, the company worked in the former South Vietnam building roads, landing strips, harbors, and military bases. Later in 1992, the Pentagon gave the company an additional $5 million to update its report. That same year, BRS won a massive, five-year logistics contract from the US Army Corps of Engineers to work alongside American GIs in places like Zaire, Haiti, Somalia, Kosovo, the Balkans, and Saudi Arabia.

After Bill Clinton's election cost Cheney his government job, he wound up in 1995 as CEO of Halliburton Company, the Dallas-based oil services giant -- which just happens to own Brown & Root Services. Since then, Cheney has collected more than $10 million in salary and stock payments from the company. In addition, he is currently the company's largest individual shareholder, holding stock and options worth another $40 million. Those holdings have undoubtedly been made more valuable by the ever-more lucrative contracts BRS continues to score with the Pentagon.

Between 1992 and 1999, the Pentagon paid BRS more than $1.2 billion for its work in trouble spots around the globe. In May of 1999, the US Army Corps of Engineers re-enlisted the company's help in the Balkans, giving it a new five-year contract worth $731 million.

CONTINUED...

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2000/08/cheneys-multi-million-dollar-revolving-door

Pure class, ruling class, nuclear armed ruling class.

[Ghost in the Machine]

103. When mentioning Brown & Root, don't forget about *Kellogg, Brown & Root, bought by Halliburton

in the early 60's when one of the Brown brothers passed away. There was also Pierce, Poole & Kent (PP&K), later known as just Poole & Kent, who did a lot of contracting with Bechtel Power Corporation, mostly at fossil fuel and Nuclear Enegery Plants.

In the 1920s, long before Brown & Root, Kellogg was partnered with Texaco and Standard Oil.

**In the 1930s and 1940s, Kellogg worked with leading refiners on various technologies. For the war effort, these developments led to the construction of six hydroreformer units, twenty fluid catalytic cracking units, and the only complete refinery built during World War II. Even bigger than the refining work was K-25, the gaseous diffusion plant at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, built as part of the Manhattan Project.

I grew up hearing these names, as my dad was a Union Pipefitter/Welder, as were my grandfather and a couple of uncles. My dad worked mostly at Turkey Point Nuclear Plant in Homestead, Fla. My grandfather was a founding member of Local 725, Pipefitters/Steamfitters, Air Conditioning & Refrigeration, in Miami, Florida. At one time my dad was the President of the Local, and at other times served in various other positions on the Executive Board. They were doing a LOT of unionizing in South Florida back then. Telephoned death threats, as well as attempted break-ins of our home, were just a way of life in the late 60's to early 70's.

I'm starting to ramble now (damned insomnia!!!), but I guess my main point is that these companies have been feeding at the trough, sucking on the Government teat, for damned near a century in some cases. I don't think it would take much of a stretch to imagine they've shaped/had influence on some of our Energy Policies at all.

Thanks, as always, for your posts, Octafish.. and thanks for giving a damn!

Peace,

Ghost

[johnnyreb]

11. This thread requires a toon

"American Dad" cartoon song-and-dance version of Iran Contra, 1:51

http://videosift.com/video/Ollie-North-High-Treason

[KansDem]

58. North was convicted...

Oliver North, member of the National Security Council convicted of accepting an illegal gratuity, obstruction of a congressional inquiry, and destruction of documents, but the ruling was overturned since he had been granted immunity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Contra_affair#Indictments

But the ruling was "overturned." Is this the same a "acquitted?"

[alp227]

14. But but but...ACORN! NEW BLACK PANTHERS! FAST & FURIOUS! BENGHAZI! THE IRS! SPYING ON THE AP!!!!!

for the Freeper/Cave trolls.

And according to Richard Nixon, NOTHING that presidents do is ever illegal.

Typical American Politics.

[leveymg]

79. Don't lump Benghazi and AP in the rest. They aren't faux scandals, just onion skin scandals -

just peel back the outer layers of cover-story, and underneath are serious blowback from CIA covert operations that went bad with lethal or near-lethal results.

[Go Vols]

16. I can remember

Ronny Raygun saying "I do not recall" quite a bit during the hearings.Fuck him and what he did to this country.

[Bonobo]

19. "My heart tells me I'm a fucking liar."

I lived it and will not watch it again.

[Go Vols]

21. We are still living it

I think.When Carter lost in '80(I voted for him),Raygun lit the fuse for what we have now.

[JDPriestly]

43. Actually it goes back much further to that.

It goes back at least to Kennedy and maybe actually to before the Civil War.

Some of it goes back to the animosity about slavery. And then there was John Adams and the Sedition Act. There has always been a strain, a party of people who just don't really believe in freedom and democracy for everyone. They like the word freedom, but to them it is almost synonymous with the freedom to own property and have no social rules.

[rhett o rick]

50. Ronny most likely didnt recall. The CIA probably has a drug that induces dementia. nm

[Octafish]

70. Mommy's little Helper.

Poppy was "acting" president from the day a Bush family friend plugged Ronnie.



‘Like I Wasn’t President at All’

By Robert Parry
May 26, 1999

In 1992, less than four years after leaving the White House, Ronald Reagan claimed to have forgotten virtually every fact about the Iran-contra scandal, according to a newly released transcript of a formal deposition.

"It's like I wasn't president at all," Reagan said in response to one inquiry.

Iran-contra special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh accepted that Reagan's memory loss was a consequence of the ex-president's Alzheimer's disease. But the deposition also reveals that Reagan answered in rich detail when questioned about coincidental events not connected to alleged Iran-contra crimes.

Despite Reagan's unresponsive answers, the deposition offered a look at unreleased Reagan diary entries that were read into the record. The diary demonstrated that Reagan was intimately involved with the Iran-contra operations and fully aware that some of his actions violated the law.

Yet, when Walsh and his prosecutors questioned Reagan about even basic facts that connected to the scandal, the ex-president asserted a near-total lack of memory.

SNIP...

At another point, Reagan was reminded that "you had a task force on counter-terrorism. Do you remember? I think Vice President Bush headed it."

CONTINUED...

http://www.consortiumnews.com/1999/052699c.html

[leveymg]

81. Here's an old Nixon trick: put your hand over one side of the face, and then the other. Do RWR 1st

no difference at all - the guy is totally mono-dimensional -- a true believer -- but not a psychopath. Then do the same thing over Poppy face - see the two sides to the preppy? Left side is all full of mirth and good collegial cheer, but the right has something predatory and very scary in those eyes.

No doubt who was in charge. But, which Poppy?

Now, do it with Nixon (1973): the two Dicks:

[rhett o rick]

18. I recommend the book, "The Road to 9/11" nm

[Octafish]

90. What we've learned since Selection 2000 could fill a Blog

New NSA docs contradict 9/11 claims

“I don’t think the Bush administration would want to see these released," an expert tells Salon

By Jordan Michael Smith
Salon.com
Tuesday, Jun 19, 2012 04:24 PM EDT

Over 120 CIA documents concerning 9/11, Osama bin Laden and counterterrorism were published today for the first time, having been newly declassified and released to the National Security Archive. The documents were released after the NSA pored through the footnotes of the 9/11 Commission and sent Freedom of Information Act requests.

The material contains much new information about the hunt before and after 9/11 for bin Laden, the development of the drone campaign in AfPak, and al-Qaida’s relationship with America’s ally, Pakistan. Perhaps most damning are the documents showing that the CIA had bin Laden in its cross hairs a full year before 9/11 — but didn’t get the funding from the Bush administration White House to take him out or even continue monitoring him. The CIA materials directly contradict the many claims of Bush officials that it was aggressively pursuing al-Qaida prior to 9/11, and that nobody could have predicted the attacks. “I don’t think the Bush administration would want to see these released, because they paint a picture of the CIA knowing something would happen before 9/11, but they didn’t get the institutional support they needed,” says Barbara Elias-Sanborn, the NSA fellow who edited the materials.

SNIP...

Former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice has taken credit for the drone program that the Bush administration ignored. “Things like working to get an armed Predator that actually turned out to be extraordinarily important, working to get a strategy that would allow us to get better cooperation from Pakistan and from the Central Asians,” she said in 2006. “We were not left a comprehensive strategy to fight al-Qaida.” Rice claimed that the Bush administration continued the Clinton administration’s counterterrorism policies, a claim the documents disprove. “If the administration wanted to get it done, I’m sure they could have gotten it done,” says Elias-Sanborn.

Many of the documents publicize for the first time what was first made clear in the 9/11 Commission: The White House received a truly remarkable amount of warnings that al-Qaida was trying to attack the United States. From June to September 2001, a full seven CIA Senior Intelligence Briefs detailed that attacks were imminent, an incredible amount of information from one intelligence agency. One from June called “Bin-Ladin and Associates Making Near-Term Threats” writes that “[redacted] expects Usama Bin Laden to launch multiple attacks over the coming days.” The famous August brief called “Bin Ladin Determined to Strike the US” is included. “Al-Qai’da members, including some US citizens, have resided in or travelled to the US for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure here,” it says. During the entire month of August, President Bush was on vacation at his ranch in Texas — which tied with one of Richard Nixon’s as the longest vacation ever taken by a president. CIA Director George Tenet has said he didn’t speak to Bush once that month, describing the president as being “on leave.” Bush did not hold a Principals’ meeting on terrorism until September 4, 2001, having downgraded the meetings to a deputies’ meeting, which then-counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke has repeatedly said slowed down anti-Bin Laden efforts “enormously, by months.”

CONTINUED w LINKS...

http://www.salon.com/2012/06/19/new_nsa_docs_reveal_911_truths/

If Corporate McPravda were paid to uncover and publish the truth, they'd connect the dots and form a line from Iran-Contra to the corruption behind September 11 -- whether as a result of gross dereliction of duty or high treason, the attacks could have been prevented. But, without them, there'd be no justification for invading Iraq and toppling their man, Saddam.

[NBachers]

25. "I was out of the loop" George H W Bush, traitor extroardinaire

During the 1992 election, President George Bush came under scrutiny for his role as vice-president during the Iran-contra scandals. Bush claimed to be "out of the loop" about the arms deal. Democratic candidate Bill Clinton made Bush's role a central issue in his run for the White House. Clinton's running mate, Senator Al Gore, referred to notes released by an aide to former Secretary of State George Shultz that belied Bush's claim. As the campaign drew to a close, more information linked Bush to the scandal. One of Bush's last acts as president was his issuance of pardons to Iran-contra figures who had been indicted, pled guilty or been found guilty.

[Octafish]

73. Poppy Bush Takes Charge: The Uses of 'Counter-Terrorism'

From Christopher Simpson, info on how Poppy started the big ball of wax when he pried control out of the bed-ridden Pruneface:

George Bush Takes Charge: The Uses of "Counter-Terrorism"

By Christopher Simpson
Covert Action Quarterly 58

A paper trail of declassified documents from the Reagan‑Bush era yields valuable information on how counter‑terrorism provided a powerful mechanism for solidifying Bush's power base and launching a broad range of national security initiatives.

During the Reagan years, George Bush used "crisis management" and "counter‑terrorism" as vehicles for running key parts of the clandestine side of the US government.

Bush proved especially adept at plausible denial. Some measure of his skill in avoiding responsibility can be taken from the fact that even after the Iran‑Contra affair blew the Reagan administration apart, Bush went on to become the "foreign policy president," while CIA Director William Casey, by then conveniently dead, took most of the blame for a number of covert foreign policy debacles that Bush had set in motion.

The trail of National Security Decision Directives (NSDDS) left by the Reagan administration begins to tell the story. True, much remains classified, and still more was never committed to paper in the first place. Even so, the main picture is clear: As vice president, George Bush was at the center of secret wars, political murders, and America's convoluted oil politics in the Middle East.

SNIP...

Reagan and the NSC also used NSDDs to settle conflicts among security agencies over bureaucratic turf and lines of command. It is through that prism that we see the first glimmers of Vice President Bush's role in clandestine operations during the 1980s.

CONTINUED...

http://is.gd/FtMipm

PS: HERBLOCK will always be TOPS!

PPS: That photo-comparo of Poppy and the guy in front of the TSBD is chilling.

[BillyRibs]

26. Treason doth never prosper, for if it prosper who dare call it treason!

[ReRe]

28. I'll never forget it, Octafish

... I thought I would pull my hair out when he pardoned all those guys. I can't remember exactly when it was.... it was right at Christmas time or New Years Eve in 1982, right before he was getting ready to leave office and Clinton was about to come in. It's a wonder I have a hair left on my head, as history has repeated itself many times over since then. Thanks for the OP.

[Octafish]

84. Who Gave Bush His Teflon Coat in the Iran Contra Scam?

LosAngeles Times
November 04, 1988|JONATHAN KWITNY |

EXCERPT...

But the way George Bush has been let off the hook sickens me--as does the notion that he could be an acceptable candidate for the presidency, let alone leading the polls, less than two years after the Iran-Contra scandal broke.

The Bush-Reagan team rode to office on the issue of terrorism, pledging to halt it by never negotiating with terrorists and stopping others from doing so. For much of their Administration, federal law prohibited waging war on Nicaragua. Yet Bush attended dozens of meetings at which were discussed either our active role in starting and sustaining the Contra war or the secret supply of arms to Iran, which in public he called a leading terrorist state. Bush's assertion now that he didn't know of these activities is preposterous. An aide's minutes show him being briefed on arms shipments to Iran as they were in progress. He says that he misunderstood; he thought that the sales were Israeli. If so, he was muddleheaded on this linchpin issue and lacked leadership, considering our influence over Israel. Alternatively, he is simply lying; records show that he had been told earlier that Israel was acting as our front in the transactions.

In fact, Bob Woodward has reported, and Bush hasn't (to my knowledge) denied, that Bush was with Reagan when the President signed the Bible that was delivered as a gift to the "terrorist" ayatollah along with a planeload of missiles and other arms.

Nor was Bush just a loyal confidant who kept his mouth shut when Reagan erred. Bush, a former CIA director, hired career CIA officer Donald Gregg as his personal vice presidential adviser. When Contra military aid was banned, Gregg began phoning and meeting with an old CIA pal of both men, Felix Rodriguez, who, allegedly as a private citizen, went to the Salvadoran military base where arms were transferred for shipment in small craft to Contra bases.

Guns, ammo, mines and explosives were collected by men close to White House aide Oliver North and used in a terror war against civilian farm cooperatives in Nicaragua. Rodriguez ran the arms depot, at times talking almost daily with Gregg and meeting at least three times with Bush--whose office says that they only discussed other things, and that the presence of the arms deals on the agenda for one of those meetings was a typing error.

It gets worse. As his own assistant Rodriguez hired, under an assumed name, Luis Posada Carriles, another former CIA colleague who had just been sprung from a Venezuelan jail--with his help, Rodriguez has hinted. Posada was in jail for the mid-air bombing of a civilian Cuban airliner that took 73 lives. That surpasses all the Arab terrorist acts that Bush and Reagan have complained of.

Bush's office has said that he didn't know of Posada's background. Nonsense. Posada bombed that airliner on Bush's watch, in October, 1976, and Castro's howls of CIA culpability and U.S. denials were big news. Surely a CIA director worthy of the title would have called for the file on Posada.

CONTINUED...

http://articles.latimes.com/1988-11-04/local/me-984_1_contra-arms

PS: One of the last great investigative writers, Jonathan Kwitny wrote "The Crimes of Patriots," about the Nugan Hand Bank CIA scam, and soon after got sick with cancer and died.

[ReRe]

88. Jonathan Kwitny.... Can I K&R this?

... now there's a name I haven't heard in ages. Thanks for posting all this, Octafish. History is so important. Not the revisionist kind, either. And bibliographies are your friend. If a book doesn't have a contents, index, notes and/or bibliography, put the book back on the shelf.

You know, when Jr was in there, Cheney was really running the store? Well, it was the same with Bush Sr, who was running things during the Reagan Adm. Reagan was just the front man for the cameras. And he was perfect for the "part". I think this is why GWB mentioned Reagan all the time. He wanted so much to be the suave cowboy like Reagan for the cameras while Cheney ran things from behind the curtain. He just couldn't pull it off like his dad did, as he couldn't put three words in a sentence without screwing it up somehow. GHWB had a likeable facade, at least. Cheney was evil incarnate.

Yeah, all you young whipper snappers need to go look up Jonathan Kwitny. Another good one to look up is author James Bamford. Read Puzzle Palace first. And James is still living and writing books.

Republicans hate history. They want us all to forget the past so they can pull the same tricks over and over down through time. So we will forget that Republicans have been so injurious to this country down through time.

[G_j]

30. I watched or listened to most of the Iran Contra hearings

and was continually disappointed by the soft ball questioning. I considered the hearings part of the cover up.

[Octafish]

92. Many of those liars are still around. Glad one great journalist is still operating a Truth Squad...

Shocking New Evidence Reveals Depths of 'Treason' and 'Treachery' of Watergate and Iran-Contra

Consortium News / By Robert Parry
March 10, 2013

EXCERPT...

While it’s possible that Nixon was still searching for the file about his Vietnam-peace sabotage when the Watergate break-ins occurred nearly a year later, it’s generally believed that the burglary was more broadly focused, seeking any information that might have an impact on Nixon’s re-election, either defensively or offensively.

As it turned out, Nixon’s burglars were nabbed inside the Watergate complex on their second break-in on June 17, 1972, exactly one year after Nixon’s tirade to Haldeman and Kissinger about the need to blow the safe at the Brookings Institution in pursuit of the missing Vietnam peace-talk file.

Ironically, too, Johnson and Rostow had no intention of exposing Nixon’s dirty secret regarding LBJ’s Vietnam peace talks, presumably for the same reasons that they kept their mouths shut back in 1968, out of a benighted belief that revealing Nixon’s actions might somehow not be “good for the country.”

In November 1972, despite the growing scandal over the Watergate break-in, Nixon handily won reelection, crushing Sen. George McGovern, Nixon’s preferred opponent. Nixon then reached out to Johnson seeking his help in squelching Democratic-led investigations of the Watergate affair and slyly noting that Johnson had ordered wiretaps of Nixon’s campaign in 1968.

Johnson reacted angrily to the overture, refusing to cooperate. On Jan. 20, 1973, Nixon was sworn in for his second term. On Jan. 22, 1973, Johnson died of a heart attack.

CONTINUED...

http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/shocking-new-evidence-reveals-depths-treason-and-treachery-watergate-and-iran

The BFEE is a who's who of traitors.

[G_j]

100. I feel like I've been waiting forever for this

god bless Robert Parry!

I lived in NY at the time, and religiously
listened to the hearings on WBAI along with
a daily show called Contra-Gate. The transcripts/recordings of that show would
be an incredible gold mine. They had some guests who were really spilling some beans
on the cocaine/arms connection. Stories of landing planes in Costa Rica etc.
To watch the whole thing blow over, with a few wrists slapped, and the real details of the story never seeing the light, was a bitter lesson.

[OnyxCollie]

31. K&R. nt

[Octafish]

95. Christic Institute sued the traitors and found it was like reporting a sin to the Devil.

Last edited Tue May 28, 2013, 09:02 AM - Edit history (1)

http://mediaburn.org/video/the-90s-raw-museum-christic-institute-christopher-simpson/

[Hulk]

32. Sure was....and torture and lying to get us into a war OUGHT TO BE something...

...but we are going to just ignore it and let the evil bastards "debate" whether it was right or wrong, and condemn THIS President, as he attempts to clean up their mess, and follows their corrupt lead.

I'm not crazy about everything this President does; but on the top of the list of my complaints is letting W, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzo, Wolfowitz, and the rest of the crime family have immunity. The cowards don't DARE travel abroad.

Wish we could crate them up and send them.

[Ichingcarpenter]

33. Speaking of Colby and the CIA

As part of the Church Committee’s Senate investigations in 1975, William Colby presented to Committee Chairman Frank Church a gun resembling a Colt .45 equipped with a telescopic sight. TIME reported “the gun fires a toxin-tipped dart, almost silently and accurately up to 250 ft.

Moreover, the dart is so tiny–the width of a human hair and a quarter of an inch long–as to be almost undetectable, and the poison leaves no trace in a victim’s body.

” Church called the pistol “a murder instrument that’s about as efficient as you can get.” TIME revealed “the agency has also developed two other dart-launching pistols, as well as a fountain pen that can fire deadly darts and an automobile engine-head bolt that releases a toxic substance when heated.”

heart attack gun......FACT

[Egalitarian Thug]

34. K&R It seems most people forgot all about that long ago. b/t

[enough]

35. k&r (nt)

[cpwm17]

38. This isn't CT

This is a real conspiracy with actual evidence to support the claims. Conspiracies happen.

Unfortunately our government is corrupt, and many government officials think they know what types of bad behavior they can get away with. Often they are right.

[Coyotl]

39. and so they learned how not to get caught again, then they stole the Presidency in 2000

and the shadow players moved back into the White's House.

[JEB]

42. Meanwhile, privatizing our institutions as fast as possible.

A large part of the military now privatized. Big money from corporate prisons. Working fast and furious at destroying our Public Education system. Drug war. It all is a scam to get the people's money and us citizens are collateral damage. IMHO, our best chance is that they will destroy themselves.

[stevenleser]

44. Kicked, recced and bookmarked nt

[Major Nikon]

45. Poppa Bush also used his influence to free a terrorists who bombed an airliner full of civilians

In 1987, almost a decade after the Flight 455 incident, Bosch was freed from Venezuelan charges and went to the United States, assisted by then-U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela Otto Reich. In the U.S. he was arrested on a parole violation. Bosch was detained in the United States for six months until all charges were dropped and he was able to live in the United States.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orlando_Bosch

[Octafish]

46. Dr. Orlando Bosch, MD, and Luis Posada Carriles, BFEE

http://upload.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2317197

[grasswire]

64. Bosch was not pardoned.

Despite many references to that in literature, I know for a fact that Bosch was not pardoned. I have the list of pardons in that administration sent to me by the U.S. government.

He was paroled. Against the expressed recommendations of the Immigration authorities.

A BFEE trade. Votes for would be delivered in exchange for the parole.

[grasswire]

66. archived article on Bosch

Note: I have author's permission to reprint this article, which is obscurely archived by Online Journal:

=

02-28-01: A tale of two presidential pardons:
Fugitive tax cheat-humanitarian vs. fugitive serial terrorist-bomber.
By Exxxxxx Sxxxxxx

February 28, 2001-For two days, three professors and two archivists and
one university research librarian helped me look for a full list of the
77 pardons issued by President George Herbert Walker Bush. No luck. The
list is not available in archived and indexed periodicals, not in millions of
government documents available on the web, not in web sites devoted to the
presidential pardon and not in news stories. Not findable even by experts
specializing in presidential pardons and political science.

It's beginning to look as if George Herbert Walker Bush doesn't want that
full list made available. The revelation might be terribly embarrassing to
the Bushes. Here's why.

At the end of his presidency, Bill Clinton pardoned a wealthy capitalist
turned tax cheat, who was arguably a fugitive from justice. Clinton is
accused of receiving monetary donations in exchange for the pardon.

Toward the end of his presidency, George Herbert Walker Bush also
pardoned a fugitive from justice-an anti-Castro Cuban national named Orlando
Bosch, who is reported to be responsible for planning and/or executing the
lengthy list of terrorist actions below.

The pardon of Orlando Bosch was urged by Jeb Bush. The payoff for his
father, the president, was Florida votes in the 1992 presidential
election. George Herbert Walker Bush traded the pardon of a serial
terrorist for votes. And Jeb delivered Florida to him.

Bosch's reported crimes …

With Poder Cubano (Cuban Power) 1968-69:

Bomb sent in a suitcase to Havana, Cuba.

Bombs placed in various commercial establishments in the United States.

Bomb against Mexican consul in Miami, United States.

Bomb placed at the residence of the British consul in Miami.

Bomb placed at a restaurant owned by Cuban emigrants in the United
States.

Bomb placed (but did not explode) at the Chilean consulate in the United
States.

Bomb placed at a pharmaceutical company in the United States.

Source: http://cuban-exile.com/doc_051-075/doc0057.htm

Here's the story on Bosch:

A pediatrician by education, Bosch secretly left Cuba for Miami the year
after Castro took power. He immediately began violent actions with the
terrorist organization "MIRR" (Insurrectional Movement of Revolutionary
Recuperation) and with the "Movimiento Nacionalista Cubano" (Cuban
Nationalist Movement).

In 1968, Bosch was arrested by U.S. authorities, tried and sentenced to
10 years in prison. In 1972 he was released, and made his way without
permission and against the provisions of his U.S. parole to Venezuela
where he was arrested for the bombing of the Cubana airliner in which 73
people were killed, including the entire Cuban fencing team.

He languished in prison there, while still directing terrorist actions
detailed above. He eventually was freed on humanitarian grounds after a
long hunger strike, and in 1988 returned to the U.S. without papers,
where he was arrested for parole violation and then eventually remanded to the
custody of INS (U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service).

Cuba asked for the return of Bosch so that he could be tried for
terrorist actions, but Bosch petitioned for asylum in the U.S., stating that he
would not receive a fair trial in Cuba (a la Marc Rich's claim!). The
petition for asylum is available at http://cuban-exile.com/doc_051-075/doc0055.htm

In January 1989, the request for asylum was denied. An acting deputy
attorney general wrote: "For 30 years Bosch has been resolute and
unwavering in his advocacy of terrorist violence . . . He has repeatedly
expressed and demonstrated a willingness to cause indiscriminate injury
and death."

More than 30 countries refused to allow Bosch entry. The INS District
Director in Miami excluded Bosch from remaining in the U.S. on the
following grounds:

* There is reason to believe he would seek to enter the United States
solely, principally, or incidentally to engage in activities prejudicial
to the public interest. (8 U.S.C. 1182 (a) (27)).

* That he is or has been an alien who advocates or teaches or has been a
member of an organization that advocates or teaches the duty, necessity,
or propriety of assaulting or killing officers of any organized
government. (8 U.S.C. 1182 (a) (28) (F) (ii)).

* That he is or has been an alien who advocates or teaches or has been a
member of an organization that advocates or teaches the unlawful damage,
injury or destruction of property. (8 U.S.C. 1182 (a) (28) (F) (iii)).

* That he is or has been an alien who advocates or teaches or has been a
member of an organization that advocates or teaches sabotage. (8 U.S.C.
1182 (a) (28) (F)(iv)).

* That there are reasonable grounds to believe that he probably would,
after entry, engage in activities which would be prohibited by the laws
of
the United States relating to espionage, sabotage, public disorder, or
in
other activity subversive to the national interest. (8 U.S.C. 1182 (a)
(29)).

In addition, the notice alleged that Bosch also is excludable on the
grounds that he has been convicted of a crime of moral turpitude (other
than a purely political offense), 8 U.S.C. 1182 (a) (9), and that he did
not possess valid entry documents. 8U.S.C. 1182 (a) (20). See
http://cuban-exile.com/doc_051-075/doc0054.htm

Then began the campaign to use political pressure to free Orlando Bosch
and allow him to reside in America.

Jeb Bush, who had ingratiated himself with the highest orders of power
in the anti-Castro communities of Florida, was the campaign manager for
right-wing Republican Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. Jeb arranged a
meeting for her with his father, President George H.W. Bush, to
"negotiate" the release of Bosch. (New York Times August 17, 1989)

On July 18, 1990, Bosch was paroled on the recommendation or order of
George Herbert Walker Bush, and lived under some supervisory
restrictions in Miami, although being allowed to walk the streets there and
mingle with members of the community.

In 1992, Bosch was pardoned by George Herbert Walker Bush. (See
http://library.thinkquest.org/18355/the_torricelli_act.html) The
official pardon papers have been requested from the Bush Presidential
Library.
=============

[Octafish]

67. Terror is OK if BFEE does it.

Thank you, grasswire. War Inc. can do no wrong, even when they shoot down a civilian jetliner filled with innocent people or allow a former ambassador and an innocent American to get blown up in downtown Washington.

Know your BFEE: Los Amigos de Bush




Hey, America! Wake Up and Smell the Sulfur!

A most heinous act of terrorism occurred on the GOP BFEE Jerry Ford Poppy Bush Watch: The assassinations of former Chilean ambassador Orlando Letelier and American Ronnie Karpen Moffit. Ms. Moffit was an American citizen murdered by agents of a foreign government on U.S. soil. Her only crime was being with Orlando Letelier, whose crime was to speak out against the military coup that toppled the democratically elected Chilean government he served. Because he refused to turn over the Chilean secret police and their American contacts, these assassinations were allowed, if not sanctioned, by George Bush, then director of central intelligence and head of the CIA.

Another most heinous terrorist act that seems missed by Corporate McPravda when discussing the Glorious War on Terror: The bombing of a Cuban civilian airliner that killed 73 passengers and crew. The pilots reported the blast caused their aircraft to catch fire and they were burning up as they attempted an emergency landing. The plane crashed into the Caribbean, a few miles west of Barbados. All aboard perished.

Here’s an excellent essay based on the facts:

The Charmed Life of a Mass Murderer

Posada Carriles and Bush's Anti-Terror Hoax

By SAUL LANDAU
Counterpunch June 9, 2005

President George W. Bush has emphasized that if one of the myriad of U.S. police agencies even suspect someone of planning, abetting or carrying out a terrorist act, he will, at a minimum, get tossed into a dark hole. Indeed, Bush has thrown the Magna Carta into the garbage heap when it comes to Muslims suspected of pernicious thoughts toward the United States.

But if suspected terrorists turn their rage toward the detested Fidel Castro, these rules don't apply.

Indeed, those who try to bomb Cuban targets, or those related to Cuba, receive special treatment. This double-standard casts a shadow over the president's commitment to fight terrorism.

For example, TV footage showed Homeland Security cops arresting Posada in mid May. But the arresting officers didn't even handcuff the Western Hemisphere's most notorious terrorist. (Remember how Bush's pal Ken "Kenny Boy" Lay ­ ENRON's CEO ­ got handcuffed?) Justice Department spokespeople said they plan to charge the foremost terrorist in the western hemisphere with "illegal entry into the United States."

The FBI has reams of files on Posada, affectionately called "Bambi" by his terrorist friends. Former FBI Special Agent Carter Cornick told New York Times reporter Tim Weiner that Posada was "up to his eyeballs" in the October 1976 destruction of a Cuban commercial airliner over Barbados. All 73 passengers and crew members died. Recently published FBI and CIA documents not only confirm Cornick's statement, but also reveal that U.S. agencies had knowledge of the plot and did not inform Cuban authorities or try to stop the bombing.

SNIP…

One wonders: Did Posada announce his illegal presence in the United States with the idea that U.S. government complicity in aiding and abetting his past acts of terrorism would protect him? U.S. authorities didn't inform Cuba or try to stop the 1976 air-bombing plot, and in 1971, as Veciana stated, the CIA made the gun that Posada's agents placed inside the camera to assassinate Castro. And Ollie North has knowledge of Posada's covert activities for U.S. intelligence as well.

CONTINUED…

http://www.counterpunch.org/landau06092005.html

What ties these two events together is the involvement of George Herbert Walker Bush, as then-CIA director, in their cover-up as crimes and in the protection of their perpetrators, as in the person of one Luis Posada Carriles, Orlando Bosch and their colleagues-in-terror.

Think about it: A murder-forgiving CIA director Bush went on to become President of the United States. Today, Bush’s son, George, acts as president. The younger Bush has used his office from Day One to protect and cover-up the crimes of his father.

That’s what Hugo Chavez was talking about when he smelled the sulfur and called Dim Son Bush “The Devil.”

America needs to wake up and smell the sulfur, too. Here’s some background on the above:

LUIS POSADA CARRILES

THE DECLASSIFIED RECORD

CIA and FBI Documents Detail Career in International Terrorism; Connection to U.S.

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 153

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB153 /

Orlando Bosch with GOOGLE n Jeb Bush for some interesting connections to the present day.

Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez interviewed National Security Archive’s Peter Kornbluh and Letelier’s son, Francisco:

http://www.democracynow.org/2006/9/21/thirty_years_after_the_assassination_of

Chile security chief was CIA informer

BBC Tuesday, 19 September, 2000, 23:24 GMT 00:24 UK

Recently declassified documents in the United States show that the former head of the secret police in Chile, Manuel Contreras, was a paid informant for the US intelligence agency, the CIA.

The report, comprising CIA documents requested by the US Congress, show that contact with Contreras began in 1974 - a year after the military coup that brought General Augusto Pinochet to power.

Contreras oversaw the much-feared security service DINA

The report adds that the contact was maintained until 1977 - a year after Contreras plotted the killing of the then Chilean Foreign Minister and foe of General Pinochet, Orlando Letelier, in Washington.

A BBC correspondent in Washington, Nick Bryant, says the documents reinforce the view that the US turned a blind eye towards political repression in Chile during the Pinochet era and that the CIA was complicit in many human rights abuses.

Pinochet's confidant

As head of the security service, DINA, Contreras became the one of the most feared men in Chile, second only to General Pinochet.

The general's iron rule was underpinned by the tactics of brutal repression that saw thousands die and thousands more flee into exile. Others disappeared or were tortured.

CONTINUED…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/932897.stm

Of course, there are even more sulferous friends than these…

Bush s Longstanding Criminal Mexican Amigos

The disturbing ties of some of George W. Bush's Latino advisors

More on Bush-Amigos links in PBS Frontline interview with Gary Jacobs

By Julie Reynolds
Research assistance by Victor Almazán and Ana Leonor Rojo

LOS AMIGOS DE BUSH

“Dime con quién andas y te diré quién eres. (Tell me who you side with and I will tell you who you are.)” – “George W. Bush for President” web site

Those who say that George W. Bush has scant knowledge of foreign affairs don't understand his family's relationship with Mexico.

If one event could be said to make that relationship visible, it had to be the state dinner given eleven years ago by President Bush for Mexico's president, Carlos Salinas. It was an elegant yet boisterous gala, where the biggest movers and shakers in Texas and Mexico congregated and celebrated. This group was to become W's Mexican legacy, a gift of ties and connections passed on from the father to his son.

SNIP…

The Mexican president had spent a long day with President Bush signing trade pacts, the precursors of NAFTA. Salinas brought his so-called Dream Team: his commerce secretary, finance minister, and his personal Machiavelli, Jose Córdoba. It would later be astounding to see, as the decade unfolded, how many of that administration's proud men and women fell shamefully from grace - some exiled, some imprisoned and some assassinated.

No one knew it then, but many at that banquet would survive to one day help young W beat a path back to the White House. There were loyal "Bushfellas" who were old friends of the family: Commerce Secretary Robert Mosbacher Sr., General Colin Powell, and George Bush Senior's ever-present friend, Secretary of State James Baker. Gary Jacobs, whose Texas bank was about to be bought by the son of Mexico's billionaire-politico Carlos Hank González, was also a guest. Tony Garza, then a young judge, is now a Bush cabinet contender. Today, all are advisors or contributors to W's campaign.

Hidden among the glitterati were two relative unknowns. They were, however, familiar to the group at hand. They were the loyal "Amigos de Bush" from San Antonio: criminal defense lawyer Roy Barrera Jr. and car dealer Ernesto Ancira Jr. In contrast to the Salinas group, the ties of Barrera and Ancira to drug cartels would remain unnoticed for another decade. Their ties to George W. would grow stronger.

CONTINUED…

GOOGLE cache:

http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:Th5_dq9beuYJ:www.el...

May also be at:

http://www.newsmakingnews.com/contents10,2,00.htm

Henry Kissinger and Agusto Pinochet

“I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.” -- Henry A. Kissinger

Gee. If the guy W wanted to appoint head of the 9-11 Commission feels that way about democracy in Chile, what’s there to make us think he believes differently about democracy in the United States of America?

[Major Nikon]

69. What Bush did was far more egregious than a pardon

He had his own ambassador use political influence to free Bosch from Argentina and arrange his transport to the US, then when Bosch was jailed in the US, Bush again used his influence to stop deportation proceedings and free him inside the US. All for someone who his own Atty Gen called an "unrepentant terrorist".

[grasswire]

72. yep

and the same players are on deck for 2016.

Jeb.

Ros-Lehtinen.

Where is the outrage?

[Scurrilous]

47. K & R

[byeya]

48. How can you pardon a person who has never been indicted much less convicted?

An added memory, Weinberger was given a knighthood in the UK. Thatcher? I'll say Yes.

[rhett o rick]

49. Maybe I dont understand your question. Nixon and the Iran-Contra cabal were pardoned. nm

[byeya]

53. More probably I don't understand the law. I thought(think) a person had to be convicted of a crime

and ask for a pardon for his/her guilty act.
These people hadn't been charged, let alone tried and convicted, and yet received a pardon. There's no telling what an investigation and trial would have turned up in addition.
Can 0bama say about "Person A" I hearby pardon you for what you may have done. Can the President say, "No matter what you do in the future you are pardoned and are immune from investigation and trial"
That's what has me confused and did so at the time of Bush's pardons.

[rhett o rick]

55. I have read about it but dont have a good link at my fingertips.

But clearly one can be pardoned before indictment, etc. as it has been done repeatedly. I think the pardon can go as far as saying that it applies to any and all charges related to (fill in the blank). I dont think it's a blank check for anything.

[byeya]

56. Well, live and learn. Thanks for the information.

[byeya]

59. Ford pardoned Nixon so I guess this was another pre-emptive pardon

[underpants]

71. I believe that it is a blanket pardon for anything related to an event

it prohibits indictments in the first place

[byeya]

74. OK, I see what you're saying. Thanks! Seems a bit too much power to me. Keeping people

in the dark; covering up - keep the pardon but only allow it after a conviction.

[cascadiance]

80. Nixon set the template for this sort of election treason as noted in LBJ recordings...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022909338

[rhett o rick]

60. np. But dont take my word, I think your questions can be answered via Wiki. nm

[rhett o rick]

51. I wonder if there are pardons in the Cheney/Bush/Rummy cabal's future. nm

[rhett o rick]

52. Who specifically do you think made up the ruling cabal during the Iran-Contra fiasco? nm

Cheney for sure.

[Initech]

68. The BFEE: The real criminals and terrorists in our country.

[Octafish]

86. Why I Didn't Salute When Ollie North Came to Hot Springs (WARNING: GRAPHIC)

Why I Didn't Salute...

When Ollie North Came to Hot Springs

By JOHN BOMAR
CounterPunch December 16, 2005

"They took out their knives and stuck them under his fingernails. After they took his fingernails off, then they broke his elbows. Afterwards they gouged out his eyes. Then they took their bayonets and made all sorts of slices in his skin all around his chest, arms, and legs. They then took his hair off and the skin of his scalp. When they saw there was nothing left to do with him, they threw gasoline on him and burned him. The next day they started the same thing with a 13 year old girl. They did more or less the same, but they did other things to her too. First, she was utilized, raped by all the officers. They stripped her and threw her in a small room, they went in one by one. Afterwards they took her out tied and blindfolded. Then they began the same mutilating, pulling her fingernails out and cutting off her fingers, breaking her arms, gouging out her eyes and all they did to the other fellow. They cut her legs and stuck an iron rod into her womb."

SNIP...

These are but two of the hundreds of documented eyewitness accounts of the kind of brutal and sadistic rapes, sodomies, kidnappings, tortures and murders committed by the Contra forces in Nicaragua in the 1980's -- Contras that were clothed, fed and armed by the illegal efforts of Oliver North.

I guess it is no wonder that his recent visit to Hot Springs gave me waking nightmares. It was as if the spirits of those brutalized, tortured and murdered by the Contra "freedom fighters" were calling out to me. Perhaps it was my working knowledge of Spanish and my thirty years of travel to Latin America that brought these souls to my door. The images haunted and shamed me. The most horrible aspect of these tales is that the atrocities were commonly committed on the most vulnerable; young boys and girls, their pregnant mothers and their grandparents. Many times the families were forced to watch as these abominations were carried out. Terror, you see, is most effective and intimidating when viewed publicly. In all, over 30,000 civilians were killed in Nicaragua by the Contras, mostly peasants, rural doctors and health care workers, teachers, clergy, and civil administrators trying to afford social services to the poorest in the land. This is our government's most recent legacy in Central America.

The Sandanistas had been freely and fairly elected among seven active political parties, with 75% voter turn out. It was declared a just election by all international observers and monitors. After leading the rebellion to oust one of Latin America's most infamously brutal and greedy military dictators Anastacio Samoza, the new government chose a more socialized model that quickly garnered international acclaim for its efforts at providing health care, food, education, literacy and land reform for its population. It also brought on the wrath of the U.S. government and the CIA who financed the ex-national guardsmen: Samoza's former henchmen, who formed the core of the Contra forces. Eventually, the U.S. congress was so repulsed by the stories of horror and butchery coming out of the villages in northern Nicaragua, and lobbied strongly by ecumenical church organizations representing millions of church goers, they forbade any further financing of the effort or any further U.S. involvement. A congressional intelligence committee at the time confirmed that the Contras "raped, tortured and killed unarmed civilians, including children" and that "groups of civilians, including pregnant women and children were burned, dismembered, blinded and beheaded."

With the elimination of U.S. funds the Contra forces waned and were forced back into their sanctuaries across Nicaragua's borders. That was when Mr. North secretly went to work in the basement of the White House. His unlawful scheme eventually involved tens of millions of dollars, secretly selling arms to the Islamic fundamentalists in Iran. This sad story also includes sworn testimony by those involved of cocaine filled airplanes returning to the U.S. after dropping off supplies, explosives and arms to the Contras. Some have attributed this "coca pipeline" to the crack epidemic that swept through many American cities in the mid 1980's. By his own hand written accounts at the time, preserved in the last days of the Reagan administration, Mr. North acknowledged being repeatedly informed of contra ties to drug trafficking. Luis Posada, deeply implicated in the terrorist bombing of a Cubana DC 8 airliner filled with teenagers in 1976, and a confessed hotel lobby bomber, was a leading local coordinator of the effort. Many lurid tales have come to light in the ensuing years of our CIA,s dealings with the dirtiest of the dirty in Latin America during this era.

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/bomar12162005.html

"These gentlemen are the moral equivalent of America's Founding Fathers." -- Ronald Reagan

[G_j]

87. word

slime ball of nth degree.

[Berlum]

76. With respect for all honorable US Veterans, a final Memorial Day KICK

(in the keester for all the dishonorable Chickenhawk Republicans -- and all the Occult Deeds they have done to disgrace, undermine, and ripoff America and Americans.

[formercia]

82. I agree

Poppy was the one running Iran-Contra. He's the one who negotiated with the Iranians to hold off the release of the Hostages. Once he was Vice President, and having been CIA Director just a few years before, he was the natural choice to be the Ramrod for the War in Central America and the ensuing Iran-Contra affair.

As Poppy once said: "So, I lied."

[yourout]

85. As was Tora Bora.

[leveymg]

98. As was 9/11.

Last edited Tue May 28, 2013, 10:04 PM - Edit history (1)

Same CIA/CTC crew involved. Cofer Black and Rich Blee are the names most often named, but I suspect they were the designated flack catchers for the top command.

[Major Hogwash]

93. Another outstanding thread, exposing the Republicans for what they are!!!

Kicked and recommended.

[Hubert Flottz]

99. It's not a crime anymore if you're a republican.

Or a 1%er.

[blkmusclmachine]

101. The more things "change," the more things stay the same.

[navarth]

102. Thank you for this important thread, Octafish

As usual when I read one of your threads, my I.Q. goes up a few points. And I get a little sick to my stomach thinking about the BFEE.

[spanone]

106. democrats are pathetic when it comes to protecting us against republicans

reagan
bush
bush
cheney


corrupt as hell, yet they all run free.

but look how republicans go after democrats...benghazi...benghazi....benghazi....

[MinM]

108. Bewitched

The late Elizabeth Montgomery narrated a very good Iran-Contra Documentary:

[Octafish]

109. Gangsters!

Without watching the YooToobs, with one word, I remember the nice little old lady at the beginning summed up Reagan, Bush and the cabal...

[MinM]

110. Lee Hamilton'd

Unfortunately there were also the likes of Lee Hamilton keeping a lid on these abuses.

...Lee Hamilton featured prominently as an Iran-Contra fixer . As House chairman of the committee investigating Iran-Contra, Hamilton believed that it was “better to keep the public in the dark” than investigate “another Watergate”. He casually accepted the word of senior Reagan-Bush officials, including George H.W. Bush himself, who claimed that they were “out of the loop”...

http://www.globalresearch.ca/cover-up-and-propaganda-the-9-11-commission-finishes-its-dirty-work/779

...Barbara Honneger, a former White House Domestic Policy Advisor who had played a major role in exposing this secret deal, wrote an extended comment on Parry’s article. Her article illuminates how the report by the Task Force, which was chaired by Rep. Lee Hamilton, was nothing but a ‘white wash and cover up.’ One of its members, Dymally, drafted a Minority Report, but Hamilton prevented him from publishing it through bullying and threatening to fire his entire Congressional Staff. Honneger reveals how Banisadr’s letter was coordinated with a two-hour press conference where she presented reporters at the National Press Club with reams of incriminating evidence on the October Surprise cover up (she is now planning to release a videotape of this two-hour press conference). As she writes, this ‘flood of last-minute’ evidence on that historic day implicated the Reagan-Bush campaign in plans in delaying the release of the hostages, and led the Task Force Chief Council Lawrence Barcella to ask Lee Hamilton to extend the enquiry for a further three months. Hamilton refused.

This may seem puzzling at first. Why would Hamilton prefer to produce a ‘white wash and cover up’ report rather than extend the enquiry? The answer could lie in a conversation he had with Banisadr before the Task Force was established. In a personal interview, Banisadr revealed that Hamilton told him if there had been a clandestine deal between Reagan and Khomeini, all governments in the last twelve years would be considered illegal, and that this would be extremely harmful for the political system. Banisadr told him that the price of lying would be even higher, as the American people would lose trust not only in politicians but the entire political system if they became aware of this lie, which soon or late they would.

Here, we can see that Hamilton had already decided to produce his report even before setting up the Task Force, as he had calculated that the price of telling the truth would be extremely high. Had had he told the truth, it is nearly certain that many of the political decisions which have had disastrous global consequences, such as the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, would not have taken place...

http://disinfo.com/2013/03/argo-and-the-stolen-truth-about-iran/

http://www.rigorousintuition.ca/board2/viewtopic.php?p=496056#p496056