warning: this will be a political update.
some of you might not be too familiar with the following period in u.s history, so i’ll give you a brief refresher-course:
in 1979 u.s foreign policy suffered two almost simultaneous setbacks:
1-marxist guerilla’s in nicaragua overthrew a brutal and despotic dictatorship that had been enjoying the support of the u.s. the dictators armies fled to the jungle where they launched raids on the new government and called themselves ‘contras’.
2-islamic rebels in iran overthrew a brutal and despotic dictatorship that had been enjoying the support of the u.s.
the reagan administration hated the marxists in nicaragua and wanted to help the ‘contras’. the problem being that the ‘boland amendment’ banned american support for the contras.
in the meantime the islamic regime in iran was sponsoring terrorism against the united states (killing 241 marines in beirut in 1983, for example).
ronald reagan said in public:
‘america will never make concessions to terrorists’.
a noble sentiment, but at that exact same time the reagan administration secretly delivered 400 t.o.w missiles to the same regime in iran who were sponsoring terrorism. the deal was supposed to be a trade:
weapons given to iran in exchange for hostages. but it didn’t work.
iran paid for the weapons but never released any hostages (except for benjamin weir, the cia’s beirut station chief).
and because the money that came from the sale of weapons to iran wasn’t legal (it being illegal to sell weapons to terrorist states, after all…), the reagan administration had a lot of money sitting around and nothing to do with it (seeing as it wasn’t even supposed to exist).
so the reagan administration took the illegal money and funneled it (illegally) to the contra’s.
the contra’s were meanwhile involved in ‘freedom fighting’ (aka-assasinating elected leaders and raping missionaries and nuns).
the transfer of money from iran to nicaragua was overseen by richard secord and albert hakim and oliver north.
by 1986 the reagan administration had illegally sold over 1,000 missiles to iran, with the money from the sales going to fund the contra’s.
eventually these very illegal endeavours were brought to light by investigative journalists and the operation was, ostensibly, shut down.
reagan’s friend and attorney general ed meese admitted:
‘certain monies received in transactions with iran were made available to forces opposing the marxists in nicaragua.’
so the reagan administration (who had started and overseen the whole illegal operation) appointed some people to investigate.
but they appointed lawrence walsh and john tower, personal friends of george bush, senior, and ronald reagn to head up the investigation.
during the investigations it was also brought to light (by senator john kerry) that the people bringing money to the contras were also bringing cocaine into the united states, selling it, and bringing the money back to the contra’s.
while running for election in 1988 george bush (ex-head of the cia) said:
‘i was out of the loop’.
but records indicate that george bush was at almost every meeting wherein this organization was planned and put into place.
ronald reagan said ‘i din’t know that we were helping the contra’s’.
but the head of national security council said ‘the president was briefed on the situation with the iranians and the contras’.
the issue faded from public scrutiny because of a massive governmental cover-up organized by the reagan administration.
but the undeniable truth is that the reagan administration sold weapons to terrorists in iran, gave the money to bloodthirsty terrorists in nicaragua, and when the money ran low they resorted to selling cocaine in the united states to fund the terrorists in nicaragua. (remember nancy reagan’s ‘just say no’? i guess that only applied to drugs that weren’t being sold to fund terrorists).
i’m not saying anything new here. all of these facts are