The Iran-Contra Scandal

"I went down to the demonstration /
to get my fair share of abuse . . ."

And this is why: the Reagan Administration. Its support for the Contras and similar death squad entities in Latin America. 

Iran-Contra.

What was that again?  Israel-US-Iran-Iraq-Nicaragua involved in a bizarre, intricate scheme that came down to trading weapons to Iran for cash and a trickle of hostage releases in Lebanon; the cash was to be rerouted to the Contras secretly as a way to get around US legal restrictions against sending weapons to either Contras or Iranians. It was so brazenly stupid that even now, looking back, I'd be amazed except for continued blunders and stupidity, such as how an American officer -- after US forces have spent more than ten years in Afghanistan -- could be so dense as to burn Korans and basically hand a political victory over to the Taliban by inciting serious unrest throughout the region. And we wonder why the Afghan Army being trained by the West for an entire decade is either A) not ever going to be up to the task we "assigned" them; or B) prefering not to, like an army of Bartleby the Scriveners?  Or that three out of four Republican presidential candidates (excepting only Ron Paul) in this year's national nominating process have already loudly announced their intention of participating in or even gleefully starting an Israel/US-Iran war?  Good God, folks!  How else can we define collective madness?
   

"What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how
infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and
admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like
a god!"

Today's Rune: Wholeness.

There Will Be Nightmares: Eugene Jarecki's Reagan

Scarier than any horror movie I've ever seen, Eugene Jarecki's Reagan (2011) just premiered on HBO. It's intense and should generate a lot of intelligent discussion. Much to consider. Still absorbing the contents, which are contextualized and very pertinent to the here and now. 

Today's Rune: Breakthrough.  

No Mr. Bond, No Happy Elves

Sad to say, no 007 came in time to stop the oil spill, no happy elves to plug the leaks. On the other hand, reality is sort of like a James Bond film, with BP directed by an Ernst Stavro Blofeld or an Auric Goldfinger. You may recall Blofeld's headquarters on a fortified oil rig, or Goldfinger's plan to contaminate Fort Knox and corner the market on gold? Whether intentionally or not, BP is now presenting a similarly clear and present danger to North America, only with more "success." 

British Petroleum or BP is, from its Banish Pinking to Beyond Petroleum sloganeering, the corporation formerly known as the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company . . .  but all that's for another post: oil and the world wars, Operation Ajax/the 28 Mordad coup d'état (1953) in Iran, the Iranian Revolution as backlash and here we are in the oily present -- all sordid, all real.  Nothing much to do with the heroic (or antiheroic) Bond nor his helpful American sidekick, Felix Leiter.  No Mr. Bond, no happy elves.*  If there's a top kill now, it has more to do with messily doing in real nature than neatly thwarting the evil schemes of cartoon villains.  Still, will the real James Bond please come forward and do something?

Today's Rune: Wholeness.  *Cf. Iggy Pop, "Winners and Losers," Blah-Blah-Blah (1986).  

The Company Formerly Known as Blackwater

The company formerly known as Blackwater International is now, I kid you not, called Xe (pronounced like Z, the great Costa-Gavras film featuring the Greek paramilitary organization, CROC -- Christian Royalist Organization against Communism). Blackwater resembled CROC and was heavily bankrolled by US tax payers; it was used to supplement the US military, to provide security and logistical support for the occupation of Iraq (the Iraqi government has since kicked it out, due to a number of controversial "incidents"), among other sites chosen for its operations by the Bush-Cheney administration. There was a direct connection between Blackwater's ideological affinities, its actions, its contacts and its contracts. Blackwater formed the core of Condaleeza Rice and the State Department's paramilitary security team in Iraq, a sort of Freikorps, American style.

Erik D. Prince, Chairman and CEO of Blackwater International and Xe, an über-conservative Christian promoter, has given $1,000 or more in contributions to such guardians of the Right as Jesse Helms, Pat Buchanan, Rick Santorum, G.W. Bush, Tom DeLay and Oliver North. I won't even go into the many Michigan connections at this juncture. It's all part of the public record, there to see for anyone willing to do a little basic research on the internet.


Here's a timely snippet from Bill Sizemore's recent article, "Xe returns to training roots after 'implosion in the swamp'" (Norfolk/Hampton Roads Virginia-Pilot, March 15, 2009):

Blackwater founder Erik Prince announced earlier this month that he was stepping down as chief executive and bringing in a new leadership team.

Other than Prince, who will remain as chairman but is stepping away from daily oversight of the company, all of the top-level executives who steered Blackwater through its tempestuous first decade are gone.

Link to article: http://hamptonroads.com/2009/03/xe-returns-roots-after-implosion-swamp


As the Obama Administration re-orients American foreign policy, it's moving away from such propaganda rhetoric that surrounded "The War on Terror" and Bush-Cheney-Rice's over-reliance on paramilitary or private security groups like Blackwater. I'd love to see a renaming of "Homeland Security" as well. In any case, so far, so good.

Today's Rune: Fertility.

POW, 1989-2009

The Bush family seems to like taking prisoners. After ordering the invasion of Panama in 1989, George Bush (Sr.) had US soldiers grab a former CIA associate, Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega. He's been held in Florida as a POW ever since, but is due for either release or transfer to France for further legal proceedings.

I have a rare copy of America's Prisoner: The Memoirs of Manuel Noriega (with Peter Eisner; Random House, 1997), and it's interesting. Noriega's ground-eye view of the invasion is riveting, as are all sorts of tidbits about various and sundry. A post on some of the details at some point, I suspect.

Every picture tells a story, don't it? Here's Daddy Bush, VP and former head of the CIA, chatting it up with Noriega before things turned sour. How many now remember the Reagan administration's deadly antics in Central America, specifically Iran-Contra? The gang of crooks was all there, Dick Cheney included.

Today's Rune: Partnership.

Musical Chairs, Revolving Wars a la Orwell

Okay, so: there's a lot of buzz about the current Hotel California president, G.W. Bush, either bombing Iran or letting the Israeli Air Force do their best first.

I saw a report today via UPI citing an Israeli official who claims Bush will launch a U.S. operation between election day and his last day in office, sort of like General Jack Ripper in Dr. Strangelove (imagine Dick Cheney riding a "newcular" bomb as it goes to target).

Moreover, imagine what such a catastrophe would do to everybody but the rich and famous living in their gated compounds and gilded mine shafts . . . More than just higher gas prices, I'm guessing.

Has anyone read George Orwell's 1984 lately? Not only are we enduring (and allowing) doublespeak and Big Brother, but how about bizarre revolving wars started from on high?

Consider things since 1980. First, the Reagan-Bush folks replace Jimmy Carter, giving the green light to contras in Central America (1981+), Israel in the Middle East, and kudos to Saddam Hussein for his invasion of Iran (1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War). Israel invades Lebanon (1982), Panama's Manuel Noriega gets CIA backing, Saddam Hussein gets US intel and logistical support. US goes into Lebanon, pulls out after Marines are killed in barracks bombing (1983), but promptly invades Grenada (1983).

Iran-Contra affair puts a damper on things for while, but only after Reagan-Bush have traded arms for hostages and sent a cake, a Bible and TOW missiles to Iran. Israel likes to see Iran-Iraq War, and supports Reagan-Bush happily. Oh yeah, Israel launches air strike against Iraq in 1981 with US backing. Reagan-Bush aggressively arm and support Islamic insurgents against Soviets and their allies in Afghanistan for two presidential terms, 1981-1989.

Fast forward to 1989, with Bush, Sr., as president. Bush-Quayle (and we thought Spiro Agnew was a buffoon) order invasion of Panama to take out former Reagan-Bush "ally," Manuel Noriega, who to this day sits in a Florida prison.

1990, Saddam Hussein orders the invasion of Kuwait, the "19th province of Iraq" artificially created by the British Empire after WWI for the purposes of protecting its oil interests and dividing and conquering the "natives," initiating the Persian Gulf War.

The US then begins massing (with diplomatic construction of real coalition partners) and launching Operation Desert Storm in 1991 with limited military objectives -- drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait and contain Hussein's battered military remnants.

Fast forward to G.W. Bush-Cheney. 9/11/2001. With the Russians out since the late 80s and Taliban in power, invasion and occupation of Afghanistan/Operation Enduring Freedom, 2001-present.

March 20, 2003-present: Bush-Cheney begin elective war (Operation Iraqi Freedom), widely known as the Iraq War or Second Persian Gulf War.

2006: Israel invades Lebanon again, a sequel to the 1982 war.

2008: speculation about air and naval strikes against Iran, Republican candidate John McCain having already joked he'd "Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran" if he was president, and Bush-Cheney seemingly willing to do just that themselves. Time will tell.

The real question is this: who have been "the winners" of Reagan-Bush-Quayle-Bush-Cheney's policies? Follow the money . . . . .


To follow up on yesterday's post, here's a still from Shaft's Big Score (1972).


One answer to the world's issues is to hook up freely across cultures -- diversity! Like Mexican-born Salma Hayek (Jiménez), of Lebanese-Spanish descent. She recently had a kid with a Frenchman, and though they just called off a tentative wedding, this is the way to go! Mix the gene pool widely! We've still got too many "hang ups" as a species. Make love, not war!

Today's Rune: Journey.

The Good Fight

Latest Esquire (June 2008) has a thoughtful essay by Charles P. Pierce, "The Cynic and Senator Obama" (pages 107-115) placing the 2008 election in historical context. Here's a brief sample:

The war powers of the Congress had been deeded wholesale to the executive long before Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz and a passel of think-tank cowboys found within them the right of a fecklessly incompetent president to make war unilaterally on anyone, anywhere, forever. The war in Iraq is the powerful bastard child of the Iran-Contra scandal, which went unpunished.

The ownership of the people over their politics -- and therefore, over their government -- had been placed in quitclaim long before the towers fell, and the president told the people to be just afraid enough to let him take them to war and just afraid enough to reelect him, but not to be so afraid that they stayed out of the malls . . . (p. 110)

First of all, anyone these days who even contemplates Iran-Contra let alone invokes it to gird an argument has got to be applauded. Secondly, the overall essay takes Barack Obama quite seriously, if cautiously. Given Obama's imminent status as Democratic challenger for the presidency, this is a timely piece worth thinking about.


As of about now, most of the pre-Fort Sumter secessionist and ride 'em cowboy states lean McCain/modern Republican and most of the Upper South and old Union states lean Obama/modern Democratic or are in play. Today's Democrats need a net gain of one major state from 2004 to win in November.

Yesterday's Rune: Warrior. Today's Rune: Wholeness.

PBS Frontline: Showdown With Iran

FRONTLINE INVESTIGATES MOUNTING TENSION FOR THE U.S. IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND ASKS: IS IRAN NEXT?

FRONTLINE presents
SHOWDOWN WITH IRAN
Tuesday, October 23, 2007, at 9 P.M. ET on PBS

www.pbs.org/frontline/showdown

As the United States and Iran are locked in a battle for power and influence across the Middle East -- with the fear of an Iranian nuclear weapon looming in the background -- FRONTLINE gains unprecedented access to the Iranian hard-liners shaping government policy. In Showdown with Iran, airing Tuesday, October 23, 2007, at 9 P.M. ET on PBS (check local listings), FRONTLINE examines how U.S. efforts to install democracy in Iraq have served to strengthen Iran's position as an emerging power in the Middle East.

"You will not find a single instance in which a country has inflicted harm on us and we have left it without a response," deputy head of Iran's National Security Council Mohammad Jafari tells FRONTLINE in his first television interview. "So if the United States makes such a mistake, they should know that we will definitely respond. And we don't make threats."

There are increasing signs that the Bush administration is seriously considering military action before it leaves office if Tehran continues to defy U.N. demands that it cease enriching uranium for its nuclear program -- a program the Iranians insist is for peaceful purposes. "The president has said repeatedly that it is unacceptable for Iran to have nuclear weapons," former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton tells FRONTLINE. "If action is not taken in terms of regime change or, if need be, the use of military force, the question of when Iran achieves nuclear weapons is entirely in Iran's own hands. And that is extraordinarily undesirable."

But Richard Armitage, President Bush's former deputy secretary of state, warns, "It would be the worst of worlds for an outgoing administration to start a conflict."

From the Press Release.

Debris Field

Two books about the Iran-Contra scandal shed considerable light on how power really works behind closed doors -- and in full view of the general public.

Michael Lynch and David Bogen provide a dense but fascinating deconstruction of a historical moment in the Reagan Administration with The Spectacle of History: Speech, Text, and Memory at the Iran-Contra Hearings (Duke University Press, 1996), while independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh summarizes the whole fiasco in Firewall: The Iran-Contra Conspiracy and Cover-up (W.W. Norton, 1997).

A sample – including Prince Bandar yet again -- from the meticulous Walsh (b. born 1/8/1912, now 95):

Against a backdrop of negative publicity, the Reagan administration . . . sought to increase funding for the Contras [contrarrevolucionarios attempting to overthrow the Sandinistas in Nicaragua]. Congress responded by enacting the most severe of the Boland amendments which barred the CIA and the Defense Department as well as any “entity engaged in intelligence activities” from assisting the Contras. . . . . Reagan signed the appropriation acts containing the Boland amendments, but he had no intention of abiding by the restrictions.

First, he [i.e. Ronald Reagan] directed Robert McFarlane to “keep the Contras together body and soul,” ignoring the fact that McFarlane could not do so without breaking the law. McFarlane then invited the Saudi Arabian ambassador, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, to replace part of the funds withheld by Congress. Bandar arranged a contribution of $1 million a month to the Contras, beginning in mid-1984. At a breakfast meeting with Reagan in early 1985, King Fahd bin Abdul Aziz volunteered to double that amount. In all, the Saudis contributed $32 million to the Nicaraguan insurgents.

When the CIA was forced to stop assisting the Contras, Director William Casey reassured the Contra leaders that U.S. support would continue. He and [Duane] Clarridge introduced Oliver North in July 1984 as the Contras’ future government contact. Thereafter, North reported directly to Casey as well as to McFarlane.

Source: Walsh, Firewall, p. 19 of 544.

Birthdays: Bertha Felicitas Sophie Freifrau von Suttner, Charles Joseph Bonaparte, Cole Porter, Fred Waring, Robert Strange McNamara, Jackie Mason (b. Yacov Moshe Maza), Jackie Wilson (b. Detroit), Johnny Depp, Kaleth Miguel Morales Troya.

Hasta La Vista!

Notes On A Scandal: The Iran-Contra Affair

The Iran-Contra affair is way too convoluted to recount here in detail, but it does have a lot to do with today's secret goings-on in the Middle East. Basically, a bunch of people in the Ronald Reagan White House did end runs around the U.S. Congress and the bulk of the American people to do whatever the hell they wanted to. Specifically, they wanted to overthrow the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and get hostages back in the Middle East without appearing to do either. In the mid-1980s, Reagan's people sold anti-tank weapons (secret deals sweetened with bizarre gifts, like an inscribed Bible and a cake shaped like a key, if memory serves) to Iran; Iranians were supposed to pressure Hezbollah in Lebanon to release hostages. At least 1,000 anti-tank missiles made it to Iran and a handful of hostages were released. Profits from the deal were funneled to the anti-Sandinista Contras. Drug-running operations added to the Contra coffers, and the CIA was involved in airlifting logistics. Israel was involved, as well: aiding and abetting the U.S. transfers to Iran, which was at the time fighting Saddam Hussein's Iraq (the gruesome Iran-Iraq War lasted from 1980 to 1988). None of this, mind you, is conspiracy theory -- it's all historical fact; though I'm sure there's more that is not yet known in the details. The U.S. also supplied weapons and logistical support to Iraq during the war. Reagan's clandestine operations in the Middle East went back to the waning days of the Jimmy Carter presidency, in fact, in a quid pro quo release of American embassy hostages held in Iran.

Some of the characters involved included Robert Gates, then in the CIA and now overseeing the Iraq War as Secretary of Defense (he met with Reagan's goon Oliver North and declared himself satisfed --in a memo -- that the CIA was "clean" as far as North's operations were concerned); and Dick Cheney, a man I loathed then and now, who pissed me off during the Iran-Contra investigations with his cock-eyed statements about anything and everything.

Today's Rune: The Blank Rune.

Birthdays: Mahavira, Tiny Tim (b. Herbert Butros Khaury), Herbie Hancock, John Kay, Lois Reeves, Amy Ray, Shannen Doherty.

Post dedicated to Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (11/11/1922-4/11/2007).

Downfall, American Style

April 2006, a nation awaits the downfall of the Junior Bush regime. . . . .

It's coming. The Bush presidency is crumbling, and short of an oil hall putsch, we will be rid of them by early 2009 regardless of Scooter, Abramoff and the rest of this den of thieves.

This is the way of American presidents. Since 1900, two have been assassinated, two more died in office "naturally," and all the two timers suffered major crises in their second terms.

If we start with Eisenhower, he had to deal with Sputnik and the Gary Powers U2 spy incident. His tricky little VP, Richard Milhous Nixon, lost to JFK in the tight and nasty 1960 election. JFK was assassinated not even three years into his tumultuous first term. LBJ withdrew in 1968 thanks to the Tet Offensive and general Vietnam fiasco. Nixon made his infamous comeback, only to have to resign in the wake of Watergate. Ford pardoned him and promptly lost to Jimmy Carter, who because of a bizarre combination of personal honesty, national "malaise," and the Iranian hostage crisis, lost in 1980 to Ronald Reagan, who found himself losing his mind and grip on power thanks in part to the Iran-Contra scandal (remember the great idea of sending cakes, Bibles and missiles to the crafty Iranians? While sending missiles and other equipment to Saddam Hussein, and Stinger missiles to the Afghan guerillas, who included among their number Osama Bin-Laden?) Senior Bush, of course, had been immersed in all the same messes, as well, and had been a CIA friend and supporter of Manuel Noriega. As President, he ordered the invasion of Panama and toppled Noriega, dropping the unfortunately pockmarked man into a Florida prison cell for the rest of his life. Some friend. Next, he organized the grand invasion of Kuwait, hurling Hussein's Iraqis back and inflicting heavy casualties. But then he managed to bungle an alarmingly high approval rating via his inept handling of the economy and aloofness from the common people, leaving the door open for Bill Clinton, who of course got himself into heaps of trouble over his various skanky girlfriends and general dissembling. He managed to survive, but in early 2001 the Republicans swept back into power with their boy Junior, one of the most stupid and wreckless men to ever hold office (moral: never trust a recovering alcoholic with power.) Finally, thanks to the Iraq disaster and intertwining corruption scandals, this wicked and imbecilic group of plundering buffoons are losing their grip,too. Of course, they get to crawl from the wreckage -- leaving the rest of us poor slobs to deal with their toxic garbage dump for God knows how long -- maybe until the world collapses in shock from the collective ravages of humankind.

The main point being, people have been tricked and fooled forever, but leaders are leaders, and they all go away eventually. Small comfort, but it's good to remember.

Two intense and excellent film treatments of this topic are Werner Herzog's Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1977) and Oliver Hirschbiegel's Downfall (2004). Anyone who sees these and has a pulse has to see the folly of trusting megalomaniacs. These movies depict downfalls in epic German style, of course. Americans, if not any less violent than Germans, are mercifully less disciplined and less organized, and so the inevitable downfall of our leaders does not automatically bring the downfall of the entire nation. Too, we have a simpleminded but workable Constitutional system in place to ensure a relatively smooth transition of power -- or at least we do until now. Thanks to 9/11 and the Patriot Act and the war with radical Islam, not to mention the disasters wrought by global warming, all bets are off from here on out.

Auf Weidersehen . . . . .