Ronald Reagan - A Time for Choosing

[-Cp]

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Still timeless for even today...

[April15]

What a liar he was!

[KitchenKitten99]

What a liar he was!

What are the lies?

Please, educate us and use facts, not emotion. Be concise and to the point as well.

[April15]

What are the lies?

Please, educate us and use facts, not emotion. Be concise and to the point as well.To be concise and factual when the facts are hidden very well by a well trained group of protectors. What I can do is remind you of his direct involvement with Iran contra affair.

The Iran-Contra Affair (also called the Iran-Contra Matter and Iran-gate) was one of the largest political scandals in the United States during the 1980s. [1] It involved several members of the Reagan Administration who in 1986 helped sell arms to Iran, an avowed enemy, and used the proceeds to fund the Contras, an anti-communist guerrilla organization in Nicaragua. [2]

After the arms sales were revealed in November 1986, President Ronald Reagan appeared on national television and denied that they had occurred.[3] But a week later, on November 13, he returned to the airwaves to affirm that weapons were indeed transferred to Iran. He denied that they were part of an exchange for hostages. [4]
Contents
[hide]

* 1 The affair
o 1.1 Hostage taking
o 1.2 First arms sale
o 1.3 Subsequent dealings
o 1.4 The Contras
o 1.5 Drug money
* 2 Discovery and scandal
* 3 Tower Commission
* 4 Aftermath
* 5 George W. Bush Appointees
* 6 Contra drug links
* 7 See also
* 8 External links
* 9 Notes
* 10 Sources

[edit] The affair

The affair connected two quite disparate matters; on the one hand was arms sales to Iran, and on the other funding of Contra militants in Nicaragua. Direct funding had been made illegal through the Boland Amendment. The affair emerged when a Lebanese newspaper reported that the U.S. sold arms to Iran in exchange for the release of hostages by Hezbollah. Emails sent by Oliver North to John Poindexter support this.[5] However, the then Israeli ambassador to the U.S. claims that the reason was to establish links with elements of the military in Iran. Moreover, the arms sales apparently were under way already by 1980.[6] It is also noteworthy that the Contras did not receive all of their finances from arms sales, but also through their own, unrelated, drug trafficking.[7]

[edit] Hostage taking

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Middle East faced frequent hostage-taking incidents by organizations. In 1979, Iranian students took hostage 63 employees of the United States embassy in Iran. On January 20, 1981, the same day Ronald Reagan became President, the hostages were freed following the Algiers Accords. Hostage taking in the Middle East did not end there, however.[8]

In 1983, members of Al-Dawa ("The Call"), an exiled Iraqi political party turned militant organization, were imprisoned for their part in a series of truck bombs in Kuwait. In response to the imprisonment, an ally of Al-Dawa, Hezbollah took 30 hostages, [9] six of whom were American. Hezbollah demanded the release of the prisoners for these hostages. Members of the Reagan Administration believed that by selling arms to Iran, Iran would influence the Hezbollah kidnappers in Lebanon to release their hostages. At the time, Iran was in the midst of the Iran-Iraq War and could find few nations willing to supply it with weapons. [10] The sale of arms would also, according to National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane, improve strained relations with Iran.[1] For that reason, weapons were transferred to Iran. The administration stated that President Reagan was unaware of the transfer until attorney general, Edwin Meese, announced it to the media.[citation needed]

[edit] First arms sale

In summer 1985, [11] Michael Ledeen, a consultant of Robert McFarlane, asked Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres for help in the sale of arms to Iran. The Israeli government required that the sale of arms meet the approval of the United States government, and when it was convinced that the U.S. government approved the sale by Robert McFarlane, Israel obliged by agreeing to sell the arms. [12] In July 1985, Israel sent American-made BGM-71 TOW (Tube-launched, Optically-tracked, Wire-guided) anti-tank missiles. Reverend Benjamin Weir was subsequently released; despite the fact that arms were being sold to Iran, only Weir was released. This resulted in the failure of Ledeen's plan [8] with only three shipments through Israel. [12]

[edit] Subsequent dealings

Robert McFarlane resigned in December 1985[13]. He was replaced by Admiral John Poindexter. On the day of McFarlane's resignation, Oliver North, a military aide to the United States National Security Council (NSC), proposed a new plan for selling arms to Iran. This time, there were two new ideas. Instead of selling arms through Israel, the sale was to be direct. Second, the proceeds from the sale would go to the Contras at a markup. Oliver North wanted a $15 million markup, while contracted Iranian arms broker Manucher Ghorbanifar added a 41% markup of his own. [14] Other members of the NSC were in favor of North's plan. John Poindexter authorized the plan, and it went into effect. [11]

At first, the Iranians refused to buy the arms at the inflated price because of the excessive markup imposed by North and Ghorbanifar, but the arms were eventually sold in February with the shipment of 1000 TOW missiles to Iran. From May to November 1986, there were additional shipments of miscellaneous weapons and parts.[citation needed] Reagan claimed that the total of all arms sales was less than a planeload,[4] but given the volume of weapons this is highly unlikely.

[edit] The Contras

See Allegations of state terrorism by United States of America

The plan went ahead, and proceeds from the arms sales went to the Contras, a group engaged in an insurgency against the leftist Sandinista government of Nicaragua. The diversion was coordinated by Oliver North of the National Security Council. Supporting the Contras financially was an effort to assist them in their fight against the Nicaraguan government.

Both the sale of weapons to Iran and the funding of the Contras attempted to circumvent stated Administration policy and legislation passed by Congress, known as the "Boland Amendment," enacted over concerns of widespread human rights abuses by the Contras.[15] Administration officials argued that regardless of the Congress restricting the funds for the Contras, or any affair, the President (the administration) could carry on by seeking alternative means of funding such as private entities and foreign governments.[16]

[edit] Drug money

A more consistent source of funding for the Contras came from Latin American cocaine trafficking, much of which resulted in large quantities of the drug entering the United States for consumption. Released on April 13, 1989, the Kerry Committee report concluded that members of the U.S. State Department "who provided support for the Contras were involved in drug trafficking...and elements of the Contras themselves knowingly received financial and material assistance from drug traffickers." [17]

Furthermore, "the Contra drug links included...payments to drug traffickers by the U.S. State Department of funds authorized by the Congress for humanitarian assistance to the Contras, in some cases after the traffickers had been indicted by federal law enforcement agencies on drug charges, in others while traffickers were under active investigation by these same agencies." Houses of the Congress began to raise questions about the drug-related allegations associated with the Contras, causing a review in the spring of 1986 of the allegations by the State Department, in conjunction with the Justice Department and relevant U.S. intelligence agencies.[18]

As reported in The Wall Street Journal on January 29, 1997 [19], activities at the Mena, Arkansas airport allegedly involved then-governor Bill Clinton in a coverup of illegal drug-trading activity. The Wall Street Journal article goes on to state:

At the center of the web of speculation spun around Mena are a few undisputed facts: One of the most successful drug informants in U.S. history, smuggler Barry Seal, based his air operation at Mena. At the height of his career he was importing as much as 1,000 pounds of cocaine per month, and had a personal fortune estimated at more than $50 million. After becoming an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration, he worked at least once with the CIA, in a Sandinista drug sting. He was gunned down by Colombian hit men in Baton Rouge, La., in 1986; eight months later, one of his planes--with an Arkansas pilot at the wheel and Eugene Hasenfus in the cargo bay--was shot down over Nicaragua with a load of Contra supplies.


BOLAND

The Boland Amendment was an amendment to the House Appropriations Bill of 1982, which was attached as a rider to the Defense Appropriations Act of 1983. The House of Representatives passed the Boland Amendment 411-0 on December 8, 1982,[1] and it was signed by President Ronald Reagan on December 21, 1982. The amendment effectively outlawed US assistance to the Contras, while allowing overt efforts to stop military equipment to go to Nicaragua.
Contents
[hide]

* 1 Background
* 2 Summary of House Amendment 461
* 3 Notes
* 4 See also
* 5 External links

[edit] Background

During the early years of the Reagan administration, a civil war raged in Nicaragua, pitting the Marxist Sandinista leaders of the Nicaraguan government against CIA-financed Contra rebels. When the CIA carried out a series of acts of sabotage without Congressional intelligence committees giving consent, or even being made aware beforehand, the Republican-controlled Senate became enraged, leading to the passage of the Boland Amendment 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. It covered only appropriated funds spent by intelligence agencies (such as the CIA). Reagan's people used non-appropriated money spent by the National Security Council to circumvent the Amendment. No court ever made a determination whether Boland covered the NSC, and no one was ever indicted for violating it. Opponents alleged that Reagan's people violated the highly ambiguous amendment. Congress later resumed aid to the Contras, totaling over $300 million; the Sandinistas were voted out in 1990.

The Boland Amendment prohibited the federal government from providing military support "for the purpose of overthrowing the Government of Nicaragua." As such it was thought by many to be an unconstitutional interference with the President's ability to conduct foreign policy. 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.[2][3]

Administration officials argued that the Boland Amendment, or any act of Congress would not interfere with the president's conduction of foreign policy by restricting funds, as the president could seek funds from private entities or foreign governments.[4] In this spirit, and despite the Boland Amendment, Vice Admiral John M. Poindexter and his deputy, Lt. Colonel Oliver North, possibly without informing the president, secretly diverted to the Nicaraguan contras millions of dollars in funds received from a secret deal which had 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 to the world. This came as Democrats won back control of Congress in the 1986 elections. In public hearings of a joint House-Senate committee convened for purposes of investigating the affair, angry Democrats sought to prosecute Col. 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. Elections in Nicaragua subsequently ousted the Marxists from power.

I do not remember if this is from wikipedia or not, it may be. I have had it for years though.

[manu1959]

What are the lies?

Please, educate us and use facts, not emotion. Be concise and to the point as well.

looks like april 15th has been waiting for that question simce august of 07....:laugh2:

[April15]

looks like april 15th has been waiting for that question simce august of 07....:laugh2:I am a collector of sorts. Like stamps only my penchant is people. Public people. You would be surprised at the volumes on Bush that I have.

[avatar4321]

what the hell does Iran contra have to do with the speech posted at the beginning of the thread?

[April15]

what the hell does Iran contra have to do with the speech posted at the beginning of the thread?Absolutely nothing other than it is the end result of discrediting the speaker thus rendering the speech null.

[manu1959]

Absolutely nothing other than it is the end result of discrediting the speaker thus rendering the speech null.

so if i can post a list of obama lies does that render all of his speeches null...