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Iranscam - Contragate: From The Men Who Brought You Beirut & Sky Wars

By VVAW

As everyone knows, in recent months a tremendous scandal has broken out over Iran/Contragate. Former National Security Council Chief Robert McFarlane, and the then National Security Council chief admiral John Poindexter, and Lt Col Oliver North, also of the NSC, arranged, with the knowledge and approval of President Reagan, to sell U.S. arms to Iran. The President claims this was done to gain support of "moderate" elements in the Iranian government in anticipation of the passing of the Ayatollah Khomeini.

Few believe this explanation. Most people assume Reagan was trying to buy the freedom of U.S. hostages being held in Lebanon in time for the mid-term elections. Reagan was beginning to look like a wimp because of his inability to free these hostages. What followed was an open bribe to the Iranians, a bribe that former Iran specialist for President Carter, Gary Sick, estimates at about 5000 tons of weapons worth about $500 to $1000 million over two years.

There are a couple of points here. First, after screaming for years that the Iranians are maniacs, evil terrorists, and that on principle one does not deal with "terrorists," Reagan went and did just that after repeatedly condemning other governments for doing the same thing. And it did this with a government that U.S. officials claim financed the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks that took over 200 Marine lives in 1983. (Of course those really responsible for those deaths were the U.S. government itself which put the Marines into a war zone and had Marines then proceed to take slides, and on the Marine commander in Beirut who, in a city notorious for its car bombings, put 300 Marines into a virtually undefended building.)

The act of selling arms to Iran also violated U.S. law, a law that the Reagan Administration had proposed to Congress, Another law was violated in that Congressional oversight committees were not informed, apparently on the advice of U.S. Attorney General Meese.

But this was only part of the orgy of law breaking. It turns out that having sold U.S. government property to Iran, LTC North proceeded to divert the profits to the Contra mercenaries fighting to overthrow the elected Sandinista government of Nicaragua. This, besides violating laws against using money from selling government materials, was in direct violation of the Boland Amendment forbidding U.S. government help to the Contras at that time. North also apparently diverted some of this Contra money to finance Congressional campaigns, seeking to defeat some Contra opponents and help Contra supporters.

Even before this, the shooting down of the Eugene Hasenfus on a CIA plane supplying the Contras inside Nicaragua left a trial that led directly back to Vice President George Bush. An initial report of an investigation by Senator Kerry of Massachusetts and the Senate Intelligence Committee was released in October of 1986 that described a vast "interconnecting" system of bank accounts, planes, helicopters, semi- clandestine landing strips, pilots, and military bases which are used for drug traffickers, arms smugglers, mercenaries, Nicaraguan Contras and organizations that support them." Kerry reported that this network had been set up by the National Security Agency and connected with the private network of Contra support through Oliver North.

At this point the people involved in this affair committed so many moral and legal crimes that even the I.S. media and Congress had to take notice. To mention one of the worst of these crimes, there is the selling of arms to Iran at the same time the CIA was giving military intelligence data to Iraq.This only makes sense if the U.S. is trying to prolong and intensify the Iran/Iraq War, a war that had gone on for seven years and has repeatedly threatened to expand and involved countries in one of the most strategically vital areas of the world. As directly as possible, this is an area well designed to be the flashpoint for World War III. It does not take superhuman intelligence to see this is not a fire on which to pour gasoline.In a sane society officials who were acting to prolong this war would be shot.

Under the circumstances it is not surprising that Reagan was finally forced to sack North and Poindexter, and finally allow the appointment of a special prosecutor. Originally Meese wanted to handle it all but since he is one of those who had set up the "private" supply system for the Contras, that plan was just a little too much.

North and Poindexter are now taking the 5th to avoid testifying about what they did or did not do as members of the NSC. LTC North has been particularly stubborn about wearing his medals and uniform as he desperately tries to avoid prison (Allentown is so, so inhuman). Connoisseurs will note that he was a Silver Star, awarded at the time during the Vietnam War when all an officer had to do to get one was to either kiss ass or technically come within range of enemy fire (i.e. their own troops). The fact that the circumstances under which he got his medal as classified makes it almost certain that his "war hero" credentials are as genuine as Ferdinand Marcos'.

In the middle of this spectacle, CIA chief William Casy had half of his brain removed to avoid having to testify any more before Congress. The doctors say it was a malignant tumor, but that would have been the most benign part of his brain. While he lies comatose in the hospital, the Administration denies that the public has any right to know his condition or that we have any right to expect replacement. (I personally support the idea of vegetable running the CIA, but the Administration's treating the question of replacement as obscene is ludicrous.)

So where does this leave us?

Congress is investigating, of course. With Reagan's popularity down and every Democrat hoping to ride the TV coverage into the Presidency, and all the Republicans hoping that Bush is one of the fall guys, there is not much chance the Reagan will get out of this one. He made an attempt to provoke a war between Honduras and Nicaragua in the hope of distracting attention, and will certainly try again, but the Hondurans have so far refused to play the role properly.

So far the main thrust of the Congressional investigations has focused on "What did the President know and when did he know it?"—as though it is better that the President had no idea of what was going on in his basement. Personally, I think that it is worse if he didn't know. I agree with the Soviets: in the nuclear age it is better that even the "enemy" have intelligent, competent leadership. Instead we have a President with a finger on the button who no longer can even pretend for 60 seconds not to be senile. Adding that to his already well-documented ignorance, laziness and inability to distinguish reality from a movie script, and we have a President totally incapable of controlling a bunch of yahoos who could be get us into the (last?) big one at any moment.

The question that the Congressional inquiries will not ask (but should) is what did Congress know and when did it know it? Does Congress really pretend it had no idea until now that Reagan was violating Congressional law on aiding the Contras? The whole world knows that Reagan was violating international law (as proved in the World Court, which found the U.S. guilty of aggression against Nicaragua) and U.S.law in seeking to overthrow a foreign government and in allowing U.S. citizens to carry on this work from within the U.S.

If Reagan was committed countless crimes, then much of Congress, with some honorable exceptions such as Senator Kerry, is accessory to the fact.

An even more fundamental question is why has this scandal hit now? Why didn't one of a thousand other acts or idiocies sink the Reagan Administration before now? There are a number of reasons. First, he who lives by "terrorist bashing" dies by "terrorist bashing." Second, Reagan's policies in Central America are so unpopular that he had to resort to increasingly desperate strategies to keep his Contra alive. Inevitably it blew up on him. Third, he took a beating in the Congressional elections and suddenly looks weak; the press, having been held back for years by their publishers and the fear of Reagan's "popularity," suddenly sees the chance to strike (and it would take a particularly degraded being not to take some satisfaction in seeing such an ignorant, lazy, corrupt, demagogic mediocrity as Reagan exposed for what he is!) It satisfies a certain superstition belief in "justice" that we all have.

And finally, the bill has come due for the Reagan binge. A doubled national debt, a sudden huge foreign debt, a wrecked industry, shattered hopes for the future are all coming home. As preciously serious cuts in social programs are replaced by savage ones and the phony prosperity dissipates, people are beginning to catch on to the fraud, just at the moment when Reagan had lost the ability to read his teleprompter.

—Evan Douthit, VVAW Chicago