THE GOP SPEAKS TO AMERICA
“The charge has been made that the United States has shipped weapons to Iran as ransom payment for the release of American hostages in Lebanon, that the United Stare undercut its allies and secretly violated American policy against trafficking with terrorists. Those charges are utterly false. We did not—repeat—did not trade weapons or anything else for hostages, nor will we.
To summarize: Our government has a firm policy not to capitulate to terrorist demands. That no concessions policy remains in force, in spite of the wildly speculative and false stories about arms for hostages and alleged ransom payments. We did not — repeat — did not trade weapons or anything else for hostages, nor will we”.
Ronald Reagan said that on November 13, 1986.
For those who have been led to believe the man was a saint because they were born too late to really know him and have heard very little to the contrary, he really wasn’t.
He started the decline of the Middle Class, closed institutions so that the mentally ill were thrown out homeless onto the streets, did what he could to kill unions, allowed religion too prominent a position in secular politics which led to his extremely slow response to the AIDS crisis among other things, and lied to the American people a lot.
His first big lie was to take credit for freeing the hostages taken in the 1979 Iran revolution, pretending the idea of him as president was a threat enough to have Iran buckle, when, in fact, the diplomacy that bought about the release had taken place quietly under Carter who ended up facing the same fate as John Adams who lost his bid for reelection while quietly applying diplomacy to avert war with France, but the quietness of it giving the impression that nothing was happening.
Had the timing been better in both cases, perhaps both Adams and Carter would have been reelected.
Reagan made a few blunders that have been erased from popular history, like the bombing of a marine base under his watch, the deaths of quite a few people at the hands of Middle Eastern states, and the taking of hostages in Lebanon.
There were no investigations called for, so unlike recent times where investigations are called at the slightest provocation, people under the age of 35 would probably have little knowledge of the events.
But the biggest of his lies was that November statement to the American people.
Reagan wanted to get the hostages out while still attempting to look tough, and part of the tough image called for telling the American people that the United States did not negotiate for hostages.
This was technically correct if you accept that the approach he took, exchanging them for weapons, not money, made a difference.
Iran was an enemy state, you should know that by all the GOP objections to the Iran Nuclear deal under Obama, yet we were supplying them with arms to get our hostages out of Lebanon, a country Iran was friends with at the time.
Ronald Reagan was of a generation that kept diaries and Journals, something done especially by people who were in high positions since they just had to know people would want to know the little events of their private lives and what they thought about the great and little things happening around them.
So even as Saint Ronald told the American people that there was nothing to see here, he wrote in his diary in December of 1986:
“ N.S.C. briefing. Subject was our undercover effort to free our 5 hostages held by terrorists in Lebanon. It is a complex undertaking with only a few of us in on it. I won’t even write in the diary what we’re up to”.
And then within 2 days of that entry he wrote:
“ I then had a meeting with Don R., Cap W. and Bud M., John P., Geo. Schultz and Mahan of C.I.A. This had to do with the complex plan which could return our 5 hostages & help some officials in Iran who want to turn that country from its present course & on to a better relationship with us. It calls for Israel selling some weapons to Iran. As they are delivered in installments by air our hostages will be released. The weapons will go to the moderate leaders in the army who are essential if there is to be a change to a more stable govt. We then sell Israel replacements for the delivered weapons. None of this is a gift–the Iranians pay cash for the weapons–so does Israel”.
These entries seem to contradict his hope that perception would replace reality when he told the American people in March, 1987, after his administration got caught,
The patent might terminate in 2018 but that’s just levitra 20mg uk unless it’s extended further more, which is definitely possibly considerably more than simply very likely. Men who suffer viagra cipla india from this dreaded condition normally seek help or a hair loss breakthrough from hair care experts from different clinics. Let’s be over here cialis on line listened to together below. 1. These conditions should be verified properly in order to detect the body adequacy and tolerance degree to be safely involved in the consumption. order cialis from canada “A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that’s true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not. As the Tower board reported, what began as a strategic opening to Iran deteriorated, in its implementation, into trading arms for hostages.”
President Reagan provided weapons Tehran for its war with Saddam Hussein, who was actually an ally of the U.S. at the time.
How’s that for being a good and trustworthy friend?
Under the direction of Oliver North, who now has a show on Fox and had a lot to say recently about the $400,000,000 owed to Iran since Reagan became president, the proceeds of those sales were then funneled to the Contras fighting the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.
So the United States was selling arms to the enemy and then using the proceeds to fund a war that by law we were not supposed to be involved in and for which Congress had denied any financial involvement.
He did this behind Congress’s back in spite of a vote of Congress to keep out of the Contra/Sandinista conflict..
The secret began to unravel after a secret mission to Teheran brought a Bible with a handwritten verse from President Reagan to the Iranian leaders, which was somewhat offensive to an Islamic state, especially that one at the time, and some of the missiles that were passed from Israel as part of the deal had the Star of David insignia on them, and Iran reacted.
There was also a key-shaped cake to symbolize the anticipated ”opening” to Iran.
A further Reagan diary entry stated simply,
“I agreed to sell TOWs to Iran”.
TOW stands for Tube-launched, Optically tracked, Wire-guided missiles, which are anti-tank missiles.
Oh, and he delivered hundreds of them.
Oliver North was indicted for his actions, but this was later overturned by appellate court judge Laurence Silberman who was later in charge of finding the non-existent WMDs that got us into the Iraq war.
In December 1992, outgoing President George H.W. Bush offered Christmas pardons to Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and five other Iran-Contra scandal figures including John Poindexter and Elliot Abrams who eight years later showed up in George W’s administration.
Now, while the GOP, including Oliver North, is claiming that President Obama just paid that $400,000,000 in exchange for the January release of four American hostages held by Tehran, what they choose to ignore, or hide, is that this was money that was deposited by Iran before the 1979 revolution to buy U.S. military equipment, and frozen under President Jimmy Carter after Americans were taken hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.
Iran has been suing for three decades to get its money back, and ultimately won their suit. The longer it took for the United States to pay the money back, the higher the interest would grow, and the interest on that money can get pretty steep after thirty years.
And lest people forget, besides the arms for hostages business, part of the agreement that led to the 52 remaining embassy hostages being freed in 1981 under Reagan, was that Iran got back $3 billion of its $12 billion in frozen assets as well.
But Oliver North, the manipulator in the Arms for Hostages Deal, claims, as he did recently on Fox News, that the Obama administration bent over backwards “to support the Iranian regime.”
Clearly this is not the case in this instance as opposed to what he and Reagan did, but, hey, it’s Obama.
Why deal in reality?