kpete Donating Member (1000+ posts) Journal Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Fri Jul-02-10 02:05 PM
Original message
Rethinking Iran-Contra-By Robert Parry-Sabotaging Jimmy Carter Updated at 3:51 PM
Edited on Fri Jul-02-10 02:50 PM by kpete
Rethinking Iran-Contra
By Robert Parry
July 1, 2010
The conventional view of the Iran-Contra scandal is that it covered the period 1985-86, when President Ronald Reagan became concerned about the fate of American hostages in Lebanon and agreed to secretly sell weapons to Iran’s Islamist government to gain its help in freeing the captives.
Supposedly, the scheme went awry when White House aide Oliver North and other participants got carried away, including North’s decision to divert profits from the arms sales to another one of Reagan’s priorities, the Nicaraguan contra rebels whose CIA assistance had been cut off by Congress.
The Iran-Contra scandal was exposed in fall of 1986 after the shooting down of a North supply plane over Nicaragua and revelations in Lebanon of Reagan’s arms sales to Iran. A White House staff shake-up, including North’s firing, and some wrist-slaps from Congress for Reagan’s alleged inattention to details resolved the scandal, at least that was how Official Washington saw it.
The few dissenters who wouldn’t accept that tidy conclusion – such as Iran-Contra special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh – were mocked and marginalized by the news media, including the Washington Post (which ran an article concluding that Walsh’s consistency in pursuing the scandal was “so un-Washington†and that he would depart as “a perceived loserâ€).
But an accumulating body of evidence suggests that the traditional view of Iran-Contra was mistaken, that this conventional understanding of the scandal was like starting a novel in the middle and assuming you’re reading the opening chapter.
Indeed, it now appears clear that the Iran-Contra Affair began five years earlier in 1980, with what has often been treated as a separate controversy, called the October Surprise case, dealing with alleged contacts between Reagan’s presidential campaign and Iran.
In view of the latest evidence – and the crumbling of the long-running October Surprise cover-up – there appears to have been a single Iran-Contra narrative spanning the entire 12 years of the Reagan and Bush-41 administration, and representing a much darker story.
And it was not simply a tale of Republican electoral skullduggery and treachery, but possibly even more troubling, a story of rogue CIA officers and Israel’s Likud hardliners sabotaging a sitting U.S. president, Jimmy Carter.
Plus, with Washington’s failure to get at the larger truth about the Iran-Contra Affair, crucial patterns were set: Republicans acted aggressively, Democrats behaved timidly, and the U.S. national news media was transformed from Watergate-era watchdogs, to lapdogs and finally to guard dogs protecting national security wrongdoing.
In that sense, the Iran-Contra/October Surprise scandal represented the missing link in a larger American political narrative covering the sweep of several decades, explaining how the United States shifted away from a nation grappling with epochal problems, from energy dependence and environmental degradation to bloated military budgets and an obsession with empire.
For all his shortcomings and half-measures, President Carter had begun promoting solar and other alternative energies; he pushed conservation programs and worked to reduce the federal deficit; and abroad, he advocated greater respect for human rights and pulled back from the imperial presidency.
...............more, much ,more:
http://consortiumnews.com/2010/063010.html
blm Donating Member (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Fri Jul-02-10 02:58 PM
Response to Reply #4
6. Open the books on BCCI... IranContra, Iraqgate, CIA drugrunning and 9/11 will become clearer
to the American people.
Heck, looking into BCCI helped sound the alarm on S&Ls.
BCCI?
And now we find out we were cheated of a 2nd Jimmy Carter term too?!?!?!
:overreaction:
Bahahahahahahah :rotf:Don't laugh. We're getting Carter's second term right now.
For all his shortcomings and half-measures, President Carter had begun promoting solar and other alternative energies; he pushed conservation programs and worked to reduce the federal deficit; and abroad, he advocated greater respect for human rights and pulled back from the imperial presidency.
...............more, much ,more:
WI_DEM (1000+ posts) Fri Jul-02-10 12:17 PM
Original message
Accomplishments of President James Earl Carter
Food Stamp Reform. The President proposed and signed into law reforms of the food stamp program which make food stamps available to 2.2 million additional Americans. Among the reforms was the elimination of the purchase requirement.
Minimum Wage. The President proposed and signed into law an increase in the minimum wage to enable the lowest paid workers to recover from and keep pace with inflation. The minimum wage would increase to $2.65-an-hour by January 1, 1978, increasing the earnings of 4.5 million workers by $2.2 billion. Successive increases would raise the hourly rate to $2.90 in 1979, $3.10 in 1980, and $3.35 in 1981.
His Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act created 103 million acres (417,000 km²) of national park land in Alaska.
Carter's reorganization efforts separated the Department of Health, Education and Welfare into the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services. He signed into law a major Civil Service Reform, the first in over 100 years.
The Civil Service Reform Act (P.L. 95-454, 92 Stat. 111), the first comprehensive civil service law since 1883, fulfilled the campaign promise of President Jimmy Carter to reform the federal civil service.
On Carter's first day in office, January 20, 1977, he fulfilled a campaign promise by issuing an Executive Order declaring unconditional amnesty for Vietnam War-era draft evaders
Under Carter's watch, the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 was passed, which phased out the Civil Aeronautics Board. He was also somewhat successful in deregulating the trucking, rail, communications, and finance industries
As reaction to the energy crisis and growing concerns over air pollution, Carter also signed the National Energy Act (NEA) and the Public Utilities Regulatory Policy Act (PURPA). The purpose of these watershed laws was to encourage energy conservation and the development of national energy resources, including renewables such as wind and solar energy
Carter convinced the Democratic Congress to create the United States Department of Energy (DoE) with the goal of conserving energy.
During his first month in office, Carter cut the defense budget by $6 billion. One of his first acts was to order the unilateral removal of all nuclear weapons from South Korea and announce his intention to cut back the number of US troops stationed there.
Camp David Accords, one of Carter's most important accomplishments as President. The accords were a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt negotiated by Carter, which followed up on earlier negotiations conducted in the Middle East
Establishment of Diplomatic Relations with China dated January 1, 1979
One of the most controversial moves of Carter's presidency was the final negotiation and signature of the Panama Canal Treaties in September 1977. Those treaties, which essentially would transfer control of the American-built Panama Canal to the nation of Panama, were bitterly opposed by a majority of the American public and by the Republican Party.
A key foreign policy issue Carter worked laboriously on was the SALT II Treaty, which reduced the number of nuclear arms produced and/or maintained by both the United States and the Soviet Union--however, the Treaty was withdrawn after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Negotiated the release of the Hostages held in Iran without any of them being killed.
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1. One of our smartest presidents ever.
The GOP had to destroy his presidency.
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msongs (1000+ posts) Fri Jul-02-10 12:59 PM
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2. he knew the scoop on oil/energy and the people ignored him nt
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Brother Buzz (1000+ posts) Fri Jul-02-10 01:39 PM
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3. Even to the apolitical Joe Six-pack, Jimmy did something wonderful
Jimmy Carter signed into law a bill legalizing home brewing beer in 1978.
The primitives have been hot to rewrite history as of late, haven't they ? And not just recent either.
WI_DEM (1000+ posts) Fri Jul-02-10 12:17 PMThen UNDOING those insidious "accomplishments":
Original message
Accomplishments of President James Earl Carter
Then UNDOING those insidious "accomplishments":[youtube=425,350]EU-IBF8nwSY[/youtube]
And because everyone needs a good laugh on a Friday afternoon I offer this very dim campfire on a similar subject. I will just bring it all over to save folk the need to pull on the hazmat suits for a trip over.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8677017
Back then everyone had to home brew, no one had any money. Damn are these people stoooooooopid. And, no Jimmah was not a nuclear engineer. He wasn't fence post dumb but he was no rocket surgeon either.