"Let me further make it plain to the assassins in Beirut and their accomplices, wherever they may be, that America will never make concessions to terrorists -- to do so would only invite more terrorism -- nor will we ask nor pressure any other government to do so. Once we head down that path there would be no end to it, no end to the suffering of innocent people, no end to the bloody ransom all civilized nations must pay."--ronald reagan, june 18, 1985
while listening to and reading tributes to late former president ronald w. reagan, it occurred to me the memory loss associated with alzheimer's disease isn't restricted to the individuals afflicted with the condition. both media and the american public seem to have a very foggy recall of events that transpired during the early- to mid-80s. if these events occurred outside the continuum of history--and were therefore not linked so crucially by consequence to our present-- they would be of interest only to scholars of the reagan administration and there would be little point in re-opening closets merely to conduct an inspection of the skeletons moldering within.
like it or not, yesterday's decisions do impact the future which is now our present. it is imperative we not allow ourselves to be so distracted by today's crises or blinded by selective visions of the good old yesterdays that we run in infinite circles burying ourselves a little deeper with each consecutive lap..
reagan was a great communicator of statements like the one quoted above. sadly he said one thing and did the exact opposite only days later according to this excerpt from the final report of the independent counsel for iran/contra matters published in august 1993 :
"What we now know as the Iran arms sales, or the Iran initiative, was actually a series of related but distinct events that began in the summer of 1985 and continued through 1986. Israel sent U.S.-supplied weapons to Iran on three occasions in 1985. These shipments took place with U.S. approval, and, in one instance, with U.S. participation. They led to the release in September 1985 of one American held hostage in Lebanon. The United States delivered missiles and missile parts to Iran on five occasions in 1986, after President Reagan signed an intelligence ``Finding'' authorizing such shipments. These 1986 shipments led to the release of two more U.S. hostages, though terrorists seized two additional Americans in September 1986.
The first shipment of U.S.-made weapons from Israel to Iran took place August 20, 1985. But discussion and debate within the U.S. Government as to the desirability of arms sales to Iran had been going on for months at the time of the first Israeli shipment
In the weeks after Ledeen's trip to Israel, the number of Americans held hostage in Lebanon grew. David Jacobsen, the director of the American University Hospital in Beirut, was kidnapped on May 28, 1985. Thomas Sutherland, the dean of agriculture at the University of Beirut, was seized on June 9, 1985. These abductions were in addition to the March 1985 kidnapping of Terry Anderson, chief Middle East correspondent for the Associated Press, and the January 1985 seizure of Father Lawrence Jenco, the senior Catholic Relief Services official in Beirut. Two other Americans kidnapped in 1984 remained in captivity as well: the Reverend Benjamin Weir and -- of special interest to CIA Director Casey -- CIA Beirut Station Chief William Buckley."
unbeknownst to anyone but the iranians and those who'd kidnapped him, buckley was already dead while these transactions took place.
freeing those hostages, as dubious a rationale for arming terrorists and the state that supported them might be, wasn't the sole reason motivating reagan and his administration. ultimately, they began selling weapons to iran to raise money as part of a continuing plot to circumvent the constitution and engage in the overthrow of an elected government of the sovereign nation of nicaragua for the second time in the 20th century--one of the most recent episodes of no less than three separate us interventions in the past 100 years, two of which involved invasions by the us military.
finally its not unreasonable to see a connecting thread between the terrorists who benefited by the actions of reagan, bush, casey and other members of that administration and the subsequent attacks on the world trade center because it is not unreasonable to imagine how the terrorists would come to perceive our government and therefore our country as irredeemably corrupt.
in its conclusion the walsh report noted:
"The underlying facts of Iran/contra are that, regardless of criminality, President Reagan, the secretary of state, the secretary of defense, and the director of central intelligence and their necessary assistants committed themselves, however reluctantly, to two programs contrary to congressional policy and contrary to national policy. They skirted the law, some of them broke the law, and almost all of them tried to cover up the President's willful activities.
What protection do the people of the United States have against such a concerted action by such powerful officers? The Constitution provides for congressional oversight and congressional control of appropriations, but if false information is given to Congress, these checks and balances are of lessened value. Further, in the give and take of the political community, congressional oversight is often overtaken and subordinated by the need to keep Government functioning, by the need to anticipate the future, and by the ever-present requirement of maintaining consensus among the elected officials who are the Government.
The disrespect for Congress by a popular and powerful President and his appointees was obscured when Congress accepted the tendered concept of a runaway conspiracy of subordinate officers and avoided the unpleasant confrontation with a powerful President and his Cabinet. In haste to display and conclude its investigation of this unwelcome issue, Congress destroyed the most effective lines of inquiry by giving immunity to Oliver L. North and John M. Poindexter so that they could exculpate and eliminate the need for the testimony of President Reagan and Vice President Bush...
Evidence obtained by Independent Counsel establishes that the Iran/contra affair was not an aberrational scheme carried out by a ``cabal of zealots'' on the National Security Council staff, as the congressional Select Committees concluded in their majority report.1 Instead, it was the product of two foreign policy directives by President Reagan which skirted the law and which were executed by the NSC staff with the knowledge and support of high officials in the CIA, State and Defense departments, and to a lesser extent, officials in other agencies. "
it should be noted that this is not a matter of conservative vs liberal philosophy nor republican vs democratic party politics. no true conservative would willfully arrogate or usurp constitutional power nor would a true conservative obstruct the congress in performance of its obligated duties. criminal activity is not advocated nor countenanced by either party.