LBN: exContras warn of NEW Nicaraguan war. Still glad IranContra matters were deep-sixed?

[blm]

Source: MSNBC/Associated Press

Some ex-Contras warn of a new Nicaragua war
Anger arises from Ortega's push for neighborhood watch committees

updated 1:10 p.m. CT, Sun., Feb. 10, 2008
MIAMI - At the end of Nicaragua's civil war, Juan Gregorio Rodriguez traded his life as a Contra rebel for that of auto mechanic in Florida. He kept in touch with other rebels and supported their political efforts, but mostly from afar.

That changed in 2006, when the Contras' nemesis, Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega, was elected president, 16 years after his Soviet-backed government lost power in a vote that ended the guerrilla conflict in which some 30,000 people died.

His return to power has galvanized dozens of former Contras in the United States to plunge back into the politics of their Central American homeland, lobbying for support from the U.S. Congress and joining anti-Ortega movements with former colleagues in Nicaragua. Some even warn darkly that armed resistance is again a possibility.
(snip)

Today's Contras are a shadow of the movement the CIA built around a core of former soldiers who had served the dictatorship toppled by the Sandinistas in 1979. With U.S. arms and funds smuggled into Nicaragua from clandestine bases in neighboring Honduras, it grew into one of Central America's largest guerrilla armies.

But continued support despite a congressional ban damaged the Reagan administration's reputation, and the Contras disbanded before the 1990 election led to three consecutive anti-Sandinista governments.
>>>>


Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23096032 /

IranContra reporter Robert Parry explained in 2006 how the sweeping under the oval office rug throughout the 90s of serious matters in IranContra that were still under investigation when Clinton took office, helped lead directly to most everything tragic happening today. The emergence of Bush2, 9-11, and this Iraq war.


http://consortiumnews.com/2006/111106.html

Now we can add the rekindling of war in Central America - thanks to Bush-Clinton-Bush.

[ixion]

1. I despise the BFEE, so imagine my disappointment when Clinton

continued so many of their policies, and helped them through the Iran-Contra crap. This is why we don't need another Clinton in office, or another Bush. We need someone to bring sanity back to government, IMO.

I would still like that person to be Kucinich, but that's not likely to happen anymore. :(

[blm]

2. It's alot easier to understand why the Bush-Clinton-Bush cycle HAD to happen...

Neither one could afford a more open government Democrat like Gore and especially Kerry in the WH and with access to documents that had long been sought.

I caught a glimpse of that in Gore's 2004 speech at the convention - he sounded REGRETFUL that Kerry didn't have more help investigating and exposing these matters. First time I heard him say that. That was a big step in my book. Clinton never mentioned it at all. In fact, he skipped over Kerry's entire career in the Senate regarding his uncovering of serious corruption by Reagan-Bush.

[knitter4democracy]

3. When I was there in 1994, the people were still angry.

I'll never forget going to Leon and seeing memorials to those killed by the CIA and anti-US murals and graffiti. It was a real eye-opener, especially when people asked me why our government did that to them. I didn't have an answer. They wanted to know why the American people let our government go into Nicaragua and kill people, fund drug dealers, and try to get rid of a democratically elected president. All I could say was that most Americans really didn't know, that our government lied to us, too.

We don't need more bloodshed there. We need the peace to continue and the US to stay the hell out of it.

[blm]

5. Exactly - this is how closed government assures the citizenry DON'T KNOW what they need

to know to even perform their duties like voting in elections.

Who would Americans vote for and what would the debates sound like if Americans HAD access to a newsmedia who discussed these matters fully because our government was dedicated to openness?

[knitter4democracy]

7. If we had the press most of Latin America does, things would be very different.

Our press just glosses over everthing. It's time for us to find out the truth, and hopefully the internet can make that happen. I know I don't mess with my local paper for anything but local news anymore. Their international and national reporting is crap.

[blm]

8. Parry started his news website in 1996 knowing full well mainstream media had sold out

to the corporations and would NEVER impart the full stories of any event. The details that inform instead of the spin that distracts.

[bananas]

10. k&r - Robert Parry is one of the most important journalists. nt

[blm]

9. Wondering how MANY Dems would still support Clintons if they actually UNDERSTOOD

how much the coverups on so many matters ended up costing this nation in the long run?

[knitter4democracy]

21. I wonder that, too.

There are many reasons I just can't vote for or back Hillary. Central America is one of them.

[Solly Mack]

4. I read this earlier and just hissed

[blm]

6. You were on the streets protesting all this in the 80s and early 90s.

Shame on me for not marching then, too.

[me b zola]

20. "When I knew better, I did better"

"When I knew better, I did better." I believe that quote originated with Maya Angelou.



You have nothing to feel shame over. You are a wonderful progressive and activist whom is not afraid of the truth when it is revealed to you.

[Rex]

11. And yet Repukes are praying and hoping for a Reagan-like replacement!

What losers! What idiots! Repukes are the worst type of political vermin. Their stupidity and narrow-mindedness will be America's downfall. They are liabilities and should be erased from politics.

[blm]

24. Couldn't have happened without plenty of Dem support. Reagan had more support from Dems on

IranContra policies than Kerry had when he uncovered IranContra's crimes.

Not to mention the big name Dems who helped continue the coverups for Reagan and Bush administrations throughout the 90s.

[Jax]

12. Clinton gives poppy his 'peaceful retirement'

and the slaughter goes on...

Thanks blm. You have really put yourself out there to get this info out. I will pass it on to everyone I just went to caucus with this weekend. We did discuss the Clinton blowing off Iran Contra when he took office. A lot at our table were very aware of the complicity and very angry about it.

Hang in there, we need your knowledge and voice on this.

Alyce

[blm]

14. Wow - thank you for saying so.

I'm just one of a group of Dems here who take the hits and backlash for focusing on the corruption that LED us to the tragic reality we live with today in this nation.

No surprise that some folks here really do NOT appreciate the steady voices who will not waver.

You really made my day. Thankyou.

[Jax]

13. Clinton gives poppy his 'peaceful retirement'

and the slaughter goes on...

Thanks blm. You have really put yourself out there to get this info out. I will pass it on to everyone I just went to caucus with this weekend. We did discuss the Clinton blowing off Iran Contra when he took office. A lot at our table were very aware of the complicity and very angry about it.

Hang in there, we need your knowledge and voice on this.

Alyce

[L. Coyote]

29. A good reason not to have Clinton's wife for President is the possibility of conflict of interest

[formercia]

15. The head of the Contras

owned the Coca-Cola franchise in Nicaragua.

That says volumes.

Same old gang, same old right-wing reactionary bullshit.

[bobthedrummer]

34. k

[bobthedrummer]

16. I remember so many little oddities about Iran Contra- like William Casey

getting a "routine" annual medical check-up at work (CIA) then being rushed to a secure hospital where he died. I remember how Amiriam Nir was supposed to testify and he allegedly died in a plane crash after inspecting avocado fields in Mexico...

I remember a lot of things about the murderers and traitors that have continued their career paths since Iran Contra too.

Thanks for starting this thread.

[blm]

17. Well, thanks to Bush-Clinton-Bush.....They're baaaaaackkkkk.......

And some Dems STILL want to put their fingers in their ears and say "lalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalala" "best president ever" "lalalalalalala"

[bobthedrummer]

18. That's why I'm writing in Dennis Kucinich next week blm

look at what his Party has done to him and many others that aren't into that Third Way.

[seemslikeadream]

19. Robert Parry: Hillary Clinton Signals Free Pass for Bush

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/1/2/robert_parry_hillary_clinton_signals_free




“Former President Bill Clinton’s comment that his wife’s ‘first thing’ as President would be to send him and former President George H.W. Bush on a worldwide fence-mending tour has a political subtext,” reports investigative journalist Robert Parry. “It signals that a second Clinton administration would give a free pass to the second Bush administration on its abuses.”



Robert Parry, Veteran investigative journalist and editor of ConsortiumNews.com. He is co-author of the new book, “Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush.”

Rush Transcript
This transcript is available free of charge. However, donations help us provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution.
Donate - $25, $50, $100, More...

AMY GOODMAN: We’re also joined by veteran investigative journalist Robert Parry. His latest book is called Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush. He is editor of consortiumnews.com. He’s been closely following the presidential campaigns, joining us as well from Washington, D.C.


Bob Parry, you’ve been looking at the foreign policy records of the various candidates. Can you give us a quick assessment?


ROBERT PARRY: Of the various positions on foreign policy?


AMY GOODMAN: Yes.


ROBERT PARRY: Well, I think, Amy, one of the interesting things here is that some of the foreign policy issues have reflected back on some of the larger character issues, if you will, about some of the candidates. One of the concerns, for instance, about Senator Hillary Clinton has been her ties to the Washington establishment, whether she is too much of a calculating politician. And one of the surprising issues that emerged early in the debates was her support of the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, which was a resolution to declare the Iran Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization. And she was seen as sort of playing to, again, this sense that she would be part of that Washington establishment of how these kinds of issues are approached. She seems to be playing into the hands, again, of the neoconservatives. So that became a defining issue early on, in terms of dealing with Senator Clinton and whether she really has broken from her earlier support for the Iraq war in a serious way and whether she really has become a skeptic of how President Bush has conducted himself. So that was used, I think, not only to point out her actions on that one issue, but also to show that she might not have been as fully understanding that the policies she had followed in 2002 and 2003 were mistaken. So I think we’ve seen that sort of issue.


We’ve seen people like Senator Obama be able to say that he was not part of that and try to distance himself further from the Washington establishment. So that, in a sense, reinforced his idea that he was somewhat of a different candidate, someone who had tried to bring change. The other candidates, in the case of Senator Dodd and Senator Biden, they also—they did oppose that resolution, the Kyle-Lieberman resolution. But it was sort of surprising to see an issue that seemed so minor for people in Washington to resonate so much on the campaign trail.

[AntiFascist]

26. leveymg's remarkable thread about BCCI here....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=125x194635

[bobthedrummer]

27. k

[Octafish]

22. Ollie North ran a deadlyand illegal 'enterprise' for Pruneface 'n' Poppy.

Intentionally killing civilians is a war crime. Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras. Take El Salvador...

El Salvador 1980-1994: Human Rights, Washington Style

from Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions since WWII

by William Blum

The United States was supporting the government of El Salvador, said President Ronald Reagan, because it was trying "to halt the infiltration into the Americas, by terrorists and by outside interference, and those who aren't just aiming at E1 Salvador but, I think, are aiming at the whole of Central and possibly later South America and, I'm sure, eventually North America." 1

Psychiatrists have a term for such perceptions of reality. They call it paranoid schizophrenia.

If the insurgents in El Salvador, the smallest country by far in all of Central and South America, were engaged in what Ronald Reagan perceived as a plot to capture the Western Hemisphere, others saw it as the quintessential revolution.

Viewed in the latter context, it cannot be asserted that the Salvadorean people rushed precipitously into revolution at the first painful sting of repression, or turned to the gun because of a proclivity towards violent solutions, or a refusal to "work within the system," or because of "outside agitators," or any of the other explanations of why people revolt so dear to the hearts of Washington opinion makers. For as long as anyone could remember, the reins of E1 Salvador's government had resided in the hands of one military dictatorship or another, while the economy had been controlled by the celebrated 14 coffee and industrial families, with only the occasional, short-lived bursting of accumulated discontent to disturb the neat arrangement.

In December 1980, New York Times, reporter Raymond Bonner asked José Napoleón Duarte "why the guerrillas were in the hills". Duarte, who had just become president of the ruling junta, responded with an answer that surprised Bonner: "Fifty years of lies, fifty years of injustice, fifty years of frustration. This is a history of people starving to death, living in misery. For fifty years the same people had all the power, all the money, all the jobs, all the education, all the opportunities.''2

CONTINUED...

http://www3.uakron.edu/worldciv/pascher/salvador.html

Unless we get busy, it was just a prelude of things to come for us all.

[bobthedrummer]

23. k

[bobthedrummer]

25. Iran Contra Files and Threads-share the truth with those you love

and with those that love the truth regardless of all other considerations.

The National Security Archive is on the campus of George Washington University, they have many unclassified documents and have fought many battles via FOIA requests over the years.

Many citizens consider them to be a prime open source for truth. I know I certainly do.

When The National Security Archive began it created what is known as a National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book/NSAEBB in addition to it's other features.

The second NSAEBB is the first of the links below-it's title speaks for itself. There are several other Iran Contra related NSAEBB's following it.

"The Contras, Cocaine, and Covert Operations" NSAEBB #2
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB2/nsaebb2.htm

"The Oliver North File" NSAEBB 113 (2-26-2004)
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/index.htm

"The Negroponte File" NSAEBB 151 (4-12-2005)
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB151/index.htm

"The Robert Gates File" NSAEBB 208 (11-10-2006)
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB208/index.htm

Then there are DU's world class researchers that have kept track of a lot of these criminals, that we call the BFEE.

Octafish's "Know your BFEE..." threads should be used for indictments for "cold cases" as well as teaching history.

Below are just a couple of Iran Contra related Octafish threads-and my appreciation goes out to not only Octafish but all of the DU members that have contributed to getting out the truth about what we call the BFEE. We are brothers and sisters when it comes to that. Thank you all!

"Know your BFEE: Robert Gates did more than keep the doors open at BCCI" (started 11-27-2006)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2810465

"A Sibel Edmonds Timeline-'We Can't Afford to Let Them Spill the Beans'" (started 1-29-2008)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2788127

The last link I started as a reaction to Rumsfeld's "resignation" immediately after the midterm election of 2006-when we all sent a message that has been ignored by the "new leadership" we voted into the 110th Congress. It too is Iran Contra related and has posts by so many of our sisters and brothers that have kept book on the BFEE.

"Gates is Poppy's guy-this takes us to another data-dumping thread" (started 11-9-2006)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2665635

Share the truth with those you love, and with those that love the truth.

[L. Coyote]

28. IMPEACH BUSH first, then bring the killers of Ben Linder and Linda Frazier to Justice.

First, we need to restore Justice! Then, we can go after these killers.

[bobthedrummer]

30. k

[EFerrari]

31. We need a shaking your head right off your neck smilie.

:(

[bobthedrummer]

35. We need an edward scissorhands smilie, and this thread is going bttt.

[bobthedrummer]

32. k

[bobthedrummer]

33. .