Which brings me back to: Does he believe the stuff he says or is he just doing a job? No rational person would ever parrot GOP talking points so completely in the face of so much constant contradicting evidence.

Found this while looking for the pictures of the executed nuns killed by The Iran-contra "freedom fighters"
http://www.rotten.com/library/history/poli...al/iran-contra/

In order to keep things together, I've combined the second thread started on this issue with the first. The following quote is from our republican friend, Constitutionally Speaking:


Constitutionally speaking

Just because you disagree with a law passed by congress you aren't given the right to break it. That's just another example of the republican disregard for law and democracy. Some would call that Tyranny.

You say the Boland amendment was the law that was broken. That was the FIRST LAW that was broken. Lets see how many others I can find starting...now (1:36:15)

Poindexter was found guilty April 7, 1990, on all counts: conspiracy (obstruction of inquiries and proceedings, false statements, falsification, destruction and removal of documents); two counts of obstruction of Congress and two counts of false statements. (that's 5 felonies)

(Bush appointed this guy to head the Toatal Information Awareness office)
Congress shot that down, too. Since you disagree with that, should they go ahead and do it anyway?

Elliott Abrams: Abrams entered into a plea agreement on October 7, 1991, and pleaded guilty to two counts of withholding information from Congress. He pleaded guilty to unlawfully withholding material information concerning Oliver North's contact with and encouragement of the people supplying the contras from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on October 10, 1986. Additionally, he pleaded guilty to unlawfully withholding material information from HPSCI on October 14, 1986, concerning his participation in the Brunei solicitation and his expectation, as of October 14, that the $10 million from the Sultan of Brunei was on its way to the Swiss bank account he had provided.

(Bush first appointed him as Chief of Middle Eastern affairs at National Security Agency. He is now the number two man under Condi Rice)

John Negroponte was US Ambassador to Honduras and facilitated a clandestine quid pro quo deal, under which the Reagan Administration sent aid to Honduras in return for Honduran assistance to the contras, at a time when Congress had banned the Administration from assisting the contras. Negroponte's embassy also suppressed information about human rights abuses committed by the Honduran military. Negroponte is currently our UN ambassador.

time: 1:42:09

what do I win?

You also made the erroneous statement that the democrats were propping up a "vicious tyrant". I suppose I could compare that to how the republicans are currently propping Islam Karimov, had propped up Saddam, Pinochet, Bin Laden, and a whole other host of nasties. But instead I'll just point out that the Contras (Whom Reagan doble-spoke into "freedom Fighters") were actually the former death squads of the deposed dictator that the population had risen up and over thrown. The problem with the government that Reagan & pals wanted to illegally overthrow was not that he was an evil tyrant (obviously, look above at who they DID support) but rather that they were socialists and not privy to exploitation at the hands of US corporations and sought assistance from the soviets and from Cuba. This was just more case of US military intervention, enacted upon a population at the hands of the CIA and republican funded death squads.

Now...the 1980's crack cocaine boom was a result of the drug operations of Iran contra. Shall I go into that as well? Was that just a smear campaign as well?

Your side claims because Clinton was not removed after his impeachment, he was innocent of all the crimes he committed.

I believe that Bill Clinton is guilty of lying about consensual sex.

I believe that the Reagan administration sold weapons to an entity engaged in terrorist warfare against the United States of America. This constitutes giving aid and comfort to an enemy, therefore treason.

I believe that the Reagan administration supported death squads in Nicaragua with money which was not appropriated by congress, which the constitution expressly forbids. (but what does CS care about the constitution?)

I believe the CIA when they say that they knew that the Contras were smuggling cocaine into the United States. I also believe the CIA when they admit that they blocked local and federal investigations into the above cocaine smuggling.

Much like the left is now doing with Chavez in Venezuela, they fawned all over the tyrants and demonized the opposition.

I believe that CS is trolling when he implies the Hugo Chavez is a tyrant. Some things he has done are disturbing, but that does not give us any right to overthrow a democratically-elected leader.

I do not wish to defend some of the actions that the Contras perpetrated either,

I believe that you are going to anyway. Oh, you did.

but I will defend the results of Reagan's policy of free elections.

I believe that you are full of shit. Ok, I know that you are usually full of shit, and I believe that this is just a small example.

by selling Iranian supplied arms to the Contras.

I believe that you have a flexible relationship with what some of us call "facts." Iran supplied the money, we supplied arms to Iran with Israel as a go-between... Oh, too complicated.

The Iranians then used their influence with the terrorists to release the hostages.

I believe that is an accurate description of how the deal was supposed to work. And also illegal, since there was an arms embargo on Iran. And yeah, there's nothing to stop the terrorists from taking more hostages and extorting more rockets, which they did.

The left was screaming at Reagan to do something, and he did.

I'm glad you admit it was Reagan.

He should have done it differently, but his method did get the hostages home AND helped to expedite free elections in Central America.

His method got more hostages kidnapped. Who are you kidding? AND mining harbors and killing nuns did not expedite free elections in Central America by a friggin' minute.

Wrong method, right motive, right results.

I believe that killing nuns is wrong regardless of the motive. And you wonder why they hate us.

The right method would have been to expose the Democrats that were supporting the Sandanista's for what they were and change the law.

Or he could have asked the contras to STOP KILLING NUNS. Instead of publishing illustrated manuals on the most efficient ways of terrorizing the populus by killing civilians.

But given the Press of the day, the truth never had a chance.

The truth... Murdering nuns is not what they did. Murdering nuns is WHO THEY ARE. And that is why we will always oppose them.

bingo. Well said

too bad we don't have some sort of graphic to illustrate the crashing and burning of CS's "argument*"







* I use that word loosely

Let's be clear. Speaking for myself, I oppose all dictators (including those that call themselves communists or socialists), all military or paramilitary factions that deliberately target civilians (including those that the Gubmint currently calls terrorists), and everyone who suppresses dissent or consolidates dictatorial power.

What I won't do is jump on a bandwagon to give weapons to one of the above to fight against another unless there's a damn good reason. That's where Osama bin Laden came from in the first place. That's why we gave Saddam chemical weapons in the first place. Castro and Ho Chi Minh were both allies of the US at one point. And fear of the Soviet Union is part of the reason that the Nazis recieved so much US support.

Backing dictator against dictator, or terrorist against dictator, or dictator against terrorist, usually bites us in the ass.



On a slightly related note... based entirely on the appearance of Hugo Chavez's uniform, I think that guy's bad news too. But threatening him only makes him stronger and more popular, and justifies his paranoia in the eyes of the Venezuelan people.

Oh, and thanks guys and gals

I really don't know what to make of Chavez. I keep hearing about the great things he's done and about what a horrible president he is... Palast said that Venezuela's media outlets are strongly opposed to Chavez on a personal political level. If I could find out what's exactly going on down there, the good and the bad, then maybe I could tell. But he seems relatively benevolent from what I've seen.

Hugo Chavez thread

Let's continue this discussion THERE.

thanks, Happy!

Oh look what i found!

<sigh>....CS is a babbling idiot.

Doc