Iran-Contra: Lessons of History Ignored

December 24 marks the anniversary of an important historical event. On this day in 1992, then president George H.W. Bush gave pardons to six people who had been convicted in the Iran-Contra scandal. Read the whole NY Times article from that day:
https://www.nytimes.com/1992/12/25/us/pardons-bush-pardons-6-iran-affair-aborting-weinberger-trial-prosecutor-assails.html

The significance of this event has faded over the years, which is a shame because it is immensely relevant to today. According to Wikipedia, "In the end, fourteen administration officials were indicted, including then-Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger.  Eleven convictions resulted, some of which were vacated on appeal. The rest of those indicted or convicted were all pardoned in the final days of the presidency of George H. W. Bush, who had been vice-president at the time of the affair."

Understanding the whole Iran-Contra affair is an essential step in grasping the true meaning, the what, the how and the why, of 9/11 and its aftermath. Iran-Contra is a unique historical moment in which you get a glimpse of the unaccountable secret powers that are really running the show, and what their intentions really are. From Iran-Contra you can follow the threads back to the 1960's and 70's, when the major players started assuming positions of power, and forward to the post-9/11 world, in which their desire for vast powers, wielded in secret with no accountability, was fulfilled beyond their wildest dreams.

Case in point : John Poindexter, Reagan's national security advisor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Poindexter

According to the New York Times, "President Reagan's national security adviser from December 1985 to November 1986 was convicted on April 7, 1990, on five counts involving charges that he obstructed, conspired to obstruct and made false statements to Congress. He was sentenced June 11, 1990 to six months in prison. A Federal appeals panel threw out the convictions on Nov. 15, 1991, on the ground that Mr. Poindexter's testimony to Congress under immunity was improperly used against him."

So, Poindexter was convicted for his part in the coverup of the Iran-Contra affair, but managed to avoid serving any jail time. After eleven years of lying low, Poindexter re-surfaced in the wake of  9/11. In spite of being proven to be part of a group of power hungry liars and thieves who put their own interests ahead of the government and the American people, here he was in 2002, working for the Department of Defense. He was named to head the Information Awareness Office, from which he developed the concept of "total information awareness." According to Wikipedia, "This aimed to counter asymmetric threats (most notably, terrorist threats) by achieving total information awareness and thus aiding preemption; national security warning; and, national security decision making."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Awareness_Office

His work, when exposed, generated so much controversy and outrage that his office was shut down within a year. But it should be quite evident today that the idea of TIA did not go away. In fact "total information awareness" simply transitioned into the paradigm of "just collect it all" that we now know has became the primary method of operation for the NSA, and most likely other intelligence agencies, and even the police.

This article, from Foreign Policy magazine, is a remarkably clear expose on the connection.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/06/19/total_information_awareness_prism_nsa_bush_poindexter#sthash.1cgnyhzl.dpbs

This commentary from Glenn Greenwald discusses how Gen. Keith Alexander, who was picked to head the NSA in 2005, pushed hard for the "collect it all" paradigm.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/15/crux-nsa-collect-it-all

In fact it seems clear that Alexander was placed in his position at NSA with a mandate to implement a program that had already been developed by Poindexter, three years before. Considering Alexander's history in intelligence, it should comes as no surprise that the torch would be passed to him.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_B._Alexander

And that is just pulling on one thread. I urge you to study Iran-Contra for yourself and start to see the many threads, or should we say tentacles, that extend from it. Wikipedia is a decent place to get started.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Contra_affair

Bill Moyers' excellent documentary, "Secret Government: The Constitution in Crisis," does an admirable job of explaining the story.



Another documentary, "Coverup: Behind The Iran-Contra Affair," goes a good bit further in exploring what the Iran-Contra hearings did not resolve: the extent to which our government's activities are controlled by a secret cabal, whose motives are completely contrary to what they publicly claim.



Want to go further? Count on James Corbett of www.corbettreport.com to take you deep into the rabbit hole. His 2009 podcast, "Know Your History: Iran-Contra," is essential listening for anyone wanting to really look for deeper meaning behind the whole affair.
http://www.corbettreport.com/episode-102-know-your-history-iran-contra/

I cannot emphasis this enough: start with Iran-Contra, follow its threads, and you will start to see a much clearer picture of what is really going on in American government today.


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The Slippery Slope: The Authoritarian State

When is a police checkpoint not a checkpoint? When it is simply the police forcing you to pull over so that a private company can ask you to participate in a "survey," which happens to include the giving of your blood and saliva.

http://filmingcops.com/checkpoints/

This is going on all over the country; for example:
Fort Worth TX: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/11/21/fort-worth-police-chief-apologizes-for-controversial-federal-highway-survey/
Reading, PA: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/12/18/pa-town-latest-to-force-drivers-over-and-ask-for-cheek-swabs-for-federal-study/
St. Louis, MO: http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/local-officials-decry-feds-voluntary-sobriety-checkpoints/article_c44c9c0c-230c-5d63-8f83-cdaec9d0da01.html

It was initiated by a government agency, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Its supposed purpose is to gain statistical information about people driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. They hired a private company, the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation to implement the survey, which then employs the services of local police. The police flag down cars at random and direct them to pull over. Then they are approached by the survey people, pressured to take part in the survey, and offered money for participating.

The issues with this are numerous, and all are disturbing. In spite of the process being explained as "voluntary," the mere presence of police, in uniform and with lights flashing, provides an air of authority and intimidation. Coupled with high pressure persuasion and money incentives, many citizens will go along without argument. And that's a shame because the very idea of a government agency collecting bodily fluids of innocent citizens is deeply disturbing.

If we have learned anything in the last few years, it is to be deeply skeptical and suspicious when a government agency tells you that it is not collecting information on citizens, or that the information it has collected is guaranteed to be anonymous and secure. Yeah, right.

But even if the motives of the NHTSA are exactly as they say, and even if the information collected by the PIRE is totally anonymous, programs like this have a way of expanding beyond their original mission parameters, i.e. "mission creep." Consider the possibility of one more catastrophic domestic terrorist incident occurring, resulting in checkpoints becoming every-day occurrences, and the submission of bodily fluids for DNA samples no longer voluntary but required. Consider the possibility of your picture being taken without your knowledge, or your license plate being recorded, and that info then being linked to the DNA from your saliva sample. Now you are indisputably identified and inserted into a national database. Now you can be tracked, your cellphone tapped, e-mail and internet activity recorded, bank and charge accounts hacked, etc. And they will be justified in doing it, simply by saying that you might be a terrorist, or a drug dealer.

Now consider the ever increasing militarization and aggressiveness, coupled with recklessness and incompetence, that has become so typical of law enforcement in this country today:



The increasingly brazen violence of police in reacting to the most innocuous incidents has become prevalent, virtually normalized:



Join that with the vastly expanded technological capabilities that police departments have acquired as it trickles down from the military and national intelligence agencies, often paid for by grants from Dept. of Homeland Security. For example: the Indiana State Police recently spent $373,995 for a device that could allow authorities to capture cell phone data, and they won't tell anyone anything about it. Police officals say that such secrecy is essential to thwart terror attacks and fight crime. You got a problem with that?

http://www.indystar.com/story/news/2013/12/08/indiana-state-police-tracking-cellphones-but-wont-say-how-or-why/3908333/

This is a recipe for disaster: the total loss of civil liberties and the emergence of a modern police state.

Are we there yet? In the larger view of history, we are not anywhere near the catastrophic levels of say Germany or Russia in the early to mid-20th century. But we are also in a different era, in which the public has been conditioned, step by step over the last 12 years, to accept such a trend as necessary and even desirable. This is the modern way of achieving authoritarian rule: not through brute force, but more subtly, step by tiny step.

It takes a loud indignant public outcry to force such changes to be rolled back. And it can be done. But the struggle continues because those who have acquired power most certainly will not give up that power without a fight.


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