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 End of the Illusion?

The farce and debacle that is our government has been put on display for all to see with this latest shutdown drama. Everyone seems to see it for what it is, everyone agrees that they're all bums and should be thrown out. And yet...

The shutdown drama has had one particular success: it has reinforced the persistent yet patently false notion that the only way to solve this problem is to choose a side and blame the other guy. As the shutdown lingers on, politicians pontificate and posture while the suffering of ordinary people increases. The polarization of American politics has reached a new high (low) as a result of this situation, foreshadowing what I predict will be the most virulent (and useless) political campaign season ever. For at least some of those involved, this was surely the intent all along.

Are we so naive to forget that government is a place where politicians, be they Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative, come together to wallow in the corrupting slime of greed and power? Yet we keep returning to the idea that if it weren't for the other guy's political party, our problems will be solved. Don't we  know by now that these guys all go to the same golf courses, hang out with each other in their multi-million-dollar mansions, attend the same parties, make the real deals behind closed doors...and laugh at us.

And so two contradictory impulses try to co-exist. We rage at the incompetence and corruption that is obviously endemic to government, yet at the next election we grudgingly come back and vote for more of the same. Have we not, at long last, reached the point where we admit this is all a sham, and simply stop endorsing it?

But then comes the big question: then what? Trying to "solve" this problem does take us into some scary territory. Are we talking revolution, anarchism?

Truth Dots is not going there. When you have problems this huge, it seems even more clear that the solutions we must pursue are personal ones. In fact, an underlying point of this blog is this:

Exposing the rampant fraud, manipulation and deceptions that are foisted upon us by our leaders and institutions is just a first step. The next step is to realize that the biggest illusion is that any of this is more important than what's going on in your own heart and mind. A life of freedom and happiness comes from awakening one's own consciousness, not from forcing change on the world. And yet doing so can actually have profound implications for not just ourselves but everyone around us.



I have written about this in the past and will continue to do so.
Here's a post called "Rite of Passage," about the moment after you take the metaphorical red pill, awaken from the Matrix, and then have to decide, how do I respond?
http://truth-dots.blogspot.com/2011/01/rite-of-passage.html

Also please read "Together On The Journey," a post about two people, Arthur and Crystal, whose personal health crises led to powerful personal transformations. Both are now inspiring and helping others awaken to their own power to transform their lives.
http://truth-dots.blogspot.com/2012/11/together-on-journey.html

The sheer absurdity of what goes on in the material world should be a signal to us, that there is more important business to attend to: the pursuit of our own awakening. Part of that awakening will indeed be an increased intellectual awareness of the illusions that permeate our culture and erode our freedoms. To respond to this is important, and to do so we must learn to apply all our critical thinking skills to the task of observing, interpreting and exposing what is real vs. what is a lie. We must use that knowledge to make an informed choice to reject anything that undermines our natural born right to live as free individuals.

But a greater teaching is always present, and we must come to know that life itself is the curriculum for learning this lesson: give up fear, anger, hate, resentment. Choose love, compassion, gratitude, humility and forgiveness. Welcome to the human race. It's time to start attending life-class.




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Against Their Will

                                

A new book, Against Their Will: The Secret History of Medical Experimentation on Children in Cold War America, is a thoroughly researched study on a topic that is not really new or even truly secret: the use of human subjects for medical experimentation, against their will and often even unwittingly, by the U.S. government in the mid-20th century. There has already been much documentation on the subject; here is a link, from the excellent website resource http://www.wanttoknow.info,  to a summary of stories that are in the public domain, reported by mainstream sources, about our government, military and intelligence establishments using human beings as unwilling research subjects in gruesome "scientific" medical studies:

http://www.wanttoknow.info/humanguineapigs

The difference this time is the focus on children as the victims of horrible, unethical experimentation by doctors and scientists from America's most prestigious hospitals and universities, with the full support and participation of the CIA and other U.S. government agencies. No exaggeration, no conspiracy theories; it is simply a matter of historical record.

What exactly are we talking about? It is really too sickening to go into detail about it. The blurb from Amazon.com includes this brief description:

They were drafted as "volunteers" to test vaccines, doused with ringworm, subjected to electric shock, and given lobotomies. They were also fed radioactive isotopes and exposed to chemical warfare agents.

And that barely scratches the surface.

CONTEXT and HISTORY

The context is important to the understanding of this, and why it is relevant today. This activity is known to have exploded and flourished during the Cold War, especially in the late 1040's - early 1950's, when fear of Communism was used to justify a wave of deeply unethical and criminal activity by our government.

In addition, at that time period in the middle of the 20th century, the concept of "eugenics" was still a powerful force behind a lot of scientific and medical activity. What is eugenics? Let's start with a simple online dictionary definition:

"the study of or belief in the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species or a human population, especially by such means as discouraging reproduction by persons having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable undesirable traits (negative eugenics) or encouraging reproduction by persons presumed to have inheritable desirable traits (positive eugenics)"

In case you're not getting the point, here's this helpful line from Wikipedia:

Early proponents of eugenics believed that, through selective breeding, the human species should direct its own evolution.  They tended to believe in the genetic superiority of Nordic, Germanic and Anglo-Saxon peoples; supported strict immigration and anti-miscegenation laws; and supported the forcible sterilization of the poor, disabled and "immoral."

Link to the full entry:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States

The Wiki article is disturbing but essential to begin to understand the scope of the eugenics movement in the U.S.as it rose to prominence in the early 20th century. Lest you think this was just some small fringe group of radical nutcases, the article makes clear that this movement was populated by a large swath of the scientific community, funded by the biggest corporate foundations like Rockefeller and Carnegie, and codified into law in the form of segregation, immigration restrictions, and the most hideous of all, compulsory sterilization enforced by law in 30 states. Only after Hitler was revealed to have carried eugenics to its most horrifying extreme did the movement fade in the U.S., but it didn't go away. During the Cold War era of the late 40's and 50's, the fear of Communism was hyped up to a level of hysteria that made it possible to revive the blatantly inhuman concept of eugenics, in order to justify the abuse of not just racial and ethnic minorities but also mentally challenged, physically disabled, sick and poor children. Again, just history.

What you have here is a perfect example of the muddy waters of human motivation, where genuine commitment to a mission, perceived as important and virtuous, coexists with a ruthless detachment and a lust for power and control, unrestricted by any sense of ethics or morality. I wrote a blog post on that subject I hope you'll go back and check out, called "True Believers and Manipulators:"

http://truth-dots.blogspot.com/2012/12/true-believers-and-manipulators.html

I'm sure many of the players involved in the experimentation on children were motivated by a passionate belief that extreme measures were necessary to save us from the even worse fate of being overrun by a Communist military dictatorship. That belief, and the fear and paranoia it generated, made it easy for them to put their faith in a junk science that assured them it was OK to experiment on these kids because they were genetically inferior. Meanwhile, others were just happy to take government or foundation money for their universities, hospitals and labs.

But all of them were manipulated by those who organized, funded and directed this activity, who themselves held irrational and conflicting motivations. I quote myself here, from my other blog post:

Mark Crispin Miller, in his introduction to a recent reprint of Edward Bernays Propaganda, points to an answer, as he discusses the dual nature of the minds of demagogues such as Hitler, Mussolini, McCarthy and others.  While on the one hand, they appear to be radically committed to their mission, on the other they are detached and manipulative.  Miller proposes that it is actually both - they are "fanatical and cynical at once, neither wholly in control nor wholly ecstatic.  Such agitators work within a certain mental borderland, where one can never clearly see conviction as distinct from calculation.  Indeed, that inner murkiness appears itself to be the very source or basis of the mass manipulator's enigmatic power, and so we cannot comprehend it through schematic dualistic formulas."

CONNECT THE DOTS

Many will often dismiss warnings about the slippery slope we are currently on in the U.S.: warnings like the constant invocations of national security being used to justify endless military actions abroad, increasing militarization of the police at home, increasing government surveillance of the public, increasing operation of government in secret, etc, all promoted by nationalistic propaganda pretending to be news. I have written about this several times now:

http://truth-dots.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-slippery-slope-surveillance.html

http://truth-dots.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-slippery-slope-continues.html

http://truth-dots.blogspot.com/2013/05/boston-further-along-wrong-path.html

So I ask you: is the propaganda, the misinformation, the stirring up of fear and paranoia posing as patriotism any different today than it was then? Are government leaders any less prone to the corrupting influence of money and power? Is one's racial or ethnic identity or economic status any less of a factor in one's being considered an equal member of society? Are scientific and medical institutions any less interested in cashing in on the expansion of government programs driven by fear and paranoia? Are corporations any less ruthless than they were before in their pursuit of economic enrichment at any price? Are the elites in the upper echelons of government and finance any less disdainful of the other 99.99% of humans in this world?

The book Against Their Will provides its own answer to that question by exposing the fact that the experimentation on children never actually stopped, it has just been moved off-shore, away from prying eyes. As one reviewer on Amazon says:

If you thought that at the beginning of the 21st century things like the ones described before stopped, you are wrong.  As the authors point out, American institutions have been replaced by China, India, Tunisia and Nigeria as sites for Phase One drug studies.  Drug firms now travel to "places where regulation is virtually nonexistent, the FDA does not reach, and the mistakes can end up in pauper's graves."

So since the answer to all the above questions is so obviously no, then why shouldn't we be concerned, no, disturbed, no make that outraged, at the direction our society is going?

RITE OF PASSAGE

It is not pleasant to have to look upon the dark side of human nature; much easier to look away, avoid the issue, and live in willful ignorance, especially when the evil is found to be embedded in our most revered cultural institutions: government, science, medicine. But such knowledge is inescapable. Indeed, awareness of the past, and putting current events in the context of history, are necessary steps on the path to a more peaceful and compassionate future. So don't run and hide; look it in the eye. Weep, puke, rage if you have to. It is a rite of passage. Let it propel you forward into doing whatever you can do to shift the balance of power in the "real" world from fear over to love.



I have offered my thoughts on this before, and will continue to do so. Please read my posts, "The Absence of the Light," and "Solutions," for my perspectives on the crucial importance of bringing love, compassion, humility and forgiveness into our lives, as a serious, practical approach to countering the negative influences in the world.

http://truth-dots.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-absence-of-light.html

http://truth-dots.blogspot.com/2012/11/solutions.html

This is where our true power lies, and we must learn to wake up to it, own it, and use it. As I said in Absence of the Light:

And to anyone who finds this naive or can see no practical value in focusing on these concepts, we must thank them and continue on our way.  We have seen countless examples, time after time, how the actions of one person can make a difference to many others.  The simple act of extending humble generosity, compassion and forgiveness to another can have powerfully positive ramifications.

As I also suggested in that blog, it is the children that often end up being the ones who show us the way. We have so much to learn from them. We should sign up for the course.



Links to reviews and commentaries on the book:

http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/books/2013/07/07/book-review-against-their-will-dober-secret-history-medical-experimentation-children-cold-war-america-allen-hornblum-judith-newman-and-gregory/mvRMIO8Zt7HakY7HWSLESO/story.html

http://my.firedoglake.com/valtin/2013/07/17/book-review-against-their-willthe-secret-history-of-medical-experimentation-on-children-in-cold-war-america/

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/allen-m-hornblum/against-their-will/

http://www.amazon.com/Against-Their-Will-Experimentation-Children/dp/0230341713

http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/36151/title/Capsule-Reviews/

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True Believers and Manipulators

                   
As more and more facts come to light about the stunningly immoral behavior of the superclass which seeks to control every aspect of our lives, we keep asking ourselves, what motivates these people?

Mark Crispin Miller, in his introduction to a recent reprint of Edward Bernays Propaganda, points to an answer, as he discusses the dual nature of the minds of demagogues such as Hitler, Mussolini, McCarthy and others. While on the one hand, they appear to be radically committed to their mission, on the other they are detached and manipulative. Miller proposes that it is actually both - they are "fanatical and cynical at once, neither wholly in control nor wholly ecstatic. Such agitators work within a certain mental borderland, where one can never clearly see conviction as distinct from calculation. Indeed, that inner murkiness appears itself to be the very source or basis of the mass manipulator's enigmatic power, and so we cannot comprehend it through schematic dualistic formulas."
(By the way, this is a very valuable book to read, and Miller's excellent introduction makes it doubly so.)

I think this idea goes a long way to explaining the actions of all the megalomaniacs running rampant over our democracy, our economy, our media, our civil liberties, our education system, our privacy, our environment, our food, our water, you name it. And of course, waging wars around the world. They always come up with a rationale to justify what they do, and perhaps they even believe it is a righteous, virtuous cause. But that doesn't stop them from engaging in the most blatantly unethical, manipulative, and usually criminal behavior in pursuit of their goals.

The powerful manipulators seem to have two underlying attitudes. One goes something like: "I think you are inferior, therefore I have no reason to treat you with any respect, compassion or humanity. I can exploit you and do whatever I want to you with no concern. The only things of importance are the increase of my own wealth and power." The other would be: "I think you are inferior, therefore I must use my vast superiority to do whatever is necessary to protect and improve the world as I see fit. Because you are inferior you are incapable of deciding for yourselves what is best for you. I, in my superiority,  must make those judgements - for the greater good of all." As Miller suggests, both of these attitudes may exist simultaneously in their minds.

As you explore this topic you find there are many levels as the elites manipulate those below them, who in turn manipulate those below them. The plight and peril of anyone who has genuine passion and commitment is that he is susceptible to being used by someone who knows how to manipulate his passion. Thus the revolutionaries in the Arab Spring uprisings in Egypt and Libya are in danger of being manipulated by Western covert forces who only view their countries as pieces on the global chessboard. NGO's and charitable foundations, staffed by hard-working, smart, sincere, committed individuals, unwittingly provide cover and credibility, disguising the true objectives of the mega-billioinaires who finance them. Honorable young men and women with noble ideals, equipped with great intelligence, skills, and bravery, become the public face of a military that, just below the surface, is rife with corruption and senseless brutality.

Perhaps the true believer's passion is actually nothing more than bigotry, or simple hatred of the poor, the foreign, the dark-skinned. He can be used by the elites to engage in the most heinous, in-humane actions - which also happen to serve the long-term agendas of the elites. That person may eventually be exposed as a racist or extremist, but his manipulators remain obscured.The recent coverage of the sordid history of forced sterilizations in the U.S for most of the 20th century is but one example:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/15/health/california-forced-sterilizations/index.html
http://rockcenter.nbcnews.com/_news/2011/11/07/8640744-victims-speak-out-about-north-carolina-sterilization-program-which-targeted-women-young-girls-and-blacks

We have some contemporary examples in which it is hard to tell whether one is a true believer, or a cynical manipulator. Take for example Duane Clarridge, a CIA officer who became notorious in the 80's for his role in the Iran-Contra scandal.  He is a perfect example of someone so wrapped up (apparently) in the myth of American exceptionalism that he is convinced that any level of brutality is allowable, as long as it is in the cause of defending and promoting American interests. Note how insistent he is on selling us on the righteousness and importance of what are clearly violent, inhumane acts.



And his present-day counterpart, Jose Rodriguez, virtually identical in his tone and intent:



Do they really believe what they're saying? If so, whose agenda are they serving so willingly? Or are they just cynically spouting the words that they know will inflame the passions of those who respond more to appeals to emotion than to reason? Or is it all of the above?

In political rhetoric, there is always some invocation of a "greater good" to justify actions that are clearly, obviously uncompassionate, inhumane and destructive. Cut social spending to save the economy. Fight endless wars to achieve peace. Support a dictator to help spread democracy. The illogic of such double-speak is usually so transparent one wonders how they carry it off. Then we remember: they are experts at that.

In a world of such insane contradictions, it helps to recognize that this is actually the elites' weakness: the inherent irrationality of their actions. By being so utterly obsessed with personal gain and the exercise of control, they are forced to produce a rationale for public consumption that simply doesn't hold up. They are aware of it; that is why they engage in so much propagandizing, media manipulation and cultural conditioning. What we need is for people to reawaken their common sense and capacity for critical thinking, in order to break through all that, and realize we need to stand up and refuse to tolerate it.

It also calls for us to re-connect to our core sense of compassion and empathy for others, in order to grasp the basic, simple ethical flaw in the mindset of the manipulator: that the lack of caring for others is, in reality, destructive to themselves and to the greater good they claim to serve.


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