Ronald W. Reagan

[John Dolva]

A number of posts recently seems to me to necessitate an evaluation of who the Contras were, why they were, and how they got away with it.

While Bush is a central figure, it is really President Reagan who carried it off. Like Bush he spoke with a scrambler in his mouth, and like Bush he was backed by powerful Forces. As they really had nothing to say that to a sensible person makes sense in the first place, obfuscation and fudging of reality is really their primary skills...

Terrorist-

Ronald Wilson Reagan, (Feb 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) and his henchmen Bush et al managed to get away with the anti christian Contra war in Central America, and the concurrent destructive drugging of US youth under the guise of the office of President of the United States of America, largely because of the Media at the time keeping the population uninformed. Since then, this information has to some extent filtered through.

He engaged in the classic Goebbles style subversion of the english language such as calling the Contras "freedom fighters" and urging people to 'just say no' while allowing concurrent DEA investigations to be nullified.

Strangely enough there are still people that think he was an OK kind of guy. It reminds me of a friend telling me how when Sydney anti-war demonstrators were shouting 'hey hey LBJ how many kids have you killed today?' and 'Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh, Dare to struggle dare to win', during Johnsons visit to Australia, her mum said 'He's such a nice fellow, he's a scout leader, you know, and Nellie dresses so nicely."

President Ronald Reagan defied a World Court ruling against his illegal Nicaraguan war.

In the Iran-Contra scandal, Reagan violated US law by issuing a “retroactive finding” authorizing the swapping of arms for hostages with the Iranian mullahs. He defied the will of Congress, and subverted the US Constitution, by diverting funds from these arms sales to his illegal wars in Central America.

http://www.impactpress.com/articles/augsep04/reagan8904.html

"In the aftermath of Ronald Reagan's death on June 5, many politicians, journalists, and academics rushed to praise the 40th president and his legacy. For more than a week, the corporate media provided extensive coverage of the memorial services, funeral, and related rituals. Hundreds of thousands of people came to pay their respects in Simi Valley, California, and Washington, D.C. But as more than a few critics have pointed out, the wave of sympathy and nostalgia promoted by establishment analysts has been accompanied by what Paul Douglas Newman of Common Dreams News Center called "collective amnesia."

Now that Reagan has been laid to rest, perhaps it is time for some straight talk about his life, his presidency and his legacy. If we critically examine the historical facts, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Reagan was one of the most reactionary, right-wing politicians to ever lead this country. As Frances Fox Piven observed in a June 11, 2004 interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now, Reagan was "one of the most damaging presidents in American history." As Vijay Prashad wrote ("The Last Act," Frontline, June 19-July 2, 2004), "The Reagan Revolution bequeathed us with a world that is infinitely more dangerous and divided than ever before."

"As Roberto Rodriguez and Patrisia Gonzales pointed out, "Reagan's name will forever be tarnished" because of his illegal war against the democratically elected government of Nicaragua and his support for brutal dictatorships in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras ("Morning and Mourning in America," Hispanic Vista, June 11, 2004). Former Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Miguel D'Escoto, speaking to Democracy Now on June 9, 2004, called Reagan "the butcher of my people," and that is not just rhetoric. Hundreds of thousands of people died in Latin America in the 1980s because of Reagan's foreign policy. His enthusiastic embrace of dictatorships in Chile, Argentina, Turkey, Korea, and the Philippines made clear that he considered democracy expendable if it came into conflict with capitalism.

Reagan supported Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, illegally sold weapons to Iran in order to finance the U.S. war against Nicaragua, and helped finance and train Osama Bin Laden's guerrillas in Afghanistan. Reagan backed Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982, and his bombing of Libya killed hundreds of innocent people, including Muammar Gaddafi's youngest daughter. Reagan's massive military buildup, public endorsement of "limited nuclear war," promotion of the "Star Wars" missile defense system, and deployment of offensive nuclear missiles to Western Europe brought us perilously close to a catastrophic Third World War. In 1984, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved its Doomsday Clock to three minutes to midnight.

Although Reagan's admirers give him credit for the collapse of the Soviet Union and its allies in Eastern Europe, former political leaders and former dissidents in that region have very different views. Former Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev has stressed that his historic reforms were rooted in a growing awareness of the old regime's insurmountable economic and political problems. Dissident Czech playwright and later president Vaclav Havel has said that he was more inspired by John Lennon and Frank Zappa than by Reagan or former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. As Reagan's foreign policy in other parts of the world confirmed, the 40th president was hardly opposed to authoritarianism and repression–as long as they were in the service of capitalism."

http://www.holman.net/ufo/archives/researc...pire/contra.txt

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The Contras -- Policy of Terror and CIA Origins

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"There can be no doubt, on the basis of what we head and saw, that a PLANNED STRATEGY OF TERRORISM is being carried out by the contras along the Honduras border"

--Chairmen of Americas Watch and Helsinki Watch, after a personal visit to study the "great divergence between President Reagan's rhetoric and the conclusions of the [Americas Watch] report" on contra atrocities. Orville Schell and Robert Bernstein, Wall St. Journal, April 23, 1985.

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"Come the counterrevolution, there will be a massacre in Nicaragua. We have a lot of scores to settle. There will be bodies from the border to Managua."

-- Contra officer, Newsweek, November 8, 1982 [Cited in Sklar's book (see below)]

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"The contras have ROUTINELY attacked civilian populations. Their forces kidnap, torture, and murder health workers, teachers, and other government employees."

-- Americas Watch

"Terrorism is premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against NONCOMBATANT TARGETS by sub-national groups or clandestine state agents"

- U.S.. Department of State, _Patterns of Global Terrorism: 1983_, Sept. 1984.

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"More than 22,500 Nicaraguans have been killed in theU.S.-sponsored contra war ... The contras concentrate on civilian, rather than military, targets. They attack parents and children in their homes. They systematically kill medical workers, teachers, literacy volunteers, technicians, social workers, and agricultural advisors. Often they have tortured these victims of left gruesome remains" in an apparent attempt to "warn other Nicaraguans away from public-service"

-- Oxfam America, _Central America and Southern Africa: Making the Connections_, 1988/89. Oxfam America, 115 Broadway, Boston, MA 02116 / (617) 482-1221 513 Valencia St. #8, San Francisco, CA 94110 (415) 863-3981

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"Rosa had her breasts cut off. Then they cut into her chest and took out her heart. The men had their arms broken, their testicles cut off, and their eyes poked out. They where killed by slitting their throats, and pulling the tongue out through the slit."

--Survivor's account of a contra attack. Jonathan Steele and Tony Jenkins, Manchester Guardian Weekly, Nov. 25, 1984. [Cited in _Turning the Tide_ (see below)]

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"FDN [contra] units would arrive at an undefended village, assemble all the residents in the town square and then proceed to kill -- in full view of the others -- all persons suspected of working for the Nicaraguan Government or the F.S.L.N., including police, local militia members, party members, health workers, teachers, and farmers from government-sponsored cooperatives.

In this atmosphere, it was not difficult to persuade those able-bodied men left alive to [join the contras] This was, unfortunately, a widespread practice that accounted for many recruits."

--Former Contra Director Edgar Chamorro, in his Affidavit to the World Court.

Page 117 in:_Washington's War on Nicaragua_, by Holly Sklar.1988, South End Press, Boston.[south End Press, 300 Raritan Center Parkway, Edison, NJ 08818] [For a free catalog: 1-800-533-8478; see AML resource files]

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CIA - ASSASSINATION MANUAL - Spanish edition.

"Upon reflection, I found many of the tactics advocated in the [CIA "Assassination manual" which he helped translate into Spanish] to be offensive, and I complained to the CIA station chief in Tegucigalpa. The station chief defended ..the manual, and no action was ever taken in response to my complaints. In fact, the practices advocated in the manual were employed by FDN troops,. Many civilians were killed in cold blood. Many others were tortured, mutilated, raped, robbed or otherwise abused.

As time went on, I became more and more troubled by the frequent reports I received of atrocities committed by our troops against civilians and against Sandinista prisoners. Calero and Bermudez refused to discuss the subject with me, so I went straight to our unit commanders as they returned from combat missions inside Nicaragua and asked them about their activities. I was saddened by what I was told. The atrocities I had heard about were not isolated incidents, but reflected a consistent pattern of behavior by our troops. There were unit commanders who openly bragged about their murders, mutilations, etc. When I questioned them about the propriety or wisdom of doing those things they told me it was the only way tot win this war, that the best way to win the loyalty of the civilian population was to intimidate it and make it fearful of us." Chamorro complained to the CIA, as well as to Calero and Bermudez, to no avail...Shortly after that, Chamorro acknowledged to a newspaper reported that FDN troops had killed civilians and executed prisoners. "Calero told me I could no longer work in Honduras," said Chamorro, "and I was reassigned to the local FDN committee in Miami. I was given nothing to do and I no longer had much interest in working for the FDN, or to be more accurate, for the CIA" Chamorro broke with the FDN in November 1984.

--Holly Sklar, quoting from her November 24, 1896 interview with Edgar Chamorro. See Sklar's book, p.182-83

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..The contras cross the border from their bases in Honduras to commit acts of sabotage: burning cooperatives, blowing up bridges, killing and kidnapping teachers, health workers, and farmers. The victims of contra terror include people like the Barreras, a couple in their 60's who were well known and respected in the town of Esteli'. Last year the Barreras volunteered to help pick coffee near the border because they felt this was part of their duty as Christians.

The couple was kidnapped by contras and taken to a town in Honduras. There they were kept outside for four months and tortured daily as an example --their torturers said-- of what would happen to Christians who support the revolution. Later, other coffee pickers who managed to escape brought back word that the Barreras were dead.

"By September, 1983, the contras had killed nearly 700 Nicaraguans and had caused $600 million in damage to the economy..."

--Oxfam America report _Facts for Action_ -- "Nicaragua: Development Under Fire" Sept. 1983

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"Another witness describes a contra attack on his cooperative in April 1984:

They had already destroyed all that was the cooperative; a coffee drying machine, the two dormitories for the coffee cutters, the electricity generators, 7 cows, the plant, the food warehouse. There was one boy about 15 years old, who was retarded and suffered from epilepsy. We had left him in a bomb shelter. When we returned...., we saw ...that they had cut his throat, then they cut open his stomach and left his intestines hanging out on the ground like a string. They did the same to Juan Corrales who had already died from a bullet in the fighting. They opened him up and took out his intestines and cut off his testicles.

"In Miami -- along with Washington, the base for the war against Nicaragua and one of the major world centers of international terrorism -- Adolfo Calero, political-military director of the central component of the US proxy army (the FDN), stated that "There is no line at all, not even a fine line, between a civilian farm owned by the government and a Sandinista military outpost" -- so that arbitrary killing of civilians is entirely legitimate. Calero is regarded as a meritorious figure and leading democrat by our domestic partisans of mass slaughter, mutilation, torture and degradation. [19] "

[19] NYT, Nov. 23, 1984; worse still, Calero added that "we are not killing civilians. We are fighting armed people and retuning fire when fire is directed against us" from cooperatives --which, most surprisingly, have armed guards, justifying the massacre of civilians who are not civilians when contra soldiers, walking by to enjoy the scenery, are inexplicably fired upon by these terrorists. See the full-page ad supporting aid to the "democratic resistance" led by Calero in the NYT, June 2, 1985, signed by Martin Peretz and Leon Wieseltier of the _New Republic_, along with such regular apologists for US atrocities as Sidney Hook and John Silber and numerous other luminaries: Morris Abram, Hyman Bookbinder, Penn Kemble, Samuel Huntington, Seymour Martin Lipset, Michael Novak, Albert Shanker, Allen Weinstein, Ben Wattenberg, etc.

[From _Turning the Tide. U.S.. Intervention in Central America and the

Struggle for Peace_ By Noam Chomsky, 1985, South End Press, Boston.]

[south End Press, 300 Raritan Center Parkway, Edison, NJ 08818]

[For a free catalog: 1-800-533-8478; see AML resource files]

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"Our friends are quite aware of what they do. Arturo Cruz, who has been dubbed `the leading Nicaragua democrat' by the US media, concedes that his contra associates have committed ``damnable atrocities'' against civilians. Before joining them, he warned that their victory might lead ``to a possible mass execution of the flower of our youth'' while describing some of them as ``civic cadavers'' and noting that ``most of those persons in positions of military authority within the FDN are ex-members of the National Guard, who unconditionally supported Somoza until the end, against the will of the Nicaraguan people'' -- not ``most,'' but virtually all, from the top military commander on down; Edgar Chamorro, chosen by the CIA to serve as spokesman for its proxy army, writes that ``by mid-1984, 46 out of 48 of the contra commandantes were former National Guardsmen.'' Cruz is unhappy about the fact that the contras ``are almost totally controlled by right-wingers, many of them followers of'' Somoza, Dennis Volman reports. The new unified command (UNO) set up by the CIA is ``dominated by Adolfo Calero, according to all sources interviewd''; ``Mr. Calero is an ultra-conservative Nicaraguan businessman closely allied to those FDN field commanders who were top officers in Somoza's army''..."[28]

[28]:New York Times, Nov. 23, 1984; Pamela Constable, Boston Globe, April 24, 1985; Cruz, Foreign Affairs, Summer 1983; Cruz, Op-Ed, New York Times, Dec. 6, 1984; Edgar Chamorro, In These Times, Sept. 4, 1985; Dennis Volman, Christian Science Monitor, Oct. 15, 1985

[From _Turning the Tide. U.S.. Intervention in Central America and the Struggle for Peace_ By Noam Chomsky, 1985, South End Press, Boston.] [south End Press, 300 Raritan Center Parkway, Edison, NJ 08818] [For a free catalog: 1-800-533-8478; see AML resource files]

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"A study enumerating the former Somoza Guardsmen among contra leaders is "Who Are the Contras?" prepared by the staff of the Arms Control and Foreign Policy Caucus of the U.S.. Congress, _Congressional Record_, April 23, 1985, pages H2335-H2339."

[From _What Are We Afraid Of?_ by John Lamperti, South End Press 1988]

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"1982 was a year of transition for the FDN [main contra group]...From a collection of small, disorganized and ineffectual bands of ex-National guardsmen, the F.D.N. grew into a well-organized, well-armed, well-equipped and well-trained fighting force of approximately 4,000 men capable of inflicting great harm on Nicaragua. This was due entirely to the C.I.A. which organized, armed, equipped, trained and supplied us." [p.117] [sklar book]

[Former contra director Edgar Chamorro and others give a fuller description in Sklar's book of the CIA's convincing them to work with (i.e., front) and join with the former National Guardsmen]

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"Thousands of members of Somoza's national Guard fled Nicaragua after the Sandinista triumph. A group of around 60 exiled former guardsmen created a terrorist force called the ``15th of September Legion'' in Honduras. A few short months after the revolution, they commenced their war of terrorism against Nicaragua [something to note wrt Sandinistas needing from the outset a fair amount of arms to defend their country; not to mention the history of U.S. intvervention they (and few Americans) were well aware of (See George Black's _The Good Neighbor (Subtitle: How the United States Wrote the History of Central America and the Caribbean)_, Pantheon Books, New York, 1988. --HB]

"Soon Argentine military experts were advising these Honduran-based guardsmen. In late 1981, prospects for the Somocistas quickly improved. The leader of the guardsmen, Colonel Enrique Bermu'dez Varela recalled that time. Suddenly, he said, ``I could feel the steps of a giant animal.''[13] The giant animal was the Central Intelligence Agency, which took control of the counterrevolutionary war. In the next three years, the CIA fashioned the motley group of guardsmen into a counterrevolutionary army which the CIA labeled the Nicaraguan Democratic Force (FDN).

"A 1985 study entitled _Who Are the Contras?_ by the Arms Control and Foreign Policy Caucus of the U.S. Senate revealed the degree to which the FDN was a reincarnation of Somoza's National Guard. The study found that 46 of the FDN's 48 military leaders had been members of the *guardia*. Chief military commander, Enrique Bermu`dez Varela, served as Somoza's military attache` in Washington until June 1979. [...] In opposing the [Reagan] administration's aid requests, Senator Tom Harkin noted that the *contras* ``have promised to bring to Managua a reign of terror that will make the French Revolution look like a Labor Day picnic. Their methods are those of the Marquis de Sade, not the Marquis de Lafayette.''[14] [...]

"Edgar Chamorro, who was dumped from the FDN's civilian directorate in 1984 for criticizing human-rights abuses by the former guardsmen, told _Newsweek_ that the *guardia* had no political agenda beyond a desire to restore a Somoza-like regime. Chamorro said they just want ``to return to the way things were before'' and ``to settle accounts'' with the Sandinistas.[15] "

[13] Doyle McManus and Robert C. Toth, "the Contras: How US Got Entangled," _Los Angeles Times_, March 4, 1985.

[14] Presentation by Sen. Tom Harkin, "Contras or Contadora: Military Solution or Negotiated Political Settlement," March 26, 1985, cited in Washington Report on Hemisphere, April 16, 1985.

[15] _Newsweek_, April 29, 1985.

[From: The Central America Fact Book. By Tom Barry and Deb Preusch. Published by Grove Press, Inc., 196 West Houston Street, New York, NY 10014, published 1986 in New York.]

[Copyright 1986 by The Resource Center. "The Inter-Hemispheric Education Resource Center is a non-profit organization that produces repots, books, and slide/tape shows on Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. For more information: The Resource Center, P.O. Box 4506, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87196"]

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"We got contras because the CIA put together Somocistas, Argentinians and the CIA...You cannot expect too much democracy from that"

--Edgar Chamorro [Washington's War on Nicaragua, from an interview with the author.]

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"On June 5, Nicaragua expelled three employees of the U.S.. Embassy in Managua, accusing them of being CIA agents working under diplomatic cover to destabilize the government. Nicaragua presented evidence of a plot to assassinate Foreign Minister D'Escoto with a poisoned bottle of Benedictine liquor. D'Escoto was reportedly targeted because his vocation as a priest gave the revolution too much respectability in international affairs... Using the explusion of the three U.S. officials as an excuse, Washington closed down all six of Nicaragua's consulates in the Unites States and expelled 21 consular officials. The Nicaraguan government identified the move as part of an economic boycott because the consulates handled virtually all of Nicaragua's $300 million annual trade with the United States [see Latin America Weekly Report, June 17, 1983] On the diplomatic front, Special Envoy Richard Stone..went to Central America in June on what was widely seen as one in a series of diplomatic missions designed mainly for public relations. Stone, who was a registered lobbyist for the Guatemalan dictatorship after losing his Florida Senate seat in 1980, put ``democracy'' in Nicaragua at the top of the list of U.S.concerns...

"D'Escoto recalled one of his last meetings with Richard Stone in Managua. At one point Stone asked, `` `Father, do you think that it really would be possible for both of our nations to normalize relations?' And I said, `I think it not only could be, but should be. And all it takes is for both of us to want it. I assure you...that Nicaragua wants to normalize relations...I think that the place to begin is by committing both of our governments to respect in the most categorical way the principles established in the charters of the United Nations and the Organization of American States, both of which we have signed in our laws. That is to say, to regulate our relations with the...principles of international law.'

`Father, that is your problem,' he [stone] says. `It must be your background' [They are] always emphasizing the fact that I'm not a professional politician... He says, `But now you have been in politics long enough...to have come to realize that politics is made of concrete things...You talk about international law, Father. That is philosophy.' As if to say poetry, or something optional, I don't know. He says international law `is philosophy.'

``He says, `The contras,' and he looked me straight in the eye, `the contras, they give you a lot of difficulty, don't they Father. 'Exactly those words, I remember...And I said, `They surely do, but they wouldn't for too long...if your government would stop financing them and arming them and directing them.' And he said, `Well, I guess you are hopeless. There you go again, philosophy...The only reality is that they have been, that they are and that they will continue to receive aid...'

``And then he says to me, `You seem to be an intelligent person.'Intelligent or rational...`And intelligent people,' he says, `don't like to have difficulties. You have already acknowledged that the contras do give you a headache. And therefore presumably you...would prefer not to have this headache.' And, `you should do as we say. 'That crude, `you should do as we say.' And then he says, `You will see how almost by magic the problem will disappear.' And I could have almost imagined someone with a hat pulling out a rabbit...' '' "[Page 142, Holly Sklar]

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Subject: Nicaline Special Note ............ Sept. 16, 1989 letter received by the Berkeley Committee of Science for Nicaragua which distributes the Nicaline Bulletin.

CONTRA ATTACKS CONTINUE Sept. 5, 1989

Since the signing of the Tela Peace Accords last month, calling for demobilization of Washington's mercenary forces, the US-supported contra terrorists have stepped up their campaign of assassinating civilians here in Nicaragua.

Last week alone the contras killed 4 civilians in two separate attacks in rural areas where I travel to sample contaminated drinking water supplies. On August 26, a group of about 30 contras attacked a refugee settlement called El Achiote, located near Rio Blanco. Three campesinos were killed and two kidnapped. The second attack was more brutal. On August 31, approximately 30 contras stopped a vehicle traveling near Sarayal (outside Jinotega) carrying 60 campesinos and singled out Marcos Castro (civilian, age 40), one of the campesino leaders at the Abisinia refugee settlement. The contras took him away, and mutilated his body badly. They gouged his eyes out, castrated him, cut his tongue off and broke his limbs, and then they killed him. I just received confirmation regarding the state of his mutilated body from the examining doctor at the hospital in Jinotega.

It is clear that the Bush Administration has no interest in supporting the Tela Peace Accords, even though the Agreement has the support of 5 Central American presdents, the United Nations, the OAS, and leaders of the 21 opposition parties here in Nicaragua. The Administration's support of terrorist attacks on civilians to "pressure" the Sandinista government to become "more democratic" and hold "fair elections" in February, 1990, is shameful.

While many of the estimated 10,000 to 13,000 have started to turn themselves in under a general amnesty program, we have received word that about 3,000 contras will infiltrate from Honduras into Nicaragua to intimidate people so that they are afraid to vote during the elections next year. This idea has recently been supported by observation teams in Honduras. Apparently the UN and OAS teams sent to observe the demobilization process have found that many contras have abandoned their base camps and scattered in the remote mountains to regroup.

If true, such an effort requires money and logistical support. I believe that this recent wave of violence is the beginning of a new strategy to disrupt the upcoming elections. Unless the American people demand an end to these illegal policies, Peace will never have a chance in Central America. When the people speak out, maybe our leaders will finally listen, as they did during the final months of the war in Vietnam.

[Ms. Ryan is associated with Veterans for Peace and works for a water purification project in the Sixth Region (Matagalpa/El Cua)]

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WHO-WERE CONTRAS Contras' origins; make-up; practices - documented

FSLN H-RIGHTS Documented HRs comparison w/Somoza,Guat,ES,others

FSLN MISKITOS Sandinista treatment of Miskitos;Charges & Realit

FSLN NICAJEWS Debunks charges of Sandinista 'Anti-Semitism'

OXFAM84 NICARAG Oxfam America's 1984 report on Nicaragua, in full

FSLN ACHIEVE Documented: achievements of the Nica. revolution

NICA-84 ELECTION Documented: Fair under Sandinistas; US subversion

FAIRNESS NICA-USA Flwup:`Is Nicaragua More Democratic than the US?'

NICRAGUA ELECTION Study in US subversion of '90 Nicaraguan election

Ronald Wilson Reagan

(image)

Edited September 11, 2006 by John Dolva

[John Simkin]

Although Ronald Reagan was clearly the front man, George Bush was the main figure behind this terrorist network. There is evidence that Bush was getting members of Operation 40 in the early 1960s to carry out freelance work for Texas businessmen.

Bush was also head of the CIA when in 1976 Frank Castro established Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations (CORU). Other members included Luis Posada, Orlando Bosch, Armando Lopez Estrada and Guillermo Novo. CORU was partly financed by Guillermo Hernández Cartaya, another Bay of Pigs veteran closely linked to the CIA. He was later charged with money laundering, drugs & arms trafficking and embezzlement. The federal prosecutor told Pete Brewton that he had been approached by a CIA officer who explained that "Cartaya had done a bunch of things that the government was indebted to him for, and he asked me to drop the charges against him."

Bush also played an important role in covering up the assassination of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt, by CIA contract agent Michael Townley.

Bush was also close to Ted Shackley who he was grooming to take over from him as director of the CIA. Jimmy Carter’s election put an end to this plan. Bush then worked with Shackley to help Reagan defeat Carter in 1980. Bush had been a candidate for the job (speeches were being written by Shackley) but decided to help Reagan after getting the job of his running-mate.

Bush was also the key figure in the Iran-Contra Scandal. However, as Lawrence E. Walsh, who wrote the official report on the scandal, Bush refused to be interviewed or to hand over documents during the enquiry. As soon as Bush became president he pardoned all those who could have provided evidence against him. He also gave top jobs in his administration who helped him cover-up the scandal (this includes Dick Cheney who is still being rewarded for his silence).

George Bush senior is the most disreputable president in American history. Hopefully, he will be still alive when the truth about Bush becomes public.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKbushG.htm

[Dawn Meredith]

Although Ronald Reagan was clearly the front man, George Bush was the main figure behind this terrorist network. There is evidence that Bush was getting members of Operation 40 in the early 1960s to carry out freelance work for Texas businessmen........

Bush was also the key figure in the Iran-Contra Scandal. However, as Lawrence E. Walsh, who wrote the official report on the scandal, Bush refused to be interviewed or to hand over documents during the enquiry. As soon as Bush became president he pardoned all those who could have provided evidence against him. He also gave top jobs in his administration who helped him cover-up the scandal (this includes Dick Cheney who is still being rewarded for his silence).

George Bush senior is the most disreputable president in American history. Hopefully, he will be still alive when the truth about Bush becomes public.

John and John:

Tho W appears to be far worse than his father it is only because of what has occurred in the wake of 9-11. The wholesale dismantling of the Constitution. Torture being officially sanctioned, etc.

I hope we are all alive when the truth about these monsters comes to light. I cannot hear the term "freedom fighters" without gagging. Liars, terrorists: Our leaders.

Dawn

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKbushG.htm

[John Dolva]

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

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Edited September 13, 2006 by John Dolva

[John Dolva]

56 Somoza is assassinated by poet Rigoberto Lopez Perez. Somoza’s eldest son, Luis Somoza Debayle, becomes President

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66

67 Luis Somoza dies of a heart attack and his younger brother, Anastasio Somoza Debayle assumes the Presidency.

68

69

70 ####

71

72 An earthquake kills and makes homeless thousands. Aid from around the world is taken by Somoza and the National Guard for their own private gain.

(As the Vietnam War was ending Shackley left Southeast Asia in 1972 to head CIA activities in the Western Hemisphere. One of Shackley's first assignments was to sent Ed Wilson and Manuel Artime to meet with right-wing dictator Anastasio Somoza.) 73

74 (Bruce Jones moves to Costa Rica)

75

76 Carlos Fonseca’s death sparks a new roar in the Sandinista movement.

77

78 Full-scale guerrilla war envelops Nicaragua

January 1978 - Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, publisher of the popular conservative newspaper, La Prensa and leader of the opposition Democratic Liberation Union, is murdered. Somoza is suspected of ordering the crime. Assassination triggers general strike and brings together moderates of the business and professional classes, and the FSLN in a united front to oust Somoza.

August 1978 - An FSLN commando unit seizes the National Palace and forces Somoza to release political prisoners. A strike is called by the broad opposition front.

September 1978 - An FSLN-led insurrection in major towns in northern Nicaragua is put down with massive repression and bombing by the National Guard.

April 1979 - The US cuts off Somoza following the televised murder by a National Guard lieutenant of ABC newsman Bill Stewart.

July 17, 1979 - Somoza flees Nicaragua.

July 19, 1979 - The National Guard surrenders to the FSLN.

1979 - Government of National Reconstruction, led by the Sandinistas, takes power.

1980 - Somoza assassinated in Paraguay; FSLN government led by Daniel Ortega nationalises and redistributes lands held by the Somoza family.

December 1981- US President Reagan authorizes a CIA covert action against Nicaragua, a force of 500 men to “interdict” alleged arms traffic from Nicaragua to rebels in El Salvador. Nicaraguans report raids by contrarevolucionarios (Contras) on the northern border. State of emergency declared.

Feb 11, 1982, Attorney General William French Smith grants an exemption sparing the CIA from a legal requirement to report on drug smuggling by agency assets. XX

(March 1982 -.(Jones approached by Commandante Zero, Eden Pastora. and two months later the CIA are supplying the southern front)

1982 - Former Sandinista official, Eden Pastora, forms a Contra organization based in Costa Rica, opening a two-front guerrilla war against the Sandinistas.

(the first publicly known case of contra cocaine shipments appeared in government files in an Oct. 22, 1982, cable from the CIA's Directorate of Operations. The cable passed on word that U.S. law enforcement agencies were aware of "links between (a U.S. religious organization) and two Nicaraguan counter-revolutionary groups [which] involve an exchange in (the United States) of narcotics for arms." The material in parentheses was inserted by the CIA as part of its declassification of the cable. The name of the religious group remains secret.)

January 1984 - The FSLN holds elections that result in Daniel Ortega elected president; US mines Nicaraguan harbours and is condemned by the World Court for doing so.

Contras take credit for mining Nicaraguan harbors. An investigation reveals that the mining was done by the CIA.

May 1984 - (After Pastora refuses to link up with the northern front, Jones is ordered by the CIA to stop working with him and...)An assassination attempt on the Costa Rican-Nicaraguan border wounds Pastora and leaves several journalists dead and wounded. The CIA is suspected to be behind it.

1985 - The International Court of Justice at The Hague sides with the Sandinistas against the US. In elections, the Sandinistas win over 60% of the vote for parliamentary seats. The US refuses to recognize the election results. The US Congress cuts off aid to the Contras, but national security officials continue to fund the Contras from money derived from surreptitious arms sales to Iran.

1986-89 - Beginning in the summer of 1986, a Contra company infiltrates into northern Nicaragua, but is forced to retreat under a Sandinista counteroffensive. Battles continue to rage on many fronts, with the Contras unable to hold a piece of Nicaraguan Territory. War casualties number 30,000. Hurricane leaves 180,000 people homeless.

1990 - Sandinistas lose the national election. Violeta Chamorro, widow of slain Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, backed by the US, wins the election for President.

Washington immediately stops the Contra war.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION & COMPLICITY IN

THE WAR ON DRUGS: What do Internal CIA and

Justice Department Reports Reveal?*

Testimony by Peter Dale Scott

Questions From Commissioner

Q:What has been, in your view, the principle motivation for involvement of the government in theutilization of drugs and drug money.

Beside the case of the contras, have there been other occasions when the government has used or collaborated with drug traffickers to benefit some policy?

A:Yes, there have been many other instances. It goes back to the height of the cold war, and particularly a document called NSC 68 back in 1949 which said that we face a very ruthless enemy and we must be equally ruthless in our response. (first strike)

You could track it back even further.

Al McCoy in his book, The Politics of Heroin, goes back to World War II, to the invasion of Sicily and the Sicilian Mafia. (anzio, walker,angleton)

But I think our concern is the use of drug assets during the cold war, especially when it heated up in places like Vietnam. In Laos, for example, the CIA had a private army of 30,000 people. The CIA did not have a budget for an army of 30,000 people, but it didn’t need a budget because its army was the local gangs of the various competing war lords in the area. That seems to have been explicitly sanctioned by the NSC directive in 1954, that I mentioned earlier. I was once on a panel with a very senior DEA official who had been investigating drug crimes in the Middle East. It was his job to target the very top traffickers and he said, “I could never make a single prosecution because all of my top traffickers, every single one of them turned out to be a CIA asset.”

####This is back in the 1970’s, so it was much older than just the contras.

In fact, my own personal explanation for the contra phenomena is that the CIA had made alliances with corrupt governments all through Central and Latin America, all of whom were profiting from a system of drug trafficking through the whole area. General Somoza in Nicaragua was a major part of it, the National Guard were, and suddenly it was disrupted by the Sandinista Revolution.

Whereas you could have had many kinds of contras, the CIA preferred to go with those National Guard elements who were part of this system.

So I think that the contra story is just a small chapter in a much larger story that is really the whole history of the cold war since Word War II.

(Had the Sandinistas left Somozas assets in the hands of the previous owners, the Contras probably not have been needed.)

XX http://www.geocities.com/~virtualtruth/crack.htm

"This occurred only two months after President Reagan authorized covert CIA support for the Nicaraguan contra army and some eight months before the first known documentary evidence revealing that the contras had started collaborating with drug traffickers. The exemption suggests that the CIA's tolerance of illicit drug smuggling by its clients during the 1980s was official policy anticipated from the outset, not just an unintended consequence followed by an ad hoc cover-up. The exemption had been secretly engineered by CIA Director William J. Casey according to a letter placed into the Congressional Record by Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., on May 7, 1998, which establishes that Casey foresaw the legal dilemma which the CIA would encounter should federal law require it to report on illicit narcotics smuggling by its agents."

_________________________

Date: September 20 1998 - UK: 'Serpico' claims Scotland Yard elite ran drug cartel

http://www.unclenicks.net/bilderberg/www.b...g.org/drugs.htm

Ian, did any follow ups on this establish CIA-Contra-Scotland Yard connections?

[John Dolva]

"A number of posts recently seems to me to necessitate an evaluation of who the Contras were, why they were, and how they got away with it."

Related topics

The war on drugs as a Civil Rights issue: Contra-Crack

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=7885

The forgotten connection : Bruce Jones, John Hull's partner

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=7852

William Plumlee - breaking news (sep. 14 2006)

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=7897

Edited September 18, 2006 by John Dolva

[John Dolva]

Photo one: Reagan meeting Contra leaders Alfonso Rebelo, Arturo Cruz and Adolfo Calero. Oliver North on the right.

Photo two: The political chief of the CIA's Contra forces, Adolfo Calero, third from left, and cocaine smuggler Norwin Meneses, right, during a 1984 meeting of an anti-communist group in San Francisco. The other men are local FDN supporters.

[John Dolva]

'hey guys..look..a camera..."

Alfonso Rebelo, Eden Pastora and other 'freedom fighters'.

(image)

[John Dolva]

topical bump