Morality is not determined by the church you attend nor the faith you embrace. It is determined by the quality of your character and the positive impact you have on those you meet along your journey
Monday, August 23, 2010
Somebody needs to ask Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, and Sarah Palin WHY Ronald Reagan hated America so much!
"Uuuuuuummmmmm, ignore this 'cause Reagan wasn't all brown, socialist and scary like Obama is. So Ronnie could say, do, or support anything or anyone this heinous and it wouldn't count."
Oh, I'm sure there will be a PERfectly good explanation. Or he won't remember it, so therefore it didn't happen, even tho we have photo evidence. Because what good is photo evidence, after all?? I mean, all we have is a PHOTO of Pres. Obama's BC, right? Of course, using that same logic, we only have A (single) PHOTO of a certain half-term half-wit governor looking pregnant, sooo......
It has been documented time and again the very reason bin Laden changed from 'cooperative' with the US to an enemy of the US stems from Reagan and his party cronies betrayal and usury of him and the Taliban forces . . they were "abandoned and helpless to be slaughtered in the thousands" in retaliatory strikes by the USSR when the Reagan crowd decided "oops, we're outa' here" because there wasn't enough profit to make themselves feel like manly men.
Alas, GW/Cheney's first week in Afghanistan finally got that oil pipeline agreement/document signed with Russia to carve the oil pipeline through Afghanistan no matter how many homes, farms and lives are destroyed....and GW/Cheney hooked up and financed the TALIBAN yet again to "protect the oil pipeline".
fool me once wasn't lost on the reinvigorated GOP Taliban, as we all know
It's always been about the oil. The right's pro-life jingles seem to be extinct "over there" when it lines pockets over here.
Sarah avidly disgraces herself, her family, Alaska, GOP, Tea Party... BUT she would never say a single disparaging word against Reagan. She's compelled to ignore facts to deify her Man. Sarah: Praise be unto the Reagan. Amen.
P.S. Rebecca Mansour won't touch this. Gifted as she is in projecting Sarah as partially sane, Rebecca can't rewrite history to support Sarah's Reagan fantasy.
I am so glad we live in the age of technology where we can dig up these kinds of photos, video clips and recordings so these fools cannot rewrite history without being challenged.
Reagan was one of the worst Presidents we had. His shallowness and sense of entitlement for the wealthy is still damaging our country.
Actually, I find it more awkward that you have no idea as to why that meeting was set up. Looking at the date should have given you a clue.
The Taliban was created at the end of the Afghan war with the Russians. The ones that were meeting with Ronald Reagan were probably part of the Mujihadeen. The SSI (for ignorant leftists, the Pakistani Seecret Service) were the ones that created the Taliban. I could give you a history lesson mentioning Madras and everything, but it would be too long and too complex for you to understand.
Anyway, to be succint at the time of the meeting with Ronald Reagan they were NOT at war with the US. They were fighting against Russian takeover of their country and the US backed them. Not unlike the alliance that FDR and Churchill made with Stalin during WWII, throughout history there have been "alliances for convenience".
I know that facts are as foreign to you as world history. Maybe you can look some of this up to educate yourself. I do not recommend Wikipedia since they have been known not to be very accurate. A trip to the library may be in order.
US History shows we've often used countries and various militant groups like pieces on a chess board fighting "the Cold War". If USSR supported "this group" we supported the other side, regardless. In some 3 way conflicts, we armed two sides! If the Taliban was fighting USSR - we no doubt aided them. When Russia withdrew because it couldn't support the WAR & COUNTRY -(eventually collapsing) - we probably bailed out on all our promises too. National Defense Contractors wanted endless wars - our Presidents, CIA & Pentagon made sure it happened, all under the guise of "National Security"
There are numerous pictures of Reagan/Bush Sr. or other high admin. officials with Saddam in the 80's. Our friend & ally in the Middle East. Where did Saddam get those chemical weapons? I wonder who was cc'd on the reports when they were used?
We have a LONG history of interfering in other countries!
Americans aren't sure why they are fighting in Afghanistan and killing people there. Some think it's to do with the Taliban being somehow linked to the 911 terrorists. Some think that the Taliban are evil and the US is fighting to save the people of Afghanistan. Neither stands by itself and so the two are usually combined as is the intention of the prowar propagandists in order to justify the war.
In any case, its easy to sell the war to Americans because they are prone to usually buy the propaganda they are spoon fed from cradle to grave.
And so, regardless of whether you liked Reagan or hated him, to say that Reagan hated America because he talked to the Taliban, is doing nothing more than buying into the propaganda effort. And it's not even taking into account the fact that once upon a time the Taliban were the good guys to Americans before they became the bad guys.
The real truth is, it's none of America's goddamn business how the Taliban treats the people of Afghanistan and it's none of America's goddamn business even being there. Honest people should know that the only reason America was ever interested in Afghanistan is because of its strategic position in the oil rich ME.
Enjay - You are absolutely correct. I've read this same info. on numerous sites. The American people are fed endless propaganda, dissident opinions are squelched or ridiculed. Before the internet (which 'they' are desperately trying to censor/shut down) it was tough going to uncover the truth about who benefits from these endless wars & corruption. Look at how they shy away from taking Palin to task. Without the blogs & alternative websites, there'be little truthful info about her available.
so you're trying to say "hey no big deal that reagan met with them because they weren't our enemy at the time?"
wake up. it's about reagan's JUDGEMENT. it's about how when you USE people/groups for your own ends, it will come back and get you. but reagan didn't care. short term gains.
In 1985 there was no Taliban. They were spawned in the Pakistani refugee camps and then came back into Afghanistan after the Soviets withdrew. At the time Reagan said that, he wasn't meeting with or talking about the Taliban.
Trolls should make an effort to research their own talking points and lay off the chain email info. ""The first contact with Bin Laden was in 1979, when the new graduate from the Univ. of Jedah got in touch with the U.S. embassy in Ankara, Turkey. With the help of the CIA and the U.S. Armed Forces intelligence services he began to organize in the early 1980s and network to raise money and to recruit fighters for the Afghan mujahidins that were fighting the Soviets. He did this from the city of Peshawar in Pakistan, bordering Afghanistan.
Part of these activities were financed with the production and sale of morphine, the base of heroin. This was the beginning of today Al Qaida (the base) network led by Bin Laden. Indeed the chickens are coming home to roost for the CIA and U.S. bosses.
http://www.timesofindia.com/today/07euro1.htm
LONDON [IANS]: The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) worked in tandem with Pakistan to create the "monster" that is today Afghanistan's ruling Taliban, a leading US expert on South Asia said here.
"I warned them that we were creating a monster," Selig Harrison from the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars said at the conference here last week on "Terrorism and Regional Security: Managing the Challenges in Asia."
Harrison said: "The CIA made a historic mistake in encouraging Islamic groups from all over the world to come to Afghanistan." The US provided $3 billion for building up these Islamic groups, and it accepted Pakistan's demand that they should decide how this money should be spent, Harrison said.
Harrison, who spoke before the Taliban assault on the Buddha statues was launched, told the gathering of security experts that he had meetings with CIA leaders at the time when Islamic forces were being strengthened in Afghanistan. "They told me these people were fanatical, and the more fierce they were the more fiercely they would fight the Soviets," he said. "I warned them that we were creating a monster."
Afghan history is fascinating. They've been fighting off invaders for centuries. I recently saw a documentary that showed the weapons they had to fight the Russians. It was sad. We gave them and taught them with the missile launchers (don't know the correct name). This was during the era of the Contras and Saudi (Osama bin Laden) born Adnan Khashoggi, the big arms dealer that got so rich. There were many bad actors getting rich and doing back room deals. I remember Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, a real character.
Dana Rohrabacher's War In the '80s he took up arms with Afghanistan's mujahideen. Now the California Republican is fighting against Obama's surge.
"The American Army is playing the role of the Russian army," Rohrabacher laments.
Rohrabacher's Afghanistan history dates back to his days as a speechwriter and presidential adviser in the Reagan White House, where he helped shape the *Reagan Doctrine—the policy of arming resistance movements to undermine Soviet influence, with the mujahideen serving as Exhibit A. "I'd be there with guys in full Afghan garb in the executive dining room of the White House," he recalls. Michael Scheuer, the former chief of the CIA's bin Laden unit, says Rohrabacher was one of the few lawmakers who were "interested in Afghanistan to an extent that surpassed how many dead Soviets there were."
In the fall of 2001, Rohrabacher's friend Massoud was assassinated by a pair of Al Qaeda operatives. Upon hearing the news, Rohrabacher wept in his office. Then he phoned the Bush White House in a frenzy: He believed Massoud's murder was the prelude to a major terrorist attack and requested an immediate audience with then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice. He got an appointment for the next day—September 11.
Part2 RAWA is the oldest political/social organization of Afghan women struggling for peace, freedom, democracy and women's rights in fundamentalism-blighted Afghanistan since 1977. RAWA basically said that the Mujahideen, both Massoud and his opposition did not treat women with respect. Both could be brutal. They did not favor either one. The United States had a favorite. Going into Afghanistan to help the people is a crock. Cold War Relic is more what Afghanistan is about. Strategic location, forever poppie fields, wonderful resources, strong resilent people.
The best-known mujahideen were the various loosely aligned Afghan opposition groups, which initially rebelled against the incumbent pro-Soviet Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA) government during the late 1970s. At the DRA's request, the Soviet Union intervened. The mujahideen then fought against Soviet and DRA troops during the Soviet war in Afghanistan. After the Soviet Union pulled out of the conflict in the late 1980s the mujahideen fought each other in the subsequent Afghan Civil War. resistence Eventually, the seven main mujahideen parties allied themselves into the political bloc called Islamic Unity of Afghanistan Mujahideen.
Dana Rohrabacher. Charlie Wilson. Osama bin Laden, originally from a wealthy family in Saudi Arabia, was a prominent organizer and financier of an all-Arab Islamist group of foreign volunteers; his Maktab al-Khadamat funnelled money, arms, and Muslim fighters from around the Muslim world into Afghanistan, with the assistance and support of the Saudi and Pakistani governments Under Reagan, U.S. support for the mujahideen evolved into an official U.S. foreign policy, known as the *Reagan Doctrine, which included U.S. support for anti-Soviet movements in Afghanistan, Angola, Nicaragua, and elsewhere.[10] Ronald Reagan praised mujahideen as "freedom fighters".
*Reagan Doctrine: Note to Sarah Palin http://history.state.gov/
Anonymous at 11:35 am. You are absolutely right. There was no Taliban in 1985. Taliban means "student" and it was started when schools were set up to teach the Koran.
Religious Indoctrination Under NSDD 166, US assistance to the Islamic brigades channeled through Pakistan was not limited to bona fide military aid. Washington also supported and financed by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the process of religious indoctrination, largely to secure the demise of secular institutions
Of significance, the Iran-Contra operation was also tied into the process of channeling covert support to the Islamic brigades in Afghanistan. The Iran Contra scheme served several related foreign policy: 1) procurement of weapons to Iran thereby feeding the Iraq-Iran war, 2) support to the Nicaraguan Contras, 3) support to the Islamic brigades in Afghanistan, channeled via Pakistan's ISI.
Although Lieutenant General Colin Powell, was not directly involved in the arms' transfer negotiations, which had been entrusted to Oliver North, he was among "at least five men within the Pentagon who knew arms were being transferred to the CIA." (The Record, 29 December 1986). In this regard, Powell was directly instrumental in giving the "green light" to lower-level officials in blatant violation of Congressional procedures. According to the New York Times, Colin Powell took the decision (at the level of military procurement), to allow the delivery of weapons to Iran:
Hurriedly, one of the men closest to Secretary of Defense Weinberger, Maj. Gen. Colin Powell, bypassed the written ''focal point system'' procedures and ordered the Defense Logistics Agency [responsible for procurement] to turn over the first of 2,008 TOW missiles to the CIA., which acted as cutout for delivery to Iran" (New York Times, 16 February 1987)
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was also implicated in the Iran-Contra Affair.
As pointed out by other commenters, Reagan was not meeting with the Taliban, he was meeting with the mujahadeen. The Taliban was actually created in the 1990's in reaction to the mujahadeen's infighting and corruption.
One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter...
ReplyDeleteAnd the wingnuts take on this will be----
ReplyDelete"Uuuuuuummmmmm, ignore this 'cause Reagan wasn't all brown, socialist and scary like Obama is. So Ronnie could say, do, or support anything or anyone this heinous and it wouldn't count."
Who is the guy sitting next to Reagan? Looks kinda like Todd!
ReplyDeleteOh my !
ReplyDeleteThis needs to go viral. The GOP will never live this down.
Oh, I'm sure there will be a PERfectly good explanation. Or he won't remember it, so therefore it didn't happen, even tho we have photo evidence. Because what good is photo evidence, after all?? I mean, all we have is a PHOTO of Pres. Obama's BC, right? Of course, using that same logic, we only have A (single) PHOTO of a certain half-term half-wit governor looking pregnant, sooo......
ReplyDeleteTeabagging hypocrites!
ReplyDeletehttp://whitenoiseinsanity.com/2009/04/20/remember-when-reagan-met-with-taliban-leaders-in-the-white-house/
This isn't about religion....all this fuss has always been about one thing and one thing only:
"There's a Black man in the White House!"
They can't say that so they'll scream everything else.
The media's complicity in creating the Monster of Palin:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-mitchell/the-real-story-of-how-the_b_691153.html
It has been documented time and again the very reason bin Laden changed from 'cooperative' with the US to an enemy of the US stems from Reagan and his party cronies betrayal and usury of him and the Taliban forces . . they were "abandoned and helpless to be slaughtered in the thousands" in retaliatory strikes by the USSR when the Reagan crowd decided "oops, we're outa' here" because there wasn't enough profit to make themselves feel like manly men.
ReplyDeleteAlas, GW/Cheney's first week in Afghanistan finally got that oil pipeline agreement/document signed with Russia to carve the oil pipeline through Afghanistan no matter how many homes, farms and lives are destroyed....and GW/Cheney hooked up and financed the TALIBAN yet again to "protect the oil pipeline".
fool me once wasn't lost on the reinvigorated GOP Taliban, as we all know
It's always been about the oil. The right's pro-life jingles seem to be extinct "over there" when it lines pockets over here.
In the absence of integrity; an inconvenient truth is conveniently ignored.
ReplyDeleteWithout integrity; one's word means nothing, one's promises are worthless and one's reputation is tarnished.
All trust is based on integrity.
Support leaders who possess this quality, and see what a difference it can make.
Sarah avidly disgraces herself, her family, Alaska, GOP, Tea Party... BUT she would never say a single disparaging word against Reagan. She's compelled to ignore facts to deify her Man. Sarah: Praise be unto the Reagan. Amen.
ReplyDeleteP.S. Rebecca Mansour won't touch this. Gifted as she is in projecting Sarah as partially sane, Rebecca can't rewrite history to support Sarah's Reagan fantasy.
@Gles
ReplyDeleteProbably a translator.
Pesky old pictures, anyway. :-)
I am so glad we live in the age of technology where we can dig up these kinds of photos, video clips and recordings so these fools cannot rewrite history without being challenged.
ReplyDeleteReagan was one of the worst Presidents we had. His shallowness and sense of entitlement for the wealthy is still damaging our country.
Actually, I find it more awkward that you have no idea as to why that meeting was set up. Looking at the date should have given you a clue.
ReplyDeleteThe Taliban was created at the end of the Afghan war with the Russians. The ones that were meeting with Ronald Reagan were probably part of the Mujihadeen. The SSI (for ignorant leftists, the Pakistani Seecret Service) were the ones that created the Taliban. I could give you a history lesson mentioning Madras and everything, but it would be too long and too complex for you to understand.
Anyway, to be succint at the time of the meeting with Ronald Reagan they were NOT at war with the US. They were fighting against Russian takeover of their country and the US backed them. Not unlike the alliance that FDR and Churchill made with Stalin during WWII, throughout history there have been "alliances for convenience".
I know that facts are as foreign to you as world history. Maybe you can look some of this up to educate yourself. I do not recommend Wikipedia since they have been known not to be very accurate. A trip to the library may be in order.
US History shows we've often used countries and various militant groups like pieces on a chess board fighting "the Cold War". If USSR supported "this group" we supported the other side, regardless. In some 3 way conflicts, we armed two sides!
ReplyDeleteIf the Taliban was fighting USSR - we no doubt aided them. When Russia withdrew because it couldn't support the WAR & COUNTRY -(eventually collapsing) - we probably bailed out on all our promises too. National Defense Contractors wanted endless wars - our Presidents, CIA & Pentagon made sure it happened, all under the guise of "National Security"
There are numerous pictures of Reagan/Bush Sr. or other high admin. officials with Saddam in the 80's. Our friend & ally in the Middle East. Where did Saddam get those chemical weapons? I wonder who was cc'd on the reports when they were used?
We have a LONG history of interfering in other countries!
Palling around with terrorists, palling around with terrorists, na na na na nan na nah!!
ReplyDeletehttp://palinbabygate.blogspot.com/
Americans aren't sure why they are fighting in Afghanistan and killing people there. Some think it's to do with the Taliban being somehow linked to the 911 terrorists. Some think that the Taliban are evil and the US is fighting to save the people of Afghanistan. Neither stands by itself and so the two are usually combined as is the intention of the prowar propagandists in order to justify the war.
ReplyDeleteIn any case, its easy to sell the war to Americans because they are prone to usually buy the propaganda they are spoon fed from cradle to grave.
And so, regardless of whether you liked Reagan or hated him, to say that Reagan hated America because he talked to the Taliban, is doing nothing more than buying into the propaganda effort. And it's not even taking into account the fact that once upon a time the Taliban were the good guys to Americans before they became the bad guys.
The real truth is, it's none of America's goddamn business how the Taliban treats the people of Afghanistan and it's none of America's goddamn business even being there. Honest people should know that the only reason America was ever interested in Afghanistan is because of its strategic position in the oil rich ME.
Enjay - You are absolutely correct.
ReplyDeleteI've read this same info. on numerous
sites. The American people are fed
endless propaganda, dissident opinions
are squelched or ridiculed. Before the internet (which 'they' are desperately trying to censor/shut down) it was tough going to uncover the truth about who benefits from
these endless wars & corruption.
Look at how they shy away from
taking Palin to task. Without the blogs & alternative websites, there'be little truthful info about her available.
Sharon TN
love it. now let's see it on billboards on every interstate in america.
ReplyDeletereagan sucked.
anon@ 9:34:
ReplyDeleteso you're trying to say "hey no big deal that reagan met with them because they weren't our enemy at the time?"
wake up. it's about reagan's JUDGEMENT. it's about how when you USE people/groups for your own ends, it will come back and get you. but reagan didn't care. short term gains.
In 1985 there was no Taliban. They were spawned in the Pakistani refugee camps and then came back into Afghanistan after the Soviets withdrew. At the time Reagan said that, he wasn't meeting with or talking about the Taliban.
ReplyDeleteIs the document over at wonkette that officializes levis mayoral campaign real?
ReplyDeleteTrolls should make an effort to research their own talking points and lay off the chain email info.
ReplyDelete""The first contact with Bin Laden was in 1979, when the new graduate from the Univ. of Jedah got in touch with the U.S. embassy in Ankara, Turkey. With the help of the CIA and the U.S. Armed Forces intelligence services he began to organize in the early 1980s and network to raise money and to recruit fighters for the Afghan mujahidins that were fighting the Soviets. He did this from the city of Peshawar in Pakistan, bordering Afghanistan.
Part of these activities were financed with the production and sale of morphine, the base of heroin. This was the beginning of today Al Qaida (the base) network led by Bin Laden. Indeed the chickens are coming home to roost for the CIA and U.S. bosses.
http://www.timesofindia.com/today/07euro1.htm
LONDON [IANS]: The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) worked in tandem with Pakistan to create the "monster" that is today Afghanistan's ruling Taliban, a leading US expert on South Asia said here.
"I warned them that we were creating a monster," Selig Harrison from the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars said at the conference here last week on "Terrorism and Regional Security: Managing the Challenges in Asia."
Harrison said: "The CIA made a historic mistake in encouraging Islamic groups from all over the world to come to Afghanistan." The US provided $3 billion for building up these Islamic groups, and it accepted Pakistan's demand that they should decide how this money should be spent, Harrison said.
Harrison, who spoke before the Taliban assault on the Buddha statues was launched, told the gathering of security experts that he had meetings with CIA leaders at the time when Islamic forces were being strengthened in Afghanistan. "They told me these people were fanatical, and the more fierce they were the more fiercely they would fight the Soviets," he said. "I warned them that we were creating a monster."
Afghan history is fascinating. They've been fighting off invaders for centuries. I recently saw a documentary that showed the weapons they had to fight the Russians. It was sad. We gave them and taught them with the missile launchers (don't know the correct name). This was during the era of the Contras and Saudi (Osama bin Laden) born Adnan Khashoggi, the big arms dealer that got so rich. There were many bad actors getting rich and doing back room deals.
ReplyDeleteI remember Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, a real character.
Dana Rohrabacher's War
In the '80s he took up arms with Afghanistan's mujahideen. Now the California Republican is fighting against Obama's surge.
"The American Army is playing the role of the Russian army," Rohrabacher laments.
Rohrabacher's Afghanistan history dates back to his days as a speechwriter and presidential adviser in the Reagan White House, where he helped shape the *Reagan Doctrine—the policy of arming resistance movements to undermine Soviet influence, with the mujahideen serving as Exhibit A. "I'd be there with guys in full Afghan garb in the executive dining room of the White House," he recalls. Michael Scheuer, the former chief of the CIA's bin Laden unit, says Rohrabacher was one of the few lawmakers who were "interested in Afghanistan to an extent that surpassed how many dead Soviets there were."
In the fall of 2001, Rohrabacher's friend Massoud was assassinated by a pair of Al Qaeda operatives. Upon hearing the news, Rohrabacher wept in his office. Then he phoned the Bush White House in a frenzy: He believed Massoud's murder was the prelude to a major terrorist attack and requested an immediate audience with then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice. He got an appointment for the next day—September 11.
Part1
Part2
ReplyDeleteRAWA is the oldest political/social organization of Afghan women struggling for peace, freedom, democracy and women's rights in fundamentalism-blighted Afghanistan since 1977.
RAWA basically said that the Mujahideen, both Massoud and his opposition did not treat women with respect. Both could be brutal. They did not favor either one. The United States had a favorite. Going into Afghanistan to help the people is a crock. Cold War Relic is more what Afghanistan is about. Strategic location, forever poppie fields, wonderful resources, strong resilent people.
The best-known mujahideen were the various loosely aligned Afghan opposition groups, which initially rebelled against the incumbent pro-Soviet Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA) government during the late 1970s. At the DRA's request, the Soviet Union intervened. The mujahideen then fought against Soviet and DRA troops during the Soviet war in Afghanistan. After the Soviet Union pulled out of the conflict in the late 1980s the mujahideen fought each other in the subsequent Afghan Civil War.
resistence
Eventually, the seven main mujahideen parties allied themselves into the political bloc called Islamic Unity of Afghanistan Mujahideen.
Dana Rohrabacher. Charlie Wilson.
Osama bin Laden, originally from a wealthy family in Saudi Arabia, was a prominent organizer and financier of an all-Arab Islamist group of foreign volunteers; his Maktab al-Khadamat funnelled money, arms, and Muslim fighters from around the Muslim world into Afghanistan, with the assistance and support of the Saudi and Pakistani governments
Under Reagan, U.S. support for the mujahideen evolved into an official U.S. foreign policy, known as the *Reagan Doctrine, which included U.S. support for anti-Soviet movements in Afghanistan, Angola, Nicaragua, and elsewhere.[10] Ronald Reagan praised mujahideen as "freedom fighters".
*Reagan Doctrine: Note to Sarah Palin
http://history.state.gov/
Anonymous at 11:35 am. You are absolutely right. There was no Taliban in 1985. Taliban means "student" and it was started when schools were set up to teach the Koran.
ReplyDeleteRonald Reagan meets Afghan Mujahideen Commanders at the White House in 1983
ReplyDeleteReligious Indoctrination
ReplyDeleteUnder NSDD 166, US assistance to the Islamic brigades channeled through Pakistan was not limited to bona fide military aid. Washington also supported and financed by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the process of religious indoctrination, largely to secure the demise of secular institutions
Of significance, the Iran-Contra operation was also tied into the process of channeling covert support to the Islamic brigades in Afghanistan. The Iran Contra scheme served several related foreign policy:
1) procurement of weapons to Iran thereby feeding the Iraq-Iran war,
2) support to the Nicaraguan Contras,
3) support to the Islamic brigades in Afghanistan, channeled via Pakistan's ISI.
Although Lieutenant General Colin Powell, was not directly involved in the arms' transfer negotiations, which had been entrusted to Oliver North, he was among "at least five men within the Pentagon who knew arms were being transferred to the CIA." (The Record, 29 December 1986). In this regard, Powell was directly instrumental in giving the "green light" to lower-level officials in blatant violation of Congressional procedures. According to the New York Times, Colin Powell took the decision (at the level of military procurement), to allow the delivery of weapons to Iran:
Hurriedly, one of the men closest to Secretary of Defense Weinberger, Maj. Gen. Colin Powell, bypassed the written ''focal point system'' procedures and ordered the Defense Logistics Agency [responsible for procurement] to turn over the first of 2,008 TOW missiles to the CIA., which acted as cutout for delivery to Iran" (New York Times, 16 February 1987)
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was also implicated in the Iran-Contra Affair.
The Golden Crescent Drug Trade
As pointed out by other commenters, Reagan was not meeting with the Taliban, he was meeting with the mujahadeen. The Taliban was actually created in the 1990's in reaction to the mujahadeen's infighting and corruption.
ReplyDelete