December 27, 2006 at 23:37:05

Iran-Contra Redux: Here We Go Again

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By Mark E. Smith (about the author) Page 1 of 1 page(s)

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For OpEdNews: Mark E. Smith - Writer

John Dean was counsel to the White House during the Nixon era, and spend four months in prison after having been convicted of conspiracy to obstruct justice and defraud the government in the Iran-Contra affair. His sentence might have been longer if not for his decision to cooperate with the prosecutors, known in the vernacular as turning state's evidence or rat-finking.

Now he seems to be up to his old tricks again. In advocating an investigation of White House subordinates rather than impeachment of Bush & Cheney, he knows from experience that once the subordinates have been convicted, Bush can pardon them. Nobody suffered greatly from having waged an illegal war, sold arms to terrorists, taken money from drug smugglers to fund a black budget and lied to Congress about it, or any of the other high crimes and misdemeanors involved in Iran-Contra. Most of them, like Dean himself, are doing very well today, thank you, and some hold important positions in the Bush administration, like John Negroponte who was involved with the death squads in Nicaragua, and is now involved with the death squads in Iraq.

Dean's article can be found here:

Don't Impeach, Investigate

Our own Rob Kall apparently came up with the concept first, and has written about it extensively:

Don't Impeach, Investigate

Some background on Dean can be found in the reader reviews and comments about one of his books:

Obstructs Justice, Will Travel

The Democrats, having taken impeachment off the table, are scrambling to hold on to their base. Don't worry, their operatives will tell you, this isn't what it looks like. This is just part of a subtle strategy that will unfold later on, but of course it never does. The Democrats have consistently voted in support of everything that Bush has done. They're going to keep right on supporting the military-industrial complex that fattens their stock portfolios with war-profiteering. Pelosi has announced some phantasmagorical plans to raise the minimum wage and make health care and education more affordable, but first Pelosi has to vote for the Bush defense budget in order to be able to blame him for the fact that there's no money left to fund those plans.

Dean and the Democrats are organizing an cover-up to protect Bush and Cheney the same way that the Kerry investigation protected Poppy Bush and the higher-ups in the Iran-Contra investigation, so that they could pardon and later rehire their subordinate felons.

I remember when a Democratic President pardoning a Republican President justified it by saying, "We have to retain the precedent." The precedent in this case, is that Democrats will pardon Republicans (but don't count on Republicans pardoning Democrats -- as you may have noticed during the past six years in Congress, bipartisanship is a one-way street).

Democrats have an excellent record of promoting the Republican agenda, voting for it, and of conceding to Republicans, protecting Republicans, and pardoning Republicans. Does anybody think that a President Pelosi, who has taken impeachment off the table and insists on voting for the Bush defense budget rip-off, wouldn't issue Bush a Presidential pardon?

If you oppose the illegal invasion of Iraq, but keep supporting and making excuses for the Democrats, don't say I didn't warn you. Those who don't remember history are doomed to repeat and repeat and repeat it. This is the same game, the same players, the same war-profiteering, but with different victims in a different country. And a new generation of suckers to fall for it.

I'm an anti-civilizationist and election boycott advocate in San Diego. For reasons not to vote in faith-based elections with secret vote counts for candidates you cannot hold accountable if they fail to represent you, check out the discussions, (more...)

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