Don’t get me wrong. The Iran - Contra affair was a terrible circumvention of U.S. law and North deserved to go to prison and Reagan should have been impeached.
However, this post is a mischaracterization of that event.
This was part of an overall plan to get American hostages released.
That being said, we sold arms to Iran, who was fighting Iraq (a U.S. ally at the time), and one of the intermediaries we used was fucking Israel.
Yup, Israel helped us sell arms to Iran. So Iran can turn around and use them against an ally.
North was then made a fall guy.
I was younger when this happened but I recall, at the time, it was characterized as we just sold them parts for their airplanes and defensive arms.
Man, we just can’t stop fucking our face with our own foot.
This was part of an overall plan to get American hostages released.
It was part of an overall plan to commit treason in order to sabotage Carter by preventing the hostages from being released before the election so that Reagan would win.
First, there was the Iran Hostage Crisis, where Iranians stormed the US embassy and took a bunch of hostages in 1979. While I have no doubt there was Republican fuckery going on, Carter really didn’t do himself any favors with his handling of that. The hostages were finally released, after more than a year, the day Reagan was inaugurated
Iran-Contra was a scandal where the Reagan administration sold arms to Iran (who was fighting Iraq, then an American ally), circumventing Congress. They then gave the money to the Contras, a group of rebels in Nicaragua, again circumventing Congress:
This reminds me how there’s a world of difference between learning history and living it. In my mind’s eye, I can still see Walter Cronkite saying every evening that it’s the XXXth day of the Iran hostage crisis. And still I remember Ollie North’s trial. There’s no way I’d mix them up.
North wasn’t the “Fall Guy.” That makes him sound like a scapegoat, which he wasn’t, he was the guy managing the entire operation.
Also, it wasn’t part of an operation to get the Iranian hostages released. They had been released back in 1980, as soon as Reagan had been inaugurated. The Iran-Contra Conspiracy happened later, but the wound from that humiliating episode was still stinging in the American psyche. The fact that North was selling weapons to our bitterest enemy at the time is only one of the things that made this such an egregious violation.
Iran-Contra was about providing weapons, training, and support to the conservative soldiers fighting the establishment of a Russian-supported regime in Central America.
Don’t get me wrong. The Iran - Contra affair was a terrible circumvention of U.S. law and North deserved to go to prison and Reagan should have been impeached.
However, this post is a mischaracterization of that event.
This was part of an overall plan to get American hostages released.
That being said, we sold arms to Iran, who was fighting Iraq (a U.S. ally at the time), and one of the intermediaries we used was fucking Israel.
Yup, Israel helped us sell arms to Iran. So Iran can turn around and use them against an ally.
North was then made a fall guy.
I was younger when this happened but I recall, at the time, it was characterized as we just sold them parts for their airplanes and defensive arms.
Man, we just can’t stop fucking our face with our own foot.
It was part of an overall plan to commit treason in order to sabotage Carter by preventing the hostages from being released before the election so that Reagan would win.
You’re mixing up your Reagan-era Iran scandals.
First, there was the Iran Hostage Crisis, where Iranians stormed the US embassy and took a bunch of hostages in 1979. While I have no doubt there was Republican fuckery going on, Carter really didn’t do himself any favors with his handling of that. The hostages were finally released, after more than a year, the day Reagan was inaugurated
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_hostage_crisis
Iran-Contra was a scandal where the Reagan administration sold arms to Iran (who was fighting Iraq, then an American ally), circumventing Congress. They then gave the money to the Contras, a group of rebels in Nicaragua, again circumventing Congress:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran–Contra_affair
You are correct that part of the goal was to release hostages, but those hostages were taken by the Lebanese well after Reagan’s first election.
This reminds me how there’s a world of difference between learning history and living it. In my mind’s eye, I can still see Walter Cronkite saying every evening that it’s the XXXth day of the Iran hostage crisis. And still I remember Ollie North’s trial. There’s no way I’d mix them up.
North wasn’t the “Fall Guy.” That makes him sound like a scapegoat, which he wasn’t, he was the guy managing the entire operation.
Also, it wasn’t part of an operation to get the Iranian hostages released. They had been released back in 1980, as soon as Reagan had been inaugurated. The Iran-Contra Conspiracy happened later, but the wound from that humiliating episode was still stinging in the American psyche. The fact that North was selling weapons to our bitterest enemy at the time is only one of the things that made this such an egregious violation.
Iran-Contra was about providing weapons, training, and support to the conservative soldiers fighting the establishment of a Russian-supported regime in Central America.