Iran-Contra Redux

If you haven't read Seymour Hersh's most recent piece in the New Yorker then you must do so immediately (The Redirection). If you don't know what Iran-Contra is, then you should write a letter to your high school social studies teacher and insult them. Iran-Contra was an illegal, blackbag operation that utilized Olie North's lack of ethics to illegally sell weapons to Iran through Israel and then funneled the money garnered from the arms sales to the fascist Contra rebels in Nicaragua. The Contras were also very much part of a large CIA-run drug smuggling ring that brought crack-cocaine to America, gang wars to LA, and may have even included Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton (The Dark Alliance, Mysterious Mena: CIA Discloses, Leach Disposes).

According to Hersch, the veterans of Iran-Contra got together to discuss the lessons learned from Iran-Contra. Their chief lesson, run everything out of the Veep's office and not the CIA or the DoD. Well, they put that lesson to good use and now you have blackbag operations within the Veep's office. Using tens of millions of dollars from undisclosed sources (likely missing Iraqi oil money, Saudi money, and miscellaneous siphoned cash from our $416 billion already spent) the US government funneled cash to aid the adminsitration's choosen group of electors during the January 30 Iraqi election. This slate, led by the now Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, won on 14% of the returns, but it proved enough to prevent the sectarian Shi'ite parties from winning a clear mandate. On top of the financial support, there is also evidence that the election results were simply falsified to swing more support for Allawi et al. Cash was also funneled to the Lebanese Sunni-dominated government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, which, in turn, distributed that money to Sunni extremist groups.

So, the US is fighting a "Global War on Terror" against Sunni terrorist organizations tied to Al Qaeda and it's supporting such groups in Lebanon. The US is also fixing Iraqi elections to support Shi'ite parties and accusing "Iran" of supporting different Iraqi Shi'ite political parties and "insurrgents". The US is trying to rollback the Sunni organization in Palestine, Hamas, and Shi'ite organization in Lebanon, Hezbollah. The US is planning an attack on Iran, and actually crossing the border into Syria and Iran. Wow. And this is what we know about. Imagine what we don't know about.