Remeber Ollie North(good history lessen)

[Dr.billZ]

Remeber Ollie North? Some of you are too young to remember the Iran-Contra hearing, but this sheds a lot of light on just how badly "political correctness" has ruined our Nation. Ollie was seen, at the time, as a "War monger right winger" and was given no credit for knowing what he knew. The press at the time did their best to make him look like an idiot.
His comments remind me very much of a lesser event that happend that most of you(us?) ignored( The Millennium....it started in 2001 and not 2000, even as much as some tried to tell you).
Now maybe you will start to believe somethings when people say it(like Jesse Jackson is no Reverend, just a coersion expert). I remember the big deal about his(Ollie North's) security system, but being a dumb, impressionalble sort at that age did not remember as to the WHY:

Remember Oliver North's testimony...
> > > > Got this e-mail from a friend today:
> > > > I was at a UNC lecture the other day where they
> > > > played a video of Oliver North during the Iran-Contra deals during
the
> > > > Reagan administration.
> > > > There was Ollie in front of God and Country
> > > > getting the third degree.
> > > >
> > > > But what he said stunned me. He was being
> > > > drilled by some senator I didn't recognize who
> > > > asked him;
> > > >
> > > > 'Did you not recently spend close to $60,000
> > > > for a home security system?'
> > > >
> > > > Oliver replied, 'Yes I did sir.'
> > > >
> > > > The senator continued, trying to get a laugh
> > > > out of the audience,
> > > > 'Isn't this just a little excessive?'
> > > >
> > > > 'No sir,' continued Oliver.
> > > >
> > > > 'No. And why not?'
> > > >
> > > > 'Because the life of my family and I were threatened.'
> > > >
> > > > 'Threatened? By who.'
> > > >
> > > > 'By a terrorist, sir.'
> > > >
> > > > 'Terrorist? What terrorist could possibly scare
> > > > you that much?'
> > > >
> > > > 'His name is Osama bin Laden.'
> > > >
> > > > At this point the senator tried to repeat the
> > > > name, but couldn't pronounce it, which most
> > > > people back then probably couldn't. A couple
> > > > of people laughed at the attempt. Then the senator
> > > > continued.
> > > >
> > > > 'Why are you so afraid of this man?'
> > > >
> > > > 'Because sir, he is the most evil person alive
> > > > that I know of.'
> > > >
> > > > 'And what do you recommend we do about him?'
> > > >
> > > > 'If it were me I would recommend an assassin
> > > > team be formed to eliminate him and his men
> > > > from the face of the earth.'
> > > >
> > > > The senator disagreed with this approach and that
> > > > was all they showed of the clip.
> > > > **************************

move this where you want it to be......
-BILL

 

[XRpredator]

Wow. I never paid that much attention back then (as I was still a punk in high school!), but maybe some of the spooks in the CIA should have!

 

[ktm033]

Ollie North is a true life American Hero!

 

[lawman]

i remember ollie, admiral poindexter & best of all, fawn hall with shredded documents in her undies. my favorite moment: senator inouye (wwII war hero whose family was interned in camps by fdr, btw) is grilling ollie for the cameras. ollie's lawyer, brendan sullivan, is sitting at ollie's elbow, getting in the senator's face, mucking up his moment in the spotlight. inouye gets mad, tells sullivan he is out of order & to shut up. sullivan draws himself up & says back, "sir, i am not a potted plant."

back to subject: maybe the iran-contra thing violated the law of the day, but i am glad that some of the guys w has around him are alumni of the "reaganauts". turns out ollie wasn't so crazy, eh? thanks for posting this 1, dr bill.

 

[Danman]

That just pretty interesting. I did not follow the trial. I think I was just about 6th or maybe 7th grade about then. I was not to interested in politics then. Thanks for the post BillZ

 

[Vic]

Thanks Bill, I had forgotten about that. Man, are we old.

 

[JavaMoto]

How exactly is willfully violating our nation's law a good example of not being "politically correct"?

RE: 'Ollie was seen, at the time, as a "War monger right winger" and was given no credit for knowing what he knew.'

If memory serves - a big part of North's conviction was related to obstruction of justice. He had plenty of chances for sharing what he knew, but deliberately chose to stonewall, to protect himself and others involved in the scandal.

And let's not forget - the basic gist of this scandal was exporting weapons to middle eastern fundamentalists and other groups, in violation of the law. [lawman - speaking of the "law of the day" - I'd hope that the US STILL considers unlawful the exporting of weapons to islamic fundamentalist groups.].

Idolize whoever you want. IMHO, I think Ollie "Umm, I'll take the 5th" North is a bad choice.

 

[dirtbikedad]

Dr.Billz,
I remember Ollie's persecution by the Senate and the media.
I appears now that he was more right than wrong about Bin Laden.

 

[JavaMoto]

I don't think anyone has been spreading general characterizations of Ollie as being crazy - in point of fact, he was a very smart guy who was convicted for his rolein a concerted effort to break the laws regarding export of arms to middle eastern and central american countries. Apparently for some folk, if a person who violates the law spews out enough patriotic sayings, then their breaking the law is justified.

That might be o.k. for some, but I don't set my standards that low.

I find any glorification of what he, and the numerous other government representatives did in that scandal to be a bunch of bull-hooey.

 

[lawman]

sorry, java, i don't think it's as black & white as you want it to be. sometimes it's against the law to give weapons to "islamic fundamentalists" (whatever that means), sometimes it's not. who do you think bought osama his stinger missiles, etc.? that's right, the u.s. taxpayers, perfectly legally. we support the islamic fundamentalists in saudi arabia, to the point of going to war in part for them; we supported osama's group when it suited our purposes at the time; we used to oppose the islamic fundamentalists in pakistan, now we've discovered they are our long-lost buddies. but gov'ts we support in the phillipines & israel are killing islamic fundamentalists. that was the point of the reference: ollie broke the law of the day. the law is like the weather, it can change at any time, especially in a country with a government which is answerable (at least somewhat) to popular elections.

also, i can't tell if you meant to say i was idolizing ollie but for the record,i did no such thing. i was around back then, i remember watching the hearings. reasonable minds could differ, then as well as now, on the advisability of arming barbarians that we might well have to fight later (you reap what you sow--don't get me started on the advisability of helping the chinese). laws were broken, the laws of the day, which were the 1s which were in effect & which had to be enforced. i don't condone it or idolize the 1s who did it. i did admire brendan sullivan, a good lawyer doing a good job in tough circumstances, & i thought fawn hall (kind of a babe) stuffing shredded documents in her panties spiced it up some--'course, that was before the clinton hearings made all that seem very tame & innocent.

 

[ktm033]

Ollie used common sense in a very difficult situation to do what was best for the country. The amount and quality of data that he used to make his decisions were far greater than John Q. Public will ever be exposed to, much of it we shall never know. Ollie is an american hero!

 

[Dr.billZ]

The idea was the MEDIA made him out to be something he wasn't. The man is a brilliant person and a very capable military mind. A warning cry was unanswered and 5,000+ Americans paid with their lives. I credit that to the media.
Don't get me wrong, he did things that were questionable, but he had a questionable-motive job. His job was to protect America and he did what was necessary.
The media has a job to present FACTS, not put political ideals ahead of their job.

 

[ktm033]

amen Dr. Billz....

 

[JavaMoto]

Lawman - didn't mean to imply you were idolizing the guy. Actually that was directed towards BillZ, who, apparently, can't find anything wrong with the fact that this guy, along with a host of others, broke several federal laws.

As far as the ktm033 viewpoint of "John Q Public will never be exposed to the data and decisions required by that tough job" goes - Bulls##t. That's precisely why there is congressional, as well as executive, oversight of these issues.

The individuals involved in this scandal had opportunity to go above board with their plan and deliberately chose not to - instead choosing the altenative of lying to the members of the executive branch, congress, and - most important of all, the public.

If you like being deliberately lied to - feel free to support people like "Slick, but admirably patriotic, Ollie", all you like. I choose not to.

 

[ktm033]

JM, once again missed the mark, slick did what he did to benefit slick, Ollie offered himself up to defend us....not to forward himself to our detriment, Big Difference!

 

[lawman]

gotta agree with java's last post--we can't have rogue elements of the executive branch deciding to break laws without oversight b/c they think they are doing the right thing; that's a slippery slope that leads to coups d'etat & all of that. i don't envy any of the guys who watch the parapets for us--see my post in the thread about another useless warning, but you can't have exec. branch guys saying, "you can't HANDLE the truth!" & doing whatever they want--that's what dictators do. i think it IS fair to say, as dr bill did when he started this thread, that it turns out that ollie was right about at least 1 thing--osama--& he was ignored b/c he was portrayed as a kook.

 

[ktm033]

definitely not a cook!!!

 

[BPracer]

Actually the terrorist that threatened Ollie and his family was Abu Nidal, not bin Laden :p . Either way, Ollie recognized the terrorist threat a long time ago.

 

[yarbonwick]

I think all in all, what he did was wrong - legally. Morally? hmm, don't become friends with the bear that can eat you. Hence my comment when all of this started with "where are all of those Ollie chants now?" In the end, Ollie took the plunge for someone much higher than he I believe. Do you think there was plausible deniability from the White House?

 

[longtime]

Java -- your facts are wrong. The arms were given to the Contras. The money given to the mideast. Why? To free hostages. American hostages. Not personal greed. Not glory. American lives. Why was it secret? We didn't want the world to know we were paying off terrorists to get our guys back. It's against our stated policy.

Of all the things to keep secret, can't you find one more morally corrupt than this to cause such outrage?

Please. :silly:

 

[JavaMoto]

Longtime - The arms were given to the contras? What on earth would they do with that type of weaponry [i.e. TOW and HAWK missiles]? For a refresher, here's a link to one of the charges against casper weinberger that has a fairly brief summary of both the "Iran" and the "Contra" part of the operation.

To paraphrase the volumes of documents on this scandal for your benefit again - since you appear to have forgotten. The arms were sold to Iran through a 3rd party. The profit from these sales was used to support the contras. Hence, the scandal was later named "Iran/Contra".

RE: "Of all the things to keep secret, can't you find one more morally corrupt than this to cause such outrage?".

Well, sure - there are plenty of other things that piss me off - It just really gets me when people try to use the tragic 9/11 attacks to prop up their favorite cause or person du jour.

 

[Dr.billZ]

No JM, it causes you to think that maybe someone you thought was wrong, was really right and it causes to think that maybe the policy of the media to make anyone in the military to look like a war monger is wrong, when if fact they are just PROTECTING YOU!
It makes you feel bad that, FINALLY, we are seeing what happens when we have someone like Clinton in office and it makes you feel bad that someone is stating it(using their right of free speech when it's been common-place to try to quell that right).
It abhores me to see folks YOU hiding behind the 911 incident and using it to keep people from talking about the events that lead up to it( poor border control, poor immigration policy, poor energy policy, poor intelligence committees, poor military strength, and last but certainly not least, political correctness)

 

[longtime]

Originally posted by JavaMoto
If memory serves . . . And let's not forget - the basic gist of this scandal was exporting weapons to middle eastern fundamentalists and other groups, in violation of the law.

I read your link and your memory does serve you better than mine. Arms were transferred to Iran -- if my memory serves, though, in a war with Iraq at the time (I don't have time to look up sources). Arms were also transferred to the Contras, though, as well as money. But -- you have indeed corrected me on the arms to Iran part of the equation.

But that link does support my main point -- that the whole reason for dealing with the Iranians was to get American hostages freed. Not personal greed, evil motives, etc.

BTW -- I was in uniform at that time, and pissed when Ollie wore his uniform to lie to Congress. I was not a defender of his. On the other hand, though, the left has gone way overboard in trotting out the words "Iran Contra" ever since then as if it was the most heinous thing our government's ever done. It was not. It was a genuine effort to get American hostages freed. The executive branch does lots of things behind the scenes like that. Ollie's only fault, IMO, was not fessing up when the gig was up.

 

[Hogwylde]

I remember this whole mess. As a (former) Marine officer, I have mixed feelings about him. I personally like him, but professionally........I cant condone what he did. Lying to congress was a violation of one of the 13 leadership traits......INTEGRITY. An officer that cant be trusted to tell the truth.....cant be trusted at all. Especially to be in command of troops and weapons of mass destruction.

 

[sfc crash]

ollies' a-ok,even if he did choose the wrong branch of service:D he kept alot of my close friends in beans and bullets while "down south" just by having a ,well garage sale of sorts.....supper. btw, he kinda coulda done a better job of his ops planning for "urgent fury" but hey.....them cubans were'nt gonna off themselves. they just needed a lil help with it.;)