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Iran-contra affair
Iran-contra affair
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The Iran-Contra Affair
The tangled U.S. foreign-policy scandal known as the Iran-contra affair came to light in November 1986 when President Ronald Reagan said yes to reports that the United States had secretly sold arms to Iran. He said that the goal was to improve relations with Iran, not to get releases of
U.S. hostages held in the Middle East by terrorists (although he later agreed that the arrangement had in fact turned into an arms-for-hostages swap). People spoke out against dealings with the hostile Iranian government all over the place. Later in November, Att. Gen. Edwin Meese discovered that some of the arms profits had been used to aid the
Nicaraguan "contra" rebels at a time when Congress had prohibited such
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The Tower commission's report in February 1987 criticized the president's passive management style. In a nationaly televised address on
March 4, Reagan accepted the reports judgement without serious disagreement.
Select committees of the Senate (11 members chaired by Democrat
Daniel K. Inouye of Hawaii) and the house of representatives (15 members, headed by another Democrat, Lee Hamilton of Indiana) conducted televised hearings in partnership from May to August. They heard evidence that a few members of the NSC staff set Iran and Nicaragua policies and carried them out with secret private operatives and that the contras received only a small part of the money. Former national security advisor John Poindexter stated that he personally authorized the diversion of money and withheld that information from the president. William J. Casey, the director of the
Central Intelligence Agency, who died in May 1989, was implicated in some testimony. His testomony still remained in doubt. Clearly however, the strange events shook the nation's faith in President Reagan and ruined U. S. prestige abroad. Special prosecutor Walsh continued his investigation.
As we move into the reelection year, the authors accuse Nancy of ensuring that Reagan hasn’t campaigned for eight months, following a “Rose Garden strategy.” But Reagan has no credible opponent for the 1984 nomination, and Walter Mondale, who will be his Democratic opponent in the general election, has not yet been nominated. So there is no need for a strategy, Rose Garden or otherwise. Of course we get the full chapter and verse on Reagan’s poor performance in his first debate with Mondale; at least we also get the report on the second debate. From there the narrative jumps to the Iran-Contra affair. A few high points — like the Berlin Wall speech in 1987 — are indeed included, but without any perspective on Reagan’s strategy, perseverance with the Soviets on arms control, or success in revitalizing the U.S. economy. Nothing is said about Reagan’s four second-term summits with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Except for a few comments that Reagan deplored Communism, this is a policy-free book, and a book
The 1980s saw great political and military action throughout the world. However, one particular event that took place began in the early 1980s which was the Iran-Contra Affair. The Iran-Contra scandal is said to be the result of President Ronald Reagan’s attempt to accomplish two things. The first being his desire to see that the Americans which were being held as hostages by Iran, to be freed and the second was that he wanted to provide assistance to the contras in Nicaragua by going around congress. As obvious and as famous as the previously mentioned appears to be, the key states or countries involved are a matter of investigation. The heavy hitters in the Iran-Contra scandal aside from the United States, were Nicaragua, Iran, and Israel, which possess the question; how did several countries from various places around the world become so entangled in one of the world’s most memorable, multinational, scandals of all time?
The Iran-Contra affair survives as one of the most dramatic political scandals in American history. Approximately a decade after Watergate, the Iran-Contra scandal both shocked and captivated the public. The affair began in Beirut, 1984, when Hezbollah, a militant Islamic group sympathetic to the Iranian government, kidnapped three American citizens. Four more hostages were taken in 1985. The conservative Reagan administration hurriedly sought freedom for the Americans. Despite a 1979 trade embargo prohibiting the sale of weapons between the U.S. and Iran, members of Ronald Reagan’s staff arranged an arms-for-hostages deal with Iran in an attempt to free the American hostages in Lebanon. Meanwhile, back in the Americas, Reagan was pursuing an aggressive foreign policy in response to the Cold War. The Reagan administration was doing its best to curb Communist influence in Central and Latin America. In Nicaragua, Reagan wanted to support the democratic rebel Contras against the Marxist Sandinista regime, despite legislation passed in the early 1980s, the Boland Amendment, that made federal aid to the Contras illegal. In 1985, Oliver North, a staff member in the National Security Council, devised the scheme to divert surplus funds from weapons sales with Iran to the Contra cause in Nicaragua, violating the Boland Amendment. Following public exposure of the scandal, Oliver North and many other members of Reagan’s staff were put on trial; however not a single one of them was appropriately punished. Each person involved was either pardoned, granted immunity or had convictions overturned. The Iran-Contra scandal and its aftermath exposed both the executive branch’s lack of accountability to the American people and the other branches of g...
Iran-Contra Affair With the 1960s and 1970s, came a growing need for change among the American people. A previously dominant liberal government was not taking a hard enough stance on the fight to end communism. All it took, was a final nudge to shift the vote from democratic to republican. For decades, U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East had depended on a friendly government in Iran. The newly appointed leader, the shah of Iran, began Westernizing the country and taking away power from the Ayatollah, powerful religious leaders.
The Iran-Contra Affair involved the United States, Iran, and Lebanon. The affair coincided with the Iranian hostage crisis, which promoted the United States’ actions in sending weapons to Iran. The Reagan administration decided to trade arms for hostages in hopes of successfully retrieving American hostages from Iran. Iran was at the time under the power of Ayatollah Khomeini, who had put his full support behind the hostage crisis and believed there was nothing that the United States could do to Iran. America’s only chance of rescuing the hostages was to put their support behind Iran in the Iran-Iraq War, which involved the shipment of weapons to Iran f...
His extreme effectiveness feeds from decision-making ability that turned the country away from the negative and instable foreign policy of Carter and back to support winning the Cold War and promoting the strength of the US. In the 1970s, because Carter allowed Communism to gain military and territorial advantages, and failed to impose American hegemon and his own power as President. Reagan took office in 1981, “he was determined to rebuild that power, regain for the United States the capability to wage war successfully against the Soviets, to act with impunity against Soviet Third World clients, and to regain its status as the world’s dominant military force.” Reagan handled the Iran hostage Crisis within the hour of assuming the Presidency. Simultaneously, doing what was necessary to free Americans, and to use his power as President to go outside the constitution and congress and secure funding for the Contras to overthrown the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and restore the nation to a pro-American government. Unlike Carter Reagan wanted to make it clear he only cared about protecting American security, and that human rights could be an after
Under the Bush administration, Noreiga’s orders to organize drug trafficking and support the Nicaraguan Sandinista rebels ensured ...
...w the United States’ close ally Shah. Countless modernizers were persecuted, arrested and executed. In November 52 United States diplomats were held hostage by student revolutionaries who’d seized the American embassy in Tehran. America took immediate action and seized all Iranian assets. The United States attempted to negotiate. The negotiation, to the dismay of the American people dragged on for 444 days. There was a large push for President Carter to use military forces as means of negotiations; he however opted for peaceful means, which proved to be unsuccessful. Finally in April 1980 the President sanctioned a rescue mission. The attempt failed due to technical difficulties, eight men died; as a result the nation became extremely unnerved. Carter's dialogue with Iran continued throughout 1980. This was yet another failure on Carter’s part to rectify an issue.
Iran-contra affair is the name of a major United States foreign policy scandal in the 1980's. It involved two secret operations by the executive branch of the government. The operations were (1) the sale of military equipment to Iran, an enemy of the United States; and (2) the provision of military aid to contra rebels in Nicaragua, which Congress had banned. The two operations were connected by the use of profits from the Iranian arms sales to aid the contra rebels.
The book Animal Farm is based on the Russian Revolution with Napoleon represents the dictator, Stalin. Towards the end, Animal Farm loses its democracy like Stalin did during the USSR Revolution. Napoleon used other animals such as Squealer and the dogs to keep up control of his power and did not give any of the other animals a say in what went on. This allows Napoleon 's self-interest to be help by the power that comes to him. To keep that power Napoleon engravers fear into the animals ' minds, exploits their hard work and bends the rules to suit his needs. He uses militaristic tactics such as biding his time for example when he waits until Snowball 's windmill plans are finalised before using them himself. This again ties in with the Russian revolution. Orwell uses Napoleon to express his view on Stalin in the ways that he keeps and maintains control of animal farm as Stalin did of
Oscar Danilo Blandon became involved in the Iran Contra Scandal through supplying cocaine to the drug dealers. He came to the United States after the Sandinistas took over the government in Nicaragua in 1979. He lived in Los Angeles and sold cocaine under the commands of Norwin Meneses to support the Contra movement. He became a widely famous known drug dealer that received cocaine from Mexican, Colombian, and Nicaraguan cartels, and distributed to Ricky Ross and others drug dealers in Los Angeles. The federal agencies suspected that Blandon was involved in drug trafficking and conducted a search of his premises. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and Drug Enforcement Agency assisted the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department (LASD) in obtaining
Political leaders of the United States were, at one time, thought of as crucial members of our society. Ideally, their main goal was to represent and satisfy the needs of the American people. Unfortunately, over the last fifty years, our trust in our administrative representatives has drastically declined. Beginning with the great conspiracy theory that President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963 was actually planned by political leaders, America had, for the first time in history, begun to question its faith in its very own government. Consequently, the American people became extremely hesitant when it came to electing officials into office. Despite his loss to JFK in the 1960 presidential election, in 1968, Richard M. Nixon was elected as the thirty-seventh president of the United States. He was praised by many for his comeback after previously losing an election and seemed to be an admirable man. While in office, Nixon made many achievements and followed through with all of his promises made during his campaign. For the first time in what seemed like forever, the American people had finally elected a leader who seemed unquestionably trustworthy – or so they thought. Unfortunately, shortly after Nixon was elected to his second term of presidency in 1972, the Watergate Scandal changed America forever by creating a sense of mistrust toward the government for the American people because of The Nixon Administration’s actions.
The "Iran-Contra Affair. " The Encyclopedia of the Cold War: Political, Social, and Military History. Ed. Spencer C. Tucker, b. 1875.
Shakespeare, William. King Lear. Eric A., McCann, ed. Harcourt Brace Jovanovick, Canada Inc., Canada. 1998
Animal Farm is a fairy-tale with a much deeper topic of the Russian Revolution hidden in satires. It presents the unjust “equality” promised through communism. The book satirizes the dictatorship manipulation, and the citizen’s blatant innocent trust in their leaders. Orwell tells of communism and totalitarianism through the outside perspective, revealing the many faults of such societies.