How many remember Oliver North, and the Iran Contra hearings?
831374
He took the rap to protect those above him, who were behind the scheme.  He paid the price they should have payed.  They will now make sure he is rewarded for the rest of his life.  I would love to know what he knows.
1006012
Charles Taylor was a US informant from 92 to 95 on Libya anf Kadafee.  Ppl wonder why US is consider hypocrites.
1177382
Actually, the "terrorist Oliver North feared most" was a complete lie.  He never said that nor ever mentioned Osama bin Laden in anything he talked about.  Urban legend, check out facts before you report it.\n\nhttp://www.snopes.com/rumors/north.asp\n\nIn fact, you will find no references to Al Qaeda before 1993 in any government document, book, or press release.  Reason, Al Qaeda is NOT the proper name of any terrorist group.  It means "the database" originally, and was the name of the Israeli Sin Bet database used to track mujahadeen fighters and the CIA trainers in Afghanistan by the Israelis (they liked to keep track of when and how we trained Islamic radicals for some odd reason).\n\nIn joint operations with the Israelis between our FBI, CIA, and NSA with Mossad and Sin Bet, somehow it was understood by someone at the top as "Osama and his crew were part of Al Qaeda", this misnomer stuck, and the over-simplified propoganda campaign after 9/11 saw Bush using this projected name all the time.  In intelligence circles Al Qaeda is now used as a blanket term for any kind of organized terror.  Individual groups are properly identified, such as the PLO, PKK, mujahadeen,  etc.  These groups often recieve funding from the same sources (CIA, Saudi royalty, sympathetic Arab businessmen), but in reality are no more related than say if an American businessman would make a campaign donation to both our main political parties.\n\n"Al Qaeda in Iraq" is probably the biggest psy-op going on right now, and with the parading out of photos of the dead Zarqawi our own military intell machine declared it a success.  Small minded Iraqis and Americans alike bought the story hook, line, and sinker.  I even heard on CNN this morning that Zarqawi was meeting with other terror leaders in 2002, when in reality he was locked up for petty theft in a Jordanian prison cell from 2000 to 2003.  His role in beheadings is also suspect, as the victim most seen in videos was still in the orange jumpsuit from his American captivity (his father was told he would be sent directly back to the US when released) for 2 weeks before the beheading, and analysis of the video showed that when they actually cut off his head he had been dead for at least 2 to 4 hours.\n\nhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/09/AR2006040900890_pf.html\n\nhttp://www.craigslist.org/sfc/pol/170657656.html\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Qaeda#Is_al-Qaeda_a_global_network_or_a_small_organization.3F\nThe wiki entry keeps getting re-written...
753136
It's obvious \n\nKoppel was stunningly truthful. YA does not function in the realm of truth. This is a Tit for Tat Red vs Blue video game.\n\nWe require a Liberal FOX view of Iran with trained gunmen killing Blond Haired little Baptist girls. Not average people with views similar to ours being interviewed at the food court of the local mall.\n\nClinton made Koppel film that stupid commie show\n\nGo big Red Go
641188
I may modify this later, but my recall is an older Iranian Mohammud Mossadegh was a nationalist who supported nationalizing their oil.  He was elected president or whatever by the governing body - not by the popular vote.  It became a complicated story longer than I want to recall here, but the U.S. gov. did it's usually clumsy job of interfering in Iran's politics with the result of the usual Bad American pr job.  Ultimately, though, the Shah ended up back in power by a series of haphazard steps.  The story is more completely told in Daniel Yergin's book, The Prize, on the history of oil.  The book was published in 1992, but I believe it is still in print in paper. I have a hardbound edition that I read several years ago.
135860
People who say that he isn't are avoiding the news.  He has gone nuts and he's taking the US down with him.  After this ridiculous war you know that he wants to move into Iran.  Killing is his business, not helping the world become a better and safer place.  More innocent citizens have been killed in iraq with Bush in power than under the entire reign of Saddam.\n\nRepublicans LOVE to call liberals ignorant but this one checks her facts.  39% approval rating!! He's almost as unpopular as Nixon.  That's not just because he's misunderstood.
748994
Let's see, the last amnesty for immigrants was 1986, who was President then. Why it was that old cowboy Ron Reagan, the father of the conservative movement, what a great question for a civics test. And I don't remember any outcry either.
472204
Yes, people who have done so normally are considered Traitors-Many young men did this during war, as in defecting to Canada, to avoid being drafted, etc. \n\nHere is one that did defect:)\n\nEdward Lee Howard (1951 - 2002) was a CIA case offficer who defected to the Soviet Union.\n\nHe was hired by the CIA in 1980 and was later joined by his wife, Mary, where they were both trained in intelligence and counter-intelligence methods. Shortly after the end of their training and before going on their first assignment, a routine polygraph test indicated that he had lied about past drug use, and he was dismissed from the CIA in 1982 for not having disclosed illegal drug use in the 1970s.\n\nDisgruntled over the perceived unfairness of having been dismissed over accusations of drug use, petty theft and deception, he abused alcohol and while drunk uncovered his CIA contact in the American Embassy in Moscow through an angry phone call over a KGB-tapped line.\n\nIn 1985, the CIA was being shaken by several security leaks that led to exposure of agents and assets. In the investigation of these leaks, a KGB defector Vitaly Yurchenko and a CIA case officer Aldrich Ames marked Howard as a possible traitor. While living in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Howard used his CIA training to evade the FBI and fled the US for Russia before he could be arrested. He spent most of the rest of his life there. He died in 2002 at his Russian dacha from a broken neck. Cursory investigation of the cause of his death has been inconclusive, with an accident, suicide or murder being the possible causes.\n\nThe fact that shortly after Howard's flight, Yurchenko re-defected to Russia, and Ames was convicted (in 1994) of spying for the USSR cast doubts on some aspects of what intelligence Howard disclosed to the Soviets.\nRetrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Lee_Howard"\n\nCategories: 1951 births | 2002 deaths
727854
FFS - are you too stupid to do your own internet search?!?\n\nGerry Studds - enter Gerry Studds, page, scandal\n\nStill too much for you? Fine - here ya go: \n\n~*~*~\nGary Studds Congressional Biography\n\nSTUDDS, Gerry Eastman, a Representative from Massachusetts; born in Mineola, Nassau County, N.Y., May 12, 1937; attended the public schools in Cohasset and Derby Academy in Hingham, Mass.; B.A., Yale University, 1959; M.A.T., history, same university, 1961; teacher at St. Paul’s School, Concord, N.H.; foreign service officer, United States Department of State, 1961-1962; member, President Kennedy’s White House staff, 1962-1963; legislative assistant to Senator Harrison A. Williams, Jr., 1964; State Coordinator of United States Senator Eugene McCarthy’s presidential primary campaign, 1968; delegate, Democratic National Convention, 1968; elected as a Democrat to the Ninety-third and to the eleven succeeding Congresses (January 3, 1973-January 3, 1997); censured by the Ninety-eighth Congress pursuant to H.Res. 265, passed July 20, 1983; chairman, Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries (One Hundred Third Congress); was not a candidate for reelection to the One Hundred Fifth Congress.\n\n~*~*~\nAP’s Extraordinary Double Standard Regarding Mark Foley and Gerry Studds\nPosted by Noel Sheppard on October 15, 2006 - 12:23.\n\nSince the Mark Foley page story first broke, there have been many articles discussing the double standard in which Republican and Democrat sex scandals are handled by Congress and the media. No finer example of such hypocrisy has been demonstrated than by the Associated Press on Saturday, October 14, which had nothing but high praise for the now deceased former Rep. Gerry Studds while it continued to heap scorn on Foley.\n\nFor example, an article entitled “Studds, first openly gay person elected to Congress, dead at 69,” spoke glowingly of the former Congressman who, unlike Foley, actually had a sexual encounter with a seventeen-year-old male page in 1973. In fact, the AP suggested that this was an important moment in history for gay rights:\n\n     “Gerry often said it was the fight for gay and lesbian equality that was the last great civil rights chapter in modern American history. He did not live to see its final sentences written, but all of us will forever be indebted to him for leading the way with compassion and wisdom,” said his husband, Dean T. Hara, 49, in a statement.\n\nThe article included some glowing praise from a current member of Congress:\n\n    U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Newton), who announced he was gay four years after Studds’ disclosure, said yesterday his colleague didn’t let the scandal get in his way.\n\n    “It was very important to see, for young people in particular, somebody as capable and talented as he be openly gay,” said Frank, “That gave a lot people the courage to say, ‘I can survive this business in being honest about who I am.’”\n\n~*~*~*~*~\n\nGerry Studds Dies at 69; First Openly Gay Congressman\nNew York Times\nBy DAMIEN CAVE\nPublished: October 15, 2006\n\nGerry E. Studds, the first openly gay member of Congress and a demanding advocate for New England fishermen and for gay rights, died early Saturday at Boston University Medical Center, his husband said.
273382
i think there was alot of scholas:\nkhomeini,mosadegh,amirkabir,....
952069
DR: Your side said that when Nixon was in power too!\n\nIt is a great day, I finally feel after 6 long years I got a piece of my country back. Tired of seeing the constitution ripped to shreds by a bunch of pasty-white closeted bigots. \n\nViva Le Resistance!
818079
No one (OK only a very few people) can take an apologist stand for this man, he was a street thug who rose to power and, like so many before him, abused that power to retain it.  There are no mitigating factors here and, although I view everything I hear from Iraq with a huge amount of cynicism, I do not doubt his guilt.\n\nThere are two things that bother me however the first is my general opposition to the death penalty, I see the need for retribution in some cases but I fail to see how this is achieved by multiplying the number of coffins involved.  The second thing is that we, and by that I describe both the USA and the UK, promoted and supported this man for years, we nearly wet ourselves with joy when he began to make war on Iran where he did incalculable damage and wrought havoc while we capered gleefully at his behaviour.\n\nWe encouraged him in what he became and are, to a degree, culpable in his maintenance of power and I just find it distasteful that we should all be so pleased at the prospect of another death.
720915
I'm a fav of BBC World News, I don't ever watch the National news, can't stand their fear mongering tactics.  The BBC seems to have a pretty even split.  \n\nIncidentally, I miss Walter Cronkite.
1026451
I do not remember any published reports like this. I think he must have been caught up in the whole thing to go in front of the U.N. with false testimony.
1115412
Oliver North would be a nice pick.  He's got military and foreign affairs experience, and is a natural leader who would be able to keep America on track.
907027
I think it was probably Eisenhower taking blame for the U2 incident. Can't remember anything since then.
377292
an excellent topic would be the case of american-iranian courts prosecuting saddam hussein.like they did mussolini.