Iran hostage question (Reagan, Ollie North, arms for hostages)

[Alpharetta]

I have a question about the secret deal between the Reagan campaign and Iran where Iran promised not to release the hostages until after the 1980 US election. In exchange, the story goes, William Casey (Reagan's campaign director), the CIA, and Ollie North sold weapons to Iran.

If such a deal existed, why have the Iranians been silent about it? It seems they would have enjoyed damaging Reagan and US interests in the Middle East by offering proof of the deal or at least showing whatever evidence they had.

I have no doubt the deal existed. CNN even has emails proving it. What I wonder is why Iran has not leveraged it. Why has Iran been silent while the hardline right (some of Reagan's same criminals) returned to power in the US?

[Orangepeel]

1. what kind of emails would CNN have?

I haven't heard that, and I'm having trouble envisioning what would be sent so many years afterward. ("Hey, Ollie. Do you remember that time we fucked over Jimmy Carter?")

Do you have a more detailed description or a source? Thanks.

[Alpharetta]

4. CNN article about the purged emails

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/18/archive/

[bush_is_wacko]

2. Um, NO Internet back then!

And I believe the man that would know was assassinated. I may have my dates screwed up a bit about the Shah, but I THINK he would have been involved in that deal. That is so many years ago I can't keep it straight without looking it up again. Any emails CNN has though aren't original to the deal, I can at least assure you of that. PC's were a brand new idea when I was a high school student and that was during the second Reagan administration!

On Edit: OOps! The Shah died of cancer I think!

[Alpharetta]

5. Um. yes there was an internet and emails back then

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/18/archive/

[bush_is_wacko]

9. My mistake! The military had an"Internet" back then not the mainstream

public.

[benddem]

3. Because Iran considered the US

as a war mongering nation they couldn't have admitted the connection without losing their cover.

[SpiralHawk]

6. Never forget: Ollie North made sure Iran had our Hawk missiles

the traitor. He can run around wrapped in all the flags he wants. The fact is, he lied, he cheated, and he sold America out to Iran.

Now, naturally, he calls himself a Republican. He fits right in. Those who lie down in the dirt with traitorous dogs get fleas.

http://www.webcom.com/pinknoiz/covert/icsummary.html

[Capn Sunshine]

7. You guys need a refresher course in history

The Shah was long deposed. The Ayatollah Khomeini was in charge of a fundamentailst wing that seized control after the chaos of the popular revolution against the Shah.

While much is questionable at the time, our gov. tendency to meddle inIranian affairs dating back to the virtual ofrmation of the country had us with contacts and ties on all sides of thestruggle.

The North- Cia Cocaine sales-cash weapons purchase CONTRA aid was seperate from the hosotage deal, which was stuck by William Casey, Reagans campaign director and spook, later head of the CIA, and Mehdi Carrubi, a cleric associated with Khomeini, albeit of the more moderate (read cooperative with the CIA) ilk. This deal was brokered by a Reaganite intel case officer operating outside official govvie channels; an early and constant refrain in the neocon playbook.

Depending on who you talk to and who is still alive , there were as many as 25 paticipants in the negotiations and one of them was George Bush in his capacity as Neocon power broker. There is, however, widespread agreement on three points: William Casey was a key participant: the Iranian representatives agreed that the hostages would not be released prior to the Presidential election on Nov. 4; in return, Israel would serve as a conduit for arms and spare parts to Iran, something they desperately needed due to the US embargos.

[Alpharetta]

8. I agree with all you said

So why do you suppose Iran never backstabbed the governments in Israel and US for making the deals?

[H2O Man]

10. Because they are intent

on obtaining the best weapons possible. It's also important to remember that the Irn-Contra Scandal was a series of scandals, lumped under that generic term. For example, Ollie North made a series of "deals" with Iran, and the only thing that was consistent was that they came out ahead, each and every time.

Iran is not engaged in a popularity contest in the USA or Israel. They are in an intense effort to be the leading force in the Islamic world, and the case can easily be made that they have accomplished this goal.

[Capn Sunshine]

11. You can't expect them to use Western logic or ascribe motives to them

They simply do not approach the world from the same cultural or even educational orientation as we do.

Thus, to ask why they are behaving illogically using your own set of precepts is in itself illogical.

Whatever reasons they have, they are hard to put into a frame we could grasp.

[H2O Man]

14. I remember an article by

Dick Gregory back in the early 1980s. He said that America could never understand Islamic countries, until it came to understand what Malcolm X had been saying twenty years earlier. Dick Gregory is a smart man.

I do not think it is impossible to understand other cultures. A key is to suspend, as you say, "your own set of precepts." There are what might be described as "sub-cultures" in the US. Why don't the Amish or the Onondaga want their cultures infected by the outside culture? Again, as you say, we can't answer that using "western" logic.

[omega minimo]

12. Why would the Iranians need to underline the fact

that the hostage release announcement interrupted and was televised DURING REAGAN'S 1981 INAUGURATION :puke: clearly orchestrated and controlled by his regime.

This current ball of bullshit has been rolling since then.

[Alpharetta]

13. Why? To influence an election in Israel or the US