Reagan exchanged guns for the embassy staff – after Carter got them kidnapped. Democrats say this is bad.
Obama gave the terrorists guns, and then let them kill the embassy staff. Democrats say this is good.
Disrupting the Borg is expensive and time consuming!
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So… Reagan gave them guns…
Are you about 14 years old?
Not quite. A couple of people on Reagan’s staff helped arrange deals between other parties, with some weapons going to Iran (at that time, with a freshly changed leadership we were still trying to establish a relationship with) and some weapons and support to the Contras in Nicaragua, who were fighting a Communist dictatorship there. Neither of these groups were the holders of the hostages — we had the understanding (partially borne out) that Iran could influence the jihadists holding the hostages, and in fact did get some released.
Weapons were provided, some ultimately from the US, most from third parties. The ones involved here went to Iran, ostensibly to moderate Iranians opposing the recent religious takeover. None went to the hostage holders, and at the time Iran was not yet in “jihadist” mode with the outside world. Just as Egypt is ostensibly not yet in that mode at the time we transferred money and arms to them this year.
Reagan (including his administration) thus did not give arms to terrorists. Obama did. I wrote last year about the meeting with the Turkish ambassador (minutes before the attack) being likely about funneling weapons to the jihadists through Turkey, which we were already known to be doing. And which Stevens had been involved in previously.
Here, I discussed a minor point of disagreement with Steven Goddard about another “arm the terrorists” situation, and the comments got interesting. I actually convinced someone with a firmly held view to change his mind. Such things are rare, but pleasant. But the person involved was no fool, just had a misunderstanding grown entrenched over time.
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle
Maybe Benghazi is much worse than it seems. The administration is going to a lot of trouble to hide something. I don’t think it is simply running guns. They were running guns into Mexico and just flipped everyone the bird when they were caught.
Where is Ollie when they need a good fall guy!
Carter was a bad President but the Iran embassy hostages were released the day Reagan was inaugurated. The Iran-Contra affair was about a different set of hostages.
Let me see if I understand the Iran-Contra affair.
Our good friends the Israelis sold some weapons at extremely high prices (mostly anti tank ammo and F14 replacement parts) to our enemies the Iranians so that the Iranians could use these weapons to kill Iraqis, who were one of our enemies.
Then our friends the Israelis used their excess profits from this transaction to ship Russian arms and ammo captured from their enemies and ours, the Egyptians to our friends the Contras in Nicaragua.
Meanwhile our friends the Contras in Nicaragua employed these same weapons to kill our enemies in Nicaragua, the Sandinistas. Meanwhile as part of the deal the Iranians leaned on their Shia proxies to release Westerners held captive by Jihadists in Lebanon.
Is that a fair thumbnail description? I thank that it is more than a very accurate description of the Iran-Contra affair, and I just wish that President Obama could sail the ship of state half as well.
The reason the Democrats went ballistic over the Iran-Contra affair is that Republicans showed the Democrats that government could work if the right people were running the government,
I’ll buy it — except that at this point, Iran was not a full-fledged enemy (any more than the nation of Egypt is), it just had the potential to go that way (much like Egypt now). So, Obama sending arms and money to Egypt (in MUCH larger amounts than the little Iran-Contra deal we’re discussing) would be sort of similar, if he got any sort of benefit from it and if we ignore the hindsight that decades of dealing with committed jihadists should have brought.
The Boland Amendments (there were several) did not explicitly forbid what was being done, and the loopholes almost seemed intentional. Obama, on the other hand, simply ignores laws that he doesn’t like. Big difference, it seems to me. Oliver North was convicted (later reversed) by having inadvertently accepted a security system “gift” for his home (to protect his family from the threats against their lives) without paying for it. That was essentially it. They could not get him on the big charges they sought — and even lost this one ultimately.
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle