If not us, who?

[SlyPokerDog]

We should have stayed out of it. But Reagan had an election to "win". Jimmy Carter was railroaded out of office.

I believe what Maris is referring to happened after Reagan was elected.

 

[3RA1N1AC]

not sure what point you are trying to make about the taliban by bringing up iran contra i guess

his support of the mujahidin fighters in afghanistan indirectly lead to the taliban and al-qaeda

 

[MARIS61]

So we should have propped up the crumbling Soviet empire?

We should have stayed out of it altogether.

 

[3RA1N1AC]

just goes to show, dont give other countries weapons or military training, more often than not it seems they use it against us

 

[MARIS61]

not sure what point you are trying to make about the taliban by bringing up iran contra i guess

his support of the mujahidin fighters in afghanistan indirectly lead to the taliban and al-qaeda

Multiple acts of treason arming terrorists simply to enrich the American arms industry.

 

[3RA1N1AC]

We should have stayed out of it altogether.

would have been nice, but i think after the soviet backed north vietnamese held us off for a decade plus, the US thought they had it coming, so we gave them a vietnam of their own

it would have been appropriate if the north vietnamese then flew planes into russias two tallest buildings i guess, but thats a story for my alternate universe novel

 

[MARIS61]

I believe what Maris is referring to happened after Reagan was elected.

The Tehran deal was before the election, and resulted in several more months of suffering by the hostages and their families.

Iran-Contra was later.

 

[3RA1N1AC]

Multiple acts of treason arming terrorists simply to enrich the American arms industry.

yes, complete garbage, and completely par for the course

i mean the US aided al-qaeda THIS YEAR for gods sake, complaining about the contras is old hat. while we are at it, lets rehash the gulf of tonkin incident, or noriegas cia credentials

 

[SlyPokerDog]

The Tehran deal was before the election, and resulted in several more months of suffering by the hostages and their families.

Iran-Contra was later.

Yes I know that. But you were talking about the ethnic cleansing that happened after the Iron Curtain collapsed and that had nothing to with Carter or Iran.

 

[Denny Crane]

Not sure if you are being sarcastic or not, but What Reagan did was Treason IMO.

Bullshit. He made peace with our enemies.

 

[Denny Crane]

The Tehran deal was before the election, and resulted in several more months of suffering by the hostages and their families.

Iran-Contra was later.

Fact checkers say you're full of shit.

 

[Denny Crane]

To complete my previous post.

Gary Sick was an incompetent mid-level govt. employee from the incompetent Jimmy Carter administration. He wrote a book claiming there was some sort of deal between the Reagan campaign and the Iranians to hold the hostages until after the election, preventing Carter from securing a deal in time to influence the election.

This book is the source of Maris61's tehran deal claim.

Yet the book and this lie has been debunked by everyone who's bothered to look into it. That would be democrats in congress who held hearings. It would be left leaning newspapers like the village voice. It would be the federation of american scientists (fas.org).

In fact, fas.org quotes the voice:

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1992_cr/h920224-october.htm

[FROM THE VILLAGE VOICE, FEB. 25, 1992]

October Surmise

Former Carter aide Gary Sick says, in his recent book October Surprise, that the many sources he relied on for his searing indictment of Reagan campaign tactics in 1980--an indictment that accuses the GOP campaign staff of sabotaging Jimmy Carter's Iran hostage negotiatons--all spoke independently with no common script. That's why he believed them, he maintains.

`As time went on and the number and diversity of sources increased,' he writes, `the likelihood of a concerted, organized disinformation campaign dwindled.' But in an exhaustive examination of the origins of the Surprise story, the Voice has discovered that Sick's assumption is wrong.

All his principal sources harken back to a group of Israeli and European arms merchants who dealt regularly with one another throughout the 1980s and early '90s, first in shipping arms to Iran, then in shopping the October Surprise story to reporters. Several members of this group got caught in a U.S. Customs sting in 1986, which left them with an incentive to pay back the Republicans and George Bush.

Based on a review of exclusive documentation it appears that none of Sick's key informants had any original knowledge of the October Surprise counterplot, an alleged Reagan campaign attempt in 1980 to head off a preelection release of the 52 American hostages then being held in Tehran. Only by swapping rumors and tacking with the latest ones--a process that the Voice has traced in detail--were they able to create an impression that they knew of this event firsthand.

By 1988 Martin Kilian, a journalist for the German magazine Der Spiegel, was keeping many of these sources supplied with information they needed for this charade. He devoted countless hours to trading tips with them, though his journal has published only two October Surprise stories in three years. At times Kilian seems to have been unaware that he was contributing to distortions. But records of his phone conversations with one source, Richard Brenneke, indicate that he also knew that some of his contacts couldn't toe a straight line.

Even the most doubtful of these sources he passed on to Sick, who credits Kilian for having encouraged him to pursue the October Surprise story. In late 1988, writes Sick, `Kilian began calling me at my home in Manhattan after each new interview or whenever he picked up some nugget of information from the small network of individuals who continued to delve into the elusive story.' It was a pattern Kilian would follow with others.

So pervasive was his influence and so tightly knit the group of sources and journalists who fed off him and one another that the truth about the scandal may be lost to the confusion they generated.

The Voice investigation was based in part on nearly 8000 pages of phone records and dairy notes compiled by Brenneke to support his own October Surprise claims. Brenneke's onetime researcher, Peggy Adler Robohm, initially thought that he'd picked up his knowledge firsthand. But last June, after examining his files, she wrote a warning letter to his literacy agent. `Much of this material seems to come from Martin Kilian,' she said.

Later she let the Voice examine a small set of phone records and credit card receipts that debunked Brenneke's claim that he'd participated in October Surprise negotiations in Paris. After the Voice published a story based on this material last September, Robohm contacted Representative Lee Hamilton, chair of the House's October Surprise staff, and began preparing to help with an official investigation of Brenneke's files. When Hamilton brushed her off with a form letter, she again contacted the Voice, this time offering the entire Brenneke archive.

To verify the substance of Brenneke's files, the Voice checked with Kilian and others quoted in the files to see if they had said what Brenneke reported. (The taped conversations spoke for themselves.) In every instance, these principals recalled the statements or conduct attributed to them.

The picture that finally emerged from the investigation was one of a self-perpetuating fraud. Reporters with preconceptions about October Surprise had often suspended skepticism in deference to helpful sources. Sick himself ignored or overlooked inconvenient details. As early as 1989, he also became involved in the first of two movie deals that committed him prematurely to an unverified conspiracy theory.

The picture that finally emerged from the investigation was one of a self-perpetuating fraud.

 

[Denny Crane]

While we're at it, here's a photo of a newspaper article by AP. The title is, "Carter offers to unfreeze Iranian assets in return for Hostages."

http://news.google.com/newspapers?n...FZIAAAAIBAJ&sjid=ykwDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5648,2991040

The article states, and I quote:

With the presidential election and the first anniversary of the taking of the 52 Americans both two weeks away, Carter made this offer Monday while campaigning in Youngstown, Ohio:

"If Iran should release the hostages, then I would unfreeze their assets, which are several billions of dollars... I would drop the embargo on trade with Iran and work toward a resumption of normal commerce with Iran in the future."

However, Iran today cold-shouldered Carter's offer to free Iranian assets and resume normal trade if the hostages are released. Prime Minister Mohammad Ali Rajai was quoted as saying Iran would not negotiate on the hostages to get spare parts for its American military equiment.

And there you have it. Jimmy Carter offered arms to Iran for hostages on Tuesday October 21, 1980.

 

[Denny Crane]

More from WikiPedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_surprise_conspiracy_theory

Newsweek magazine also ran an investigation, and they said that most, if not all, of the charges made were groundless. Specifically, Newsweek found little evidence that the United States had transferred arms to Iran prior to Iran Contra, was able to account for Bill Casey's whereabouts when he was allegedly at the Madrid meeting, saying that he was at a conference in London.

Steven Emerson and Jesse Furman of The New Republic, also looked into the allegations and found “the conspiracy as currently postulated is a total fabrication”. They were unable to verify any of the evidence presented by Sick and supporters, finding them to be inconsistent and contradictory in nature. They also pointed out that nearly every witness of Sick had either been indicted or was under investigation by the Department of Justice. Like the Newsweek investigation they had also debunked the claims of Reagan election campaign officials being in Paris during the timeframe Sick claimed they had been, contradicting Sick’s sources.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_surprise_conspiracy_theory#Senate_investigation

The US Senate’s 1992 report concluded that "by any standard, the credible evidence now known falls far short of supporting the allegation of an agreement between the Reagan campaign and Iran to delay the release of the hostages".[17]

(My note - the senate was controlled by Democrats in 1992, as was the House - both through January of 1995)

The House of Representatives’ 1993 report concluded “there is no credible evidence supporting any attempt by the Reagan presidential campaign—or persons associated with the campaign—to delay the release of the American hostages in Iran”. The task force Chairman Lee H. Hamilton also added that the vast majority of the sources and material reviewed by the committee were "wholesale fabricators or were impeached by documentary evidence". The report also expressed the belief that several witnesses had committed perjury during their sworn statements to the committee, among them Richard Brenneke,[19] who claimed to be a CIA agent.[20]

 

[BlazerWookee]

Nothing wrong with disagreeing. If we all agreed about everything these forums would be pretty damn boring.

I disagree.

 

[3RA1N1AC]

I disagree.

sorry, you are wrong bucko

 

[BlazerWookee]

sorry, you are wrong bucko

I agree.

 

[Ed O]

We should have stayed out of it. But Reagan had an election to "win". Jimmy Carter was railroaded out of office.

Yes, poor President Carter. He was doing such a great job of running the country, and it's so sad that the American people railroaded him out of office.

Ed O.

 

[MARIS61]

This book is the source of Maris61's tehran deal claim.

No it isn't. I believe that book was written around a decade later. The conspiracy became obvious almost immediately after the election and has never been proven to be false. To the contrary, a multitude of top military, intelligence, and world leaders and journalists have insisted it's true. Several seem to have been murdered to silence them.

One of the leading, national issues during that year was the release of 52 Americans being held hostage in Iran since November 4, 1979.[1] Reagan won the election. On the day of his inauguration, in fact, 20 min after he concluded his inaugural address, the Islamic Republic of Iran announced the release of the hostages. The timing gave rise to an allegation that representatives of Reagan's presidential campaign had conspired with Iran to delay the release until after the election to thwart President Carter from pulling off an "October surprise".

According to the allegation, the Reagan Administration rewarded Iran for its participation in the plot by supplying Iran with weapons via Israel and by unblocking Iranian government monetary assets in US banks.

After twelve years of mixed media attention, both houses of the US Congress held separate inquiries and concluded that the allegations lacked supporting documentation.

Nevertheless, several individuals—most notably former Iranian President Abulhassan Banisadr,[2] former Naval intelligence officer and National Security Council member Gary Sick; and former Reagan/Bush campaign and White House staffer Barbara Honegger—have stood by the allegation. There have been allegations that the plane crash that killed the Portuguese Prime Minister, Francisco de Sá Carneiro, in 1980 was in fact an assassination of the Defence Minister, Adelino Amaro da Costa, who had said that he had documents concerning the October surprise conspiracy theory and was planning on taking them to the United Nations General Assembly.

Danny CasolaroIn 1991, freelance writer Danny Casolaro (among others)[18] claimed to be almost ready to expose the alleged October surprise conspiracy, when he suddenly died a violent death in a hotel bathtub in Martinsburg, WVA, raising suspicions. He appeared to be traveling on leads for his investigation into the Inslaw Affair. His death was ruled a suicide.

And many Portland posters should recall this:

On September 23, 1988, Brenneke, a Portland, Oregon, property manager and arms dealer, voluntarily testified at the sentencing hearing of Heinrich Rupp. In his Denver deposition, Brenneke testified that on the night of October 18, 1980, Rupp had flown Reagan-Bush campaign director William Casey from Washington's National Airport to the Le Bourget Airfield north of Paris for a series of secret meetings. According to Brenneke, it was at these meetings—held on October 19 and 20, at the Waldorf Florida and Crillon hotels—that members of the Reagan-Bush campaign secretly negotiated an "arms-for-no-hostages" deal with representatives of the Ayatollah Khomeini.

Brenneke testified that he was present at only one meeting. He indicated that his participation was at the last of three, working out the details of a cash and weapons transaction. Also present at this meeting, Brenneke said, was William Casey, who was eventually appointed Reagan's CIA director. It was in that latter capacity that Casey masterminded the arms-for-hostages deal with Iran that would eventually be known as the Iran-Contra scandal. Also in attendance at the meeting, according to Brenneke, was Donald Gregg, a CIA liaison to President Carter's National Security Council. Gregg, a CIA operative since 1951, later became National Security Advisor to Vice President George H.W. Bush. A third person Brenneke identified as present was George H.W. Bush, however, a month after his Denver testimony, Brenneke wrote a letter to Judge Carrigan amending his statement. In the letter, Brenneke explained that he had no first hand knowledge of Bush being in Paris, but had been told by Rupp that Bush had been spotted on the tarmac at Le Bourget, so could have flown to Paris without himself attending the secret meetings.

For his role in the Rupp trial, Brenneke was tried for perjury. On May 4, 1991, after only five hours of deliberation, the jury found Brenneke "not guilty" on all five counts. Following the trial, jury foreman Mark Kristoff stated, "We were convinced that, yes, there was a meeting, and he was there and the other people listed in the indictment were there.... There never was a guilty vote.... It was 100 percent."

March 1980: Jamshid Hashimi, international arms dealer, is visited by William Casey at Washington's Mayflower Hotel, who asks that a meeting be arranged with "someone in Iran who had authority to deal on the hostages".[3]
March 21, 1980: Jamshid Hashimi and his brother Cyrus Hashimi meet at the latter's home.[4]
April 1980: Donald Gregg, a National Security Council aide with connections to George Herbert Walker Bush, meets Cyrus Hashimi in New York's Shazam restaurant, near Hashimi's bank.[5] Former Iranian President Bani-Sadr said in his 1991 book My Turn to Speak that he had "proof of contacts between Khomeini and the supporters of Ronald Reagan as early as the spring of 1980.... Rafsanjani, Beheshti, and Ahmed Khomeini [the Ayatollah's son] played key roles."[6]
Last week of July 1980: At a meeting in Madrid arranged by the Hashimi brothers that includes Robert Gray, a man identified as Donald Gregg, and Mahdi Karrubi, William Casey says that if Iran could assure that American hostages were well treated until their release and were released as a "gift" to the new administration, "the Republicans would be most grateful and 'would give Iran its strength back.'"[7] Karrubi says he has "no authority to make such a commitment."
About August 12, 1980: Karrubi meets again with Casey, saying Khomeini has agreed to the proposal. Casey agrees the next day, naming Cyrus Hashimi as middleman to handle the arms transactions. More meetings are set for October. Cyrus Hashimi purchases a Greek ship and commences arms deliveries valued at $150 million from the Israeli port of Eilat to Bandar Abbas. According to CIA sources, Hashimi receives a $7 million commission. Casey is said to use an aide named Tom Carter in the negotiations.[8]
September 22, 1980: Iraq invades Iran.
Late September 1980: An expatriate Iranian arms dealer named Hushang Levi claims he met with Richard V. Allen, the Reagan campaign's national security expert, Robert "Bud" McFarlane, and Lawrence Silberman, and discussed the possible exchange of F-4 parts for American hostages, but Lavi says they asserted they "were already in touch with the Iranians themselves". (Silberman, Allen, and McFarlane deny they met with Lavi, but reporter Robert Parry obtained a copy of Lavi's 1980 calendar after Lavi's death, which corroborated the Iranian's account.)[9]
October 15–20: Meetings are held in Paris between emissaries of the Reagan/Bush campaign, with Mr. William Casey as "key participant", and "high-level Iranian and Israeli representatives".[10]
October 21: Iran, for reasons not explained, abruptly shifts its position in secret negotiations with the Carter administration and disclaims "further interest in receiving military equipment",[11]
October 21–23: Israel secretly ships F-4 fighter-aircraft tires to Iran, in violation of the U.S. arms embargo, and Iran disperses the hostages to different locations.[12]
January 20, 1981: Hostages are formally released into United States custody after spending 444 days in captivity. The release takes place just minutes after Ronald Reagan is officially sworn in as president.
July 18, 1981 The USSR's TASS news agency reports the emergency landing near the USSR/Turkish border of an Argentine-registered transport aircraft leased and flown by Israelis, carrying a full load of US weaponry and military spare parts. The US Assistant Secretary of State for the Middle East, Nicholas Veliotes, investigated this occurrence and concluded that the downed aircraft was on its third such flight in a series of shipments of US weapons to Iran which had been authorized by high officials in the Reagan Administration

Your characterization of Gary Sick is ludicrous, BTW.

Gary Sick wrote an editorial[12] for The New York Times and a book (October Surprise)[15] on the subject. Sick's credibility was boosted by the fact that he was a retired Naval Captain, served on Ford's, Carter’s, and Reagan's National Security Council, and held high positions with many prominent organizations; moreover, he had authored a book recently on US-Iran relations (All Fall Down). Sick wrote that in October 1980 officials in Ronald Reagan's presidential campaign including future CIA Director, William Casey, made a secret deal with Iran to delay the release of the American hostages until after the election; in return for this, the United States purportedly arranged for Israel to ship weapons to Iran.
Here's a wikibio:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Sick

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_surprise_conspiracy_theory

 

[MARIS61]

More from WikiPedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_surprise_conspiracy_theory

Newsweek magazine also ran an investigation, and they said that most, if not all, of the charges made were groundless. Specifically, Newsweek found little evidence that the United States had transferred arms to Iran prior to Iran Contra, was able to account for Bill Casey's whereabouts when he was allegedly at the Madrid meeting, saying that he was at a conference in London.[20]

OOPS! You "accidentally left out the next 2 sentences:

But his presence at this meeting was not confirmed by those in attendance including historian Robert Dallek. Newsweek never printed a correction.

 

[Denny Crane]

You left out the part about the charges being groundless.

Or you ignore it.

The frigging Democrats in congress investigated it:

The US Senate’s 1992 report concluded that "by any standard, the credible evidence now known falls far short of supporting the allegation of an agreement between the Reagan campaign and Iran to delay the release of the hostages".[17]

(My note - the senate was controlled by Democrats in 1992, as was the House - both through January of 1995)

The House of Representatives’ 1993 report concluded “there is no credible evidence supporting any attempt by the Reagan presidential campaign—or persons associated with the campaign—to delay the release of the American hostages in Iran”. The task force Chairman Lee H. Hamilton also added that the vast majority of the sources and material reviewed by the committee were "wholesale fabricators or were impeached by documentary evidence". The report also expressed the belief that several witnesses had committed perjury during their sworn statements to the committee, among them Richard Brenneke,[19] who claimed to be a CIA agent.[20]

The Democrats at the time were on the witch hunt to indict Bush (the VP) if they could.

MARIS61- your current conspiracy theory has been debunked as a wholesale fabrication. The people you cite as "credible" witnesses deemed perjurers.


Get it?

Jimmy Carter offered arms for hostages. He did it on TV. There's videotape and newspaper stories with quotes to prove it.

Case closed.

 

[MARIS61]

You left out the part about the charges being groundless.

Or you ignore it.

The frigging Democrats in congress investigated it:

Here are the 22 professions included in the Gallup poll ranked by the percentage of Americans who gave its practitioners a “low” or “very low” rating for honesty and ethical standards:

1. Members of Congress (55%)
2. Car salesman (51%)
3. Senators (49%)
4. Stockbrokers (46%)
5. HMO Managers (43%)
6. Insurance salesmen (42%)
7. Lawyers (40%)
8. Advertising practitioners (38%)
9. Business executives (38%)
10. State governors (35%)
11. Bankers (33%)
12. Journalists (31%)
13. Psychiatrists (15%)
14. Chiropractors (12%)
15. College teachers (11%)
16. Clergy (10%)
17. Policemen (10%)
18. Dentists (7%)
19. Medical doctors (7%)
20. Pharmacists (5%)
21. Engineers (4%)
22. Nurses (2%)

 

[Denny Crane]

Realtors would be lumped in with car salesmen?

 

[MARIS61]

Realtors would be lumped in with car salesmen?

No similarities at all.

Probably closer to a combination of teacher and engineer, and sometimes tour guide (which is not on the list).

 

[Denny Crane]

LOL

Nice strawman anyway.

 

[MARIS61]

Since nearly all congressmen are also lawyers, or have been in the past, that's a combined 95% mistrust.

 

[Denny Crane]

OK ,so they're scumbags. Scumbags with all the motive in the world to impeach and/or indict GHW Bush if they had the slightest shred of evidence supporting your bogus and fully debunked conspiracy theory.

It's rather amazing that they even bothered to look into it.

Jimmy Carter offered arms for hostages. He was willing to negotiate with terrorists.

 

[BLAZER PROPHET]

Realtors would be lumped in with car salesmen?

Clearly.

The things I know about realtors. Seriously, a pretty scummy business.

 

[Denny Crane]

How did the banks make all those bad loans if it weren't for realtors selling the homes to people who couldn't afford them?

 

[MARIS61]

How did the banks make all those bad loans if it weren't for realtors selling the homes to people who couldn't afford them?

Your comment makes it abundantly clear you are 100% clueless as to what a Realtor does.

Realtors are not banks. They are not lenders. They are not financial advisors. They are not appraisers. They are not credit assessors.

Realtors are in fact prohibited by law from offering financial and/or legal advice of any kind.

I speak only of Oregon Realtors, as the title means completely different things in other, far less regulated states.

Your experience, if you have any, with Realtors no doubt comes from Realtors in some less regulated state and you can only blame yourself because you are adamantly for less government involvement/regulation and believe in a free market.

Be careful what you wish for.