Robert Parry - Hey Democrats, Truth Matters!

[pberq]

blm posted this important article elsewhere, but I thought this deserves its own thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2663206#2663325

The moral is - if there is no accountability for the crimes committed by the Bush administration, we will just get more of the same in the future.

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0511-29.htm

Published on Thursday, May 11, 2006 by Consortium News
Hey Democrats, Truth Matters!
by Robert Parry


My book, Secrecy & Privilege, opens with a scene in spring 1994 when a guest at a White House social event asks Bill Clinton why his administration didn’t pursue unresolved scandals from the Reagan-Bush era, such as the Iraqgate secret support for Saddam Hussein’s government and clandestine arms shipments to Iran.

Clinton responds to the questions from the guest, documentary filmmaker Stuart Sender, by saying, in effect, that those historical questions had to take a back seat to Clinton’s domestic agenda and his desire for greater bipartisanship with the Republicans.

. . .

Clinton’s relatively low regard for the value of truth and accountability is relevant again today because other centrist Democrats are urging their party to give George W. Bush’s administration a similar pass if the Democrats win one or both houses of Congress.

. . .

Yet, before Democrats endorse the DLC’s don’t-look-back advice, they might want to examine the consequences of Clinton’s decision in 1993-94 to help the Republicans sweep the Reagan-Bush scandals under the rug. Most of what Clinton hoped for – bipartisanship and support for his domestic policies – never materialized.

. . .

Clinton’s generosity to George H.W. Bush and the Republicans, of course, didn’t turn out as he had hoped. Instead of bipartisanship and reciprocity, he was confronted with eight years of unrelenting GOP hostility, attacks on both his programs and his personal reputation.

Later, as tensions grew in the Middle East, the American people and even U.S. policymakers were flying partially blind, denied anything close to the full truth about the history of clandestine relationships between the Reagan-Bush team and hostile nations in the Middle East.

Clinton’s failure to expose that real history also led indirectly to the restoration of Bush Family control of the White House in 2001. Despite George W. Bush’s inexperience as a national leader, he drew support from many Americans who remembered his father’s presidency fondly.

If the full story of George H.W. Bush’s role in secret deals with Iraq and Iran had ever been made public, the Bush Family’s reputation would have been damaged to such a degree that George W. Bush’s candidacy would not have been conceivable.

Not only did Clinton inadvertently clear the way for the Bush restoration, but the Right’s political ascendancy wiped away much of the Clinton legacy, including a balanced federal budget and progress on income inequality. A poorly informed American public also was easily misled on what to do about U.S. relations with Iraq and Iran.

In retrospect, Clinton’s tolerance of Reagan-Bush cover-ups was a lose-lose-lose – the public was denied information it needed to understand dangerous complexities in the Middle East, George W. Bush built his presidential ambitions on the nation’s fuzzy memories of his dad, and Republicans got to enact a conservative agenda.

Clinton’s approach also reflected a lack of appreciation for the importance of truth in a democratic Republic. If the American people are expected to do their part in making sure democracy works, they need to be given at least a chance of being an informed electorate.

. . .

[catnhatnh]

1. Kick....

This bad boy belongs on the top of this page AND the greatest page-best reasoned arguement I 've seen as to why we MUST impeach the regime....

[blm]

10. That's exactly how I feel.

Btw - Parry has given permission to repost article in FULL. He updated it at his site with an editor's note.

[pberq]

2. Robert Parry interviewed on Democracy Now!

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/09/1444242

. . .JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, Bob Parry, I’d like to ask you -- Mel Goodman mentioned Bob Gates as being part of the Iran-Contra class, but in this world of ahistorical journalism that we live in today, where very few people -- Iran-Contra is practically ancient history to most of the -- especially the young Americans in this country, could you give us a quick snapshot of what the Iran-Contra scandal was?

ROBERT PARRY: Well, in a synopsis, the Iran-Contra scandal was an effort by the Reagan administration to circumvent various restrictions on carrying out their foreign policy, both in the Middle East and also in Central America.

The Contra part related to the Nicaraguan Contras who were put in place to fight the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. And when Congress tried to cut off that support from the CIA, the Reagan administration went around Congress by having Oliver North of the National Security Council, in essence, sort of oversee this operation of getting weapons and money to the Contras. But it still involved many people in the CIA, even when they were denying they were involved. We now know, based on the investigations, that CIA Director William Casey, who was Bob Gates’s direct supervisor, was deeply involved, as were people lower down the chain, including some of the station chiefs in the field.

In the case of the Middle East, the Reagan administration was carrying out secret policies to arm basically both sides of the Iran-Iraq War. This started, we now know, back in the very early part of the 1980s. By 1981, there were shipments of weapons that had been approved by the Reagan administration that went through Israel to Iran, and that continued on through to the mid-1980s. And at times when the Iranians would get the upper hand in the war with Iraq, the United States would tilt back and start helping the Iraqis, the government of Saddam Hussein. So there were efforts to move weapons through third countries that would help Saddam Hussein in his fight. There was military intelligence that was provided to assist him and even advice on how to use his air force. So there was this whole secret policy that was operating behind the scenes, and the Reagan administration essentially was trying to go around Congress, keep the intelligence committees as much in the dark as possible, and Bob Gates was in the center of almost all of that. . .

[Demeter]

3. What Parry Said, In Spades!

No reconciliation before the Ugly Truth is out there for the History books, and the perps are punished to the fullest extent of the law.

[Laelth]

6. Diamonds, hearts, and clubs too.

n/t

:patriot:

-Laelth

[grasswire]

4. excellent, as always

If anyone should know the truth, it's Parry. Blacklisted for speakng it!

[Laelth]

5. Repost, but who cares?

I'll keep kicking this until the "no impeachment" crowd will at least give us the time of day. Standing on principle matters to the world and to the American electorate.

:dem:

-Laelth


Edit:Laelth--oops, it's mean to stand on a principal. lol

[PATRICK]

7. There will come a crossroads

when the path to glossing over the past- again- except for historians acting as archaeologists of secrets and fragments- will meet with the choices of prosecution and another that no one thinks we need.

Impeachment, relentless investigation and prosecution- which means also impeachment of certain installed goons is a resisted path. The Third Way(LOL) is not even on the radar.

When South Africa worked their way out of civil war and racial bloodbaths with truth trials the option was not only brilliant but necessary and acceptable to all as a way out. Top Dems and probably most establishment leaders, like naifs in some pure world of yesteryear that never existed- anymore than the Conservative version- they won't see the need. If they saw the need impeachment would be much more to the forefront, at least as a natural extension of the restoration of the legislative branch.

But the dangers are great to our democracy and several severe and inevitable and worsening crises already upon us if we don't throw out the ballast of the past to keep the ship afloat. You can avoid imprisonment, lengthy prosecutions that will always net only some for select crimes, with the burden of prevention of future recurrences STILL weighing heavily before we even get to first base with the ordinary and extraordinary business at hand. Once the truth is out more people will resign than could be extricated, more people will talk about more things that need to be known in this nation of self-deceit. All results except particular punishment(how can there be complete justice or restitution for what these few have done?) will be greater and more positive, leaving the business of REAL government separate and healthier.

Is it even being contemplated? By Kucinich perhaps? because the immediate and building disaster is not as clear as it was for South Africa it would seem not only radical but unnecessary. As one who has lived through the steady deconstruction of democracy and America I would say it is neither and brings an end to radical rapes of reality and the increasing critical dissolution. And it has already begun in the exposures discussed on line in the whole world. The truth is out there and kept from the main forums of government and media- uselessly. The jig is up. Bearing witness would heal the society more than REVEAL new information. The information starved imagination can be reined in for true sight and possible wisdom.

A system of government that would deny the outpouring of truth as a chip that can be withheld in the game is at war with truth itself AND the knowledge already out there. It would be a progressive continuation of the great change of history that has already taken place, not a Democratic denial to countermatch the destructive GOP version.

So there is the idea. A whisper online I suggested long ahgo and others did as well. it has been done before. We need it more than impeachment now.

[Laelth]

8. Beautifully said.

n/t

:patriot:

-Laelth

[pberq]

9. Yes! - the truth will set us free.

[blm]

11. All it would take is a Dem president who BELIEVES the books should be opened

for voters so that they may have the information they need to act as TRUE, INFORMED CITIZENS. Wouldn't THAT be a welcome change.