Reply #3: ciao, you won't be missed [View All]

[maddezmom]

RICHARD ARMITAGE QUIETLY CONFIRMED
AS DEPUTY SECRETARY OF STATE

FTW - On March 23, after being recommended in a unanimous 18-0 vote by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, former Vietnam-era covert operative and Contra-era figure Richard Armitage was confirmed as Deputy Secretary of State in a voice vote on the Senate Floor. The unchallenged confirmation of a figure who had previously been investigated by President Reagan's Commission on Organized Crime (1984) for alleged links to gambling and prostitution was totally ignored by the major American media. Armitage has already begun work at the State Department and is deeply involved in negotiations over a US spy plane recently captured by the Chinese government.

The total lack of opposition to Armitage's appointment indicates an apparent inability of the US Congress to muster any critical examination of appointments or policy at a time when an imperiled US economy and an almost combative Bush Administration is dealing with mounting economic and political challenges around the globe.

Armitage, who was denied a 1989 appointment as Assistant Secretary of State because of links to Iran-Contra and other scandals, served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs in the Reagan years. U.S. Government stipulations in the Oliver North trial specifically named Armitage as one of the DoD officials responsible for illegal transfers of weapons to Iran and the Contras. But Armitage's dirty past goes much deeper.

A Vietnam veteran and graduate of Annapolis, Armitage's roots have been thoroughly intertwined with the likes of CIA veteran Ted Shackley, Richard Secord, Heine Aderholt, Elliot Abrams, Dewey Clarridge, Edwin Wilson and Tom Clines. All of these men have been directly linked to CIA covert operations, the drug trade, the abandonment of U.S. prisoners of War after Vietnam and/or Iran-Contra. Armitage has also been routinely discussed in FTW as a Bush-era covert functionary who has been linked to covert operations, drug smuggling and the expansion of organized crime operations in Russia, Central


http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/politics/armitage_SS.html