Robert Parry, Consortium News:
In November 1991, as Newsweek and The New Republic were ridiculing the idea that Ronald Reagan’s campaign chief William Casey might have made a secret trip to meet Iranians in Madrid in 1980, a senior State Department official was informing George H.W. Bush’s White House that Casey indeed had gone to Spain on a mysterious visit.
State Department legal adviser Edwin D. Williamson told associate White House counsel Chester Paul Beach Jr. that among the State Department “material potentially relevant to the October Surprise allegations [was] a cable from the Madrid embassy indicating that Bill Casey was in town, for purposes unknown,” Beach noted in a “memorandum for record” dated Nov. 4, 1991.
In other words, as Newsweek and The New Republic were making the October Surprise story into a big joke in mid-November 1991, Bush’s White House had information that contradicted the smug self-certainty of the two magazines. Not surprisingly, the White House made no effort to clarify the record.
…
From those records, [Newsweek and The New Republic] concluded that Casey, then Reagan’s campaign chief, had been present for a morning session on July 28, 1980, and thus could not have attended a two-day meeting in Madrid, as described by Iranian businessman Jamshid Hashemi.
Now, this may seem like ancient history. But in 1980, Ronald Reagan won the presidency largely because Jimmy Carter did not succeed in freeing American hostages taken by the Iranian Revolution. Therefore, if Reagan’s camp were responsible for delaying the release of those hostages, one could say that Reagan took power through treason. And not treason defined as, “stuff I don’t like” but treason defined as in Article III, Section III of the US Constitution.” Delaying the release of American hostages would probably qualify. And William Casey traveling to Madrid contradicts what the Administration told the Congress, meaning at the very least that the Administration abetted the obstruction of a Congressional investigation.
William Faulkner said that not only is the past not dead, it’s not even over. US democracy is dying because at a series of critical moments, Republicans seized power through illegitimate means, and the corporate media acted as their accomplices. Those moments were:
1. The McCarthy era.
2. The 1968 election, in which Richard Nixon won election by (treasonously) obstructing the peace accords.
3. The 1972 election, in which Richard Nixon used the power of government to win the election.
4. Perhaps the 1980 election, in which Ronald Reagan may have won election by conspiring with Iran
5. The 1994 election, the Gingrich “revolution” seized power using illegal money, personal smears, and lies.
6. The 2000 election, in which Bush was appointed by the Supreme Court, itself the product of perjury and corruption.
I would argue that the elections after 2000 were all fake elections, in which the media were used as propaganda arms of a corporate state to push the result as far to the right as possible. But we probably won’t know until the whole corrupt mess falls apart, and people are willing to talk.
It’s very likely that none of the post-Watergate elections would have been corrupted if Reagan had been exposed in what increasingly looks like treason. Of course, if elections can simply be bought or stolen, why listen to the voice of the people. Until this poison is drained, and people properly understand why Washington seems less and less responsive to their desires, democracy has no chance.
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