Then Along Came a Hero: The Oliver North

Myth
by Edward Dylan Goff

Furthering the Version

Reagan-myth worshipers would prefer to
erase from the national conscious and
conscience the embarrassing events of the
final years of his second term, especially the
entire Iran-Contra affair. It was, for a lot of
people, yet another case of a Republican
administration getting caught up in another
humiliating scandal. In many ways, the Iran-
Contra affair went far beyond anything seen
in the Watergate hearings.

The threat of another Cuba had

preoccupied the Reagan administration
and, with the openly declared mission of
the Nicaraguan Marxist regime to spread
revolution throughout the region, the
policy had been to arm and train right
wing insurgent militias called the Contras.
However, direct funding of this
insurgency was made illegal through the
Boland Amendment -the name given to
three U.S. legislative amendments
between 1982 and 1984, all aimed at
limiting US government assistance to the
Contras militants.

In order to circumvent these laws, senior officials of the Reagan administration

decided to continue arming and training the Contras secretly and in violation of the law
as enacted in the Boland Amendment. Senior Reagan administration officials started
what they came to call "the Enterprise."
Additionally, in order to raise funds- obviously everything had to be “off the books”-
another scheme was devised to finance their illegal funding of the Contras
insurgency. At that time, Saddam Hussein of Iraq, one of our allies, had launched into
a bloody war against Iran. Arm sales to Iran, a violation of the official US policy of an
arms embargo, were established, initially through third parties and then directly, and
the profits were funneled into funding for the Contras. (That is the shortest possible
version.)
Eventually, as could have been expected, the whole thing, blew up in everybody’s
faces. The Democratic-controlled Congress was enraged by the administration’s lies
and conducted a bi-partisan investigation.

People forget and people forgive, but mostly they forget. However, I do recall North's six-day
appearance before the a special joint House and Senate investigating committee investigating
Iran-Contra events. He was for a lot of viewers one of the stars in what seemed to be a
tiresome redux of Watergate. All summer long the hearings appeared on daytime television,
like a third rate sumer stock production of an obscure historical tragedy.
Political bias along party lines was painfully clear. One one side, a group of white haired pale
faced men made long monotone speeches that somehow became questions at the last
moment. On the other side, another pale face, accompanied by a whispering lawyer, would
usually answer, “I can’t recall that, Senator.” All the events seemed practiced and self-serving.
Nobody seemed very interested in either asking the right questions or giving the honest
answers. A sad spectacle, in every sense of the word.

Then along came Oliver North, the dashing ex-Marine, in full military regalia, a stamp
collection of medals over his heart. Handsome and well-spoken, he oozed charisma and
patriotism. This was a hero, people remarked at the time. When he spoke, it was difficult not
to be moved. Unlike so many of those that testified before him, North appeared committed to
his mission and stood proudly to defend his noble ideals. Based only on appearance, North
was a hero in the Iran-Contra scandal. Yet, as details emerged from a closer committee
examination, things were not nearly as black and white as they initially appeared.

Lt. Colonel North freely admitted that he had shredded documents, lied to Congress and
falsified official records. Such seeming forthrightness was courageous and admirable. In a
weird mix of political spin and legalese, North told the committee,"I was provided with
additional input that was radically different from the truth. I assisted in furthering that version."
Which meant.. what?

The Legacy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThEMsxcAqu8 )

On the final day of North’s appearance before Congress, Senator George Mitchell gave North
an impressive dressing down. It is definitely recommended viewing. In the clip, North remains
stoic, wisely keeping his mouth closed. If you are observant, you might catch a younger
Richard Cheney of Wyoming, who praised Colonel North as “the most effective and
impressive witness certainly this committee has heard.”
The final opinion of the committee was not at all favorable to President Reagan. With
the sharp criticism of the president, the report concluded that a “cabal of zealots” in the
administration had managed to take control of key aspects of foreign policy. Among
the targets of the criticism were Lt. Col. Oliver L. North, the former National Security
Council aide; Rear Adm. John M. Poindexter, the president’s former national security
adviser; William J. Casey, the former director of central intelligence; and Attorney
General Edwin Meese III.
Despite strong condemnation in the final report on the Iran-Contra Scandal. for a number of
House Republicans, North was, and is still today, unquestionably a hero. Sean Wilentz points
out in a New York Times' op-ed piece:.

At the conclusion of the hearings, a dissenting minority report

codified these views. The report’s chief author was a former
resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, Michael J.
Malbin, who was chosen by Mr. Cheney as a member of the
committee’s minority staff. Another member of the minority’s legal
staff, David S. Addington, was later the vice president’s chief of
staff.
The minority report stressed the charge that the inquiry was a
sham, calling the majority report’s allegations of serious White
House abuses of power “hysterical.” The minority admitted that
mistakes were made in the Iran-contra affair but laid the blame for
them chiefly on a Congress that failed to give consistent aid to the
Nicaraguan contras and then overstepped its bounds by trying to
restrain the White House.
The Reagan administration, according to the report, had erred by
failing to offer a stronger, principled defense of what Mr. Cheney
and others considered its full constitutional powers. Not only did the
report defend lawbreaking by White House officials; it condemned
Congress for having passed the laws in the first place.

Like so much of the Neo-conservative rhetoric, tin the dissenting report was much picking
and choosing of statements made by founding fathers to give weight to their argument. For
example, a bit of the Federalist Papers with Alexander Hamilton’s remarks endorsing
“energy in the executive” gave an aura of approval. If anything, according to the dissenting
minority report, the powers of president should be less restrained and limited by the legal
restrictions imposed by Congress. As Wilentz notes:.
Hamilton certainly desired a strong executive, but warned that it
would be “utterly unsafe and improper” to give a president complete
control over foreign policy...
In truth, as Mr. Cheney has also remarked, the struggle for him
began much earlier, during the Nixon administration. A business
partner says that Mr. Cheney told him that Watergate was merely
“a political ploy by the president’s enemies.” For Mr. Cheney, the
scandal was not Richard Nixon’s design for an imperial presidency
but the Democrats’ drive for an imperial Congress.
Still, Mr. Cheney’s quest to accumulate unaccountable executive
power — a quest that has received much attention of late — took a
major turn 20 years ago. And part of Iran-contra’s legacy has now
become a legacy of the Bush-Cheney administration.
The Federalist Papers, incidentally, have a great deal of interesting things to say
about the potential for governmental abuse of power, such as, “If Tyranny and
Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.”
Those are, of course, excerpts that Dick Cheney would have skimmed.
Madison also warned against another kind of threat to the republic which would relate
to North’s later career. In Federalist No. 10, for example, in answer to Hamilton,
Madison warned against the the destructive role of faction in breaking apart the
republic. He defines a faction as "a number of citizens, whether amounting to a
minority or majority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some
common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other
citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community." He
identifies the most serious source of faction to be the diversity of opinion in political
life which leads to dispute over fundamental issues such as what regime or religion
should be preferred.

Men of factious tempers, of local prejudices, or of sinister designs,

may, by intrigue, by corruption, or by other means, first obtain the
suffrages, and then betray the interests, of the people.
James Madison, November 22, 1787
In any case, in the minority report, we can see, perhaps, an unheeded warning for the future.
For in different Republican administration, it was precisely this disdain of oversight and
contempt for Congress- and the Constitution- that was to led to the abuse of the Bush II
administration, with Cheney presiding.

Bungled Justice
Mr. North was eventually convicted
of three federal felonies — receiving
an illegal payment, obstruction of a
Congressional inquiry and
destroying official documents,
although an appellate court held that
his testimony delivered under
Congressional immunity may have
affected jurors and reversed one
conviction
In fact, North served no jail time
whatsoever which left both his
admirers and his detractor
scratching her heads in disbelief.

According to a New York times article

Mr. North, the former Marine Corps lieutenant colonel and National
Security Council aide, was convicted of destroying documents,
accepting the gift of a $13,800 home security system and abetting
the obstruction of Congress. [Federal District] Judge Gesell could
have imposed a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and fines of
 $750,000. Instead, he imposed a $150,000 fine, two years of
probation, a three-year suspended sentence and an order to
perform 1,200 hours of community service.

The decision was, no doubt, a sound political move. A campaign had been underway for a
presidential pardon which would have put then president George Bush, Sr. in a particularly
difficult situation. George Bush I, vice president for Reagan, along with others in the Reagan
cabinet, had been the prime backers in the arms for hostages plan. No doubt Bush was
delighted and relieved. Yet this decision was proof enough for most people that justice,
according to the Far Right, was only an admirable but flexible ideal.
In fact, president George Bush, Sr., formerly vice- president during the operation, would later
go on to pardon Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger. along with five other
Iran/contra defendants.
The Weinberger pardon marked the first time a President ever pardoned someone in whose
trial he might have been called as a witness, because the President was knowledgeable of
factual events underlying the case. Apparently the prevailing notion was: some things are just
too important to leave for justice to decide .

With each Republican cycle, the scope of the abuse of power seems to grow larger and affect
more innocent lives. If Watergate was a sordid tale of a bungled burglary, Iran-Contra was a
pathetic account of a bungled covert operation, and so many of the same players returned for
the next act, in a deadly serious performance of a bungled war. Isn't it only fair to ask what
the next bit of theater will be? A bungled overthrow of the government? A bungled
Armageddon?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8tQAYYtLok )

Extreme

On April 7, 2009, “Right-wing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate

Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment,” a report, issued by the Office of
Intelligence and Analysis at the Department of Homeland Security warned against a
resurgence of right-wing extremism. According to its definition, "Right-wing extremism in the
United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are
primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and
those that are mainly anti-government, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local
authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that
are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration."
The report also warned:

The possible passage of new restrictions on firearms and the return

of military veterans facing significant challenges reintegrating into
their communities could lead to the potential emergence of terrorist
groups or lone wolf extremists capable of carrying out violent
attacks.
 Proposed imposition of firearms restrictions and weapons bans
likely would attract new members into the ranks of right-wing
extremist groups, as well as potentially spur some of them to begin
planning and training for violence against the government. The high
volume of purchases and stockpiling of weapons and ammunition
by right-wing extremists in anticipation of restrictions and bans in
some parts of the country continue to be a primary concern to law
enforcement.

Returning veterans possess combat skills and experience that are

attractive to right-wing extremists. DHS/ I & A is concerned that
righ-twing extremists will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning
veterans in order to boost their violent capabilities.

Race was also mentioned in the report.

“In addition, the historical election of an African American

president and the prospect of policy changes are proving to be a
driving force for right-wing extremist recruitment and
radicalization.”

In a 2009 article on his Freedom Alliance website, North was personally offended and
strongly objected to labeled the "right-wing extremist" category. According to its definition, he
remarked he would be classified as an extremist.

According to the U.S. Government, I am an extremist. I am a

Christian – and meet regularly with other Christians to study God’s
word. My faith convinces me the prophesies in the Holy Bible are
true. I believe in the sanctity of human life, oppose abortion and
want to preserve marriage as the union of a man and a woman. I
am a veteran with skills and knowledge derived from military
training and combat. I own several firearms, frequently shoot them,
buy ammunition and consider efforts to infringe on my 2nd
Amendment rights to be wrong and unconstitutional. I fervently
support the sovereignty of the United States, am deeply concerned
about our economy, increasingly higher taxes, illegal immigration,
soaring unemployment, and actions by our government that will
bury my children beneath a mountain of debt.

He concludes with this rather cheap shot::

Mr. Obama should publicly disavow this report and fire the officials
responsible for issuing it. Those who prepare his remarks for the
occasion should insert in the teleprompter, Senator Barry
Goldwater’s words on the subject: “Extremism in the defense of
liberty is no vice.”
In his own mind and the collective mind of Fox news, Oliver North has been defamed and
victimized and long misunderstood. He has said, "I'm like John Wayne. I only play good
guys." (The operative word, one might assume, is "play.")

On a radio talk show with Randi Rhodes, North himself appeared to have
swallowed his own revisionist history of the Iran-Contra events when he claimed
"No-one even charged me of lying to Congress" Rhodes immediately pointed out
that according to the Report of the Independent Counsel:

"Count One: The indictment charged that North and

McFarlane ob- structed Congress by falsely denying in
three letters North's contra- assistance efforts.

"Counts Two, Three, and Four: False statements to

Congress, charging specific misrepresentations in the three
letters described in Count One."

Later he would tell listeners that "Lawrence Walsh had every record from my office, he had
absolutely everything." Again the report by Independent Counsel prove the contrary.
"North helped draft a false chronology of the Iran arms
sales and altered and destroyed documents in response to
congressional inquiries into the Iran initiative"

Perhaps most outrageously, North refutes all the allegations against him despite the record.
Oliver North: "No-one ever convicted of me of lying to Congress"

Randi Rhodes: "You were convicted in a court of law"

Oliver North: "I am denying it"
Report of the Independent Counsel:
"On May 4, 1989, he was found guilty of three counts,
including aiding and abetting obstruction of Congress,
shredding and altering official documents, and accepting an
illegal gratuity from Secord."

Such confabulations shouldn't surprise anybody when the interview begins with a statement
from North as, "Randi, Randi, one of the reasons why liberals don’t make it in radio is they
can’t tell the truth. First of all...."

Forever Denied

http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=ng11u_UrUeI

As a war correspondent for Fox news, Col. Oliver North pops up pretty regularly, ironically,
discussing military politics. Here is a clip of North explaining the details about narco-terrorism
in South and Central America. Of course, North may have a stronger case for being an expert
on this subject, than, say, Bristol Palin's case for speaking out in favor of abstinence. It is,
perhaps, a subject he is well-qualified to analyze, given his involvement.

According to the San Jose Mercury News Gary Webb’s expose and subsequent book,
Dark Alliance: the CIA, the contras, and the crack cocaine explosion cites the Kerry
report on the connections between terrorism and drugs the CIA was aware of the
cocaine transactions and the large shipments of drugs into the U.S. by Contra
personnel. Webb charged that the Reagan administration shielded inner-city drug
dealers from prosecution in order to raise money for the Contras, especially after
Congress passed the Boland Amendment, which prohibited direct Contra funding.

In 1987, the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and

International Operations of the Senate Committee on Foreign
Relations began an investigation focusing on allegations received
by the subcommittee chairman, Senator John Kerry, concerning
illegal gun-running and narcotics trafficking associated with the
Contras. A two-year investigation produced a 1,166-page report in
1989 analyzing the involvement of Contra groups and supporters in
drug trafficking, and the role of United States government officials
in these activities. Allegations of cocaine trafficking by Contras also
arose during the investigation conducted by Independent Counsel
Lawrence Walsh into the Iran-Contra affair. Drug trafficking
allegations, however, were not the focus of that inquiry and the
Walsh report included no findings on these allegations.

The Kerry Report was, in fact, a well-researched and scathing document which established a
clear relationship between high level officials in government and drug cartels. Among the
allegations, here are a few as stated in the introduction of the report which seem particularly
relevant.

We learned how high United States officials, including Lt. Col.

Oliver North, went to the Justice Department to intercede on behalf
of a man convicted of a narco-terrorist assassination plot against a
Honduran President--because the man had been the
administration's liaison to the Contras.

We also found out that the State Department chose four companies
controlled by drug traffickers to provide assistance to the Contras.
As a result, drug traffickers got funds out of the United States public
treasury as part of our Contra humanitarian assistance program.

We were told by the head of the Drug Enforcement Agency that

someone at the National Security Counsel leaked information on a
DEA drug sting operation against the Sandinistas in order to
influence a congressional vote on Contra aid, causing the operation
to abort.
After the Gary Webb report in the Mercury News, the CIA Inspector General Frederick
Hitz was assigned to investigate these allegations in 1996. Although the investigators
promised to release their report in three months, it was only pressure by both the
Washington Post and New York Times, that news stated that Hitz had found no “direct
of indirect” connection between the CIA and cocaine traffickers.
When the report was finally the release, much of the controversy had dissolved. The
implications of the report were virtually ignored by the media. According to the book,
Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs and the Press, by authors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey
St. Clair, the Hitz report described a cable from the CIA's Directorate of Operations
dated October 22, 1982, describing a prospective meeting between Contra leaders in
Costa Rica for "an exchange in [the United States] of narcotics for arms, which then
are shipped to Nicaragua." The two main Contra groups, US arms dealers, and a
lieutenant of a drug ring which imported drugs from Latin America to the US west
coast were set to attend the Costa Rica meeting. The lieutenant trafficker was also a
Contra, and the CIA knew that there was an arms-for-drugs shuttle and did nothing to
stop it.

The United States was not the only nation investigating North's involvement with shady
organizations. For example, in the second report by the Costa Rican Assembly's Commission
on Narcotics Trafficking, an examination of the explosion of cocaine and drug trafficking in
during the 1980s, the commission recommended that that former ambassador Lewis Tambs,
CIA station chief Joseph F. Fernandez, and Lt. Col. Oliver North be forever denied entry in
Costa Rica, a recommendation adopted by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias.

Easy Hero
North ran unsuccessfully as a Republican Senate candidate in Virginia. On the eve of the
election, former first lady Nancy Reagan told a reporter that North had lied to her husband
when discussing Iran-Contra with the former president, effectively stopping his campaign.
In this current Wonderland of Republican politics, who knows whether Palin might not choose
him as her running mate? Given the respective characters at play, there is a kind of warped
logic about it.

North has penned several books, fiction and non-fiction (though many reviewers wouldn't care
to distinguish one from the other). It has been a gradual but steady rehabilitation of his image
with the kind assistance of his Fox Friends.
In past years, with his pal Sean Hannity, he has helped organize and is the honorary
chairman for the Freedom Alliance, whose mission, according to its website, "is to advance
the American heritage of freedom by honoring and encouraging military service, defending
the sovereignty of the United States and promoting a strong national defense."

Freedom Alliance , a 501(c)3 educational and charitable foundation,

was founded in 1990 by Lt.Col Oliver L. North, who now serves as
the organization's honorary chairman. We will work to "keep
America strong, keep America prosperous, and keep America free,"
said North upon the founding of Freedom Alliance.
For the last several years, Sean Hannity and the Freedom Alliance “charity” have conducted
“Freedom Concerts” across America. The organization is raises funds for scholarships for the
children of fallen soldiers and to pay severely wounded war vets. However, ultra-conservative
blogger Debbie Schlussel charged that entire arrangement was nothing more than a scam.
In fact, less than 20%–and in two recent years, less than 7% and
4%, respectively–of the money raised by Freedom Alliance went to
these causes, while millions of dollars went to expenses, including
consultants and apparently to ferry the Hannity posse of family and
friends in high style. And, despite Hannity’s statements to the
contrary on his nationally syndicated radio show, few of the children
of fallen soldiers got more than $1,000-$2,000, with apparently
none getting more than $6,000, while Freedom Alliance appears to
have spent tens of thousands of dollars for private planes.
Moreover, despite written assurances to donors that all money
raised would go directly to scholarships for kids of the fallen heroes
and not to expenses, has begun charging expenses of nearly
$500,000 to give out just over $800,000 in scholarships.
Freedom Alliance has strongly denied such allegations, calling them "false and malicious."

His last book, American Heroes he

wrote "first hand accounts of faithful
American heroes in the fight against
global terrorism and jihad." Interestingly,
but perhaps not unexpectedly, the book
shares a copyright with Fox.
He has a comfortable life, I am sure, a
warm home and a large family. North has
four children, eleven grandchildren, and
lives with his wife in Virginia. He has
plenty of people to share his thoughts with
and a warm blanket. He is able to come
and go as he pleases, and he has the
luxury of choosing his meals. Whenever
he wishes, he can step outside and look
at the sky.

Not so far away from this decorated hero's Virginia home, however, in a Quantico prison,
there is another soldier who is considered a hero by many. And, not unlike Oliver North, many
consider him a traitor who betrayed his country. Without standing trial or without being
convicted, Bradley Manning has already served more time in prison than Oliver North. Many
patriotic Americans have condemned Manning. It is, for them, a clear case; Manning swore
an oath and he broke that oath, a crime that Oliver North shares with Manning.

North, at the commencement of his testimony before the Congressional hearings back in
1986, boldly stated something Bradley Manning might well have said, "I am here to accept
responsibility for that which I did. I will not accept responsibility for that which I did not do. I
came here to tell you the truth, the good, the bad and the ugly. I never considered myself a
fall guy. I know what I did. I know why I did it. I'm not ashamed of it."

However, the obvious difference between Manning and North is that North made this noble
declaration, not facing life in prison or a firing squad and not in solitary confinement, but under
a grant of immunity. Given Lt. Col. North's Fifth amendment objections when subpoenaed,
the only way to obtain his testimony was to compel it through a grant of use immunity.
Despite the fact that North was the target of an a criminal investigation, It was felt that without
his testimony the record would have been incomplete. Nothing he told Congress would, or
could, be used against him in a criminal proceeding. Being honest, therefore, would cost him
nothing.
Under those circumstances,. it's fairly easy to be a hero.

This week, the military brought 22 new charges - including one that carries the death penalty -
against Pfc. Bradley E. Manning. That capital offense, according to the statement that
outlined the 22 charges, was aiding and abetting the enemy- although it was not clear who
the proposed enemy was. While military prosecutors have recommended life in prison
instead, "the presiding military judge would have the authority to dismiss the
prosecution's recommendation and impose the death penalty," according to NBC.

Manning stated in his private chats to an informer, “God knows what happens now hopefully
worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms. If not… than we’re doomed.. as a species. I will
officially give up on the society we have if nothing happens. I want people to see the truth…
regardless of who they are… because without information, you cannot make informed
decisions as a public.”

One might say, “But North was following the orders of his commander in chief.” Most people
already know that this defense was forever banished by the Nuremberg trials but there is a
even better retort for this argument.
Here is a statement made by Obama in a town hall meeting for the future leaders of China.

But I am a big believer in technology and I'm a big believer in

openness when it comes to the flow of information. I think that the
more freely information flows, the stronger the society becomes,
because then citizens of countries around the world can hold
their own governments accountable. They can begin to think for
themselves.