Iran-Contra Affair think everyone knew we were walking a very thin line."(Owen) Not many Americans know the truth that lies behind the Iran-Contra scandals. Most would be surprised to know about the deception of our leaders. Still today, some truth of Iran-Contra lies hidden in the conscience of the people who organized, aided, and completed the operations. The entire affair is an example of the difficult task of balancing political interests at home with the world political realities that some countries can only be resisted with military force. The world is ultimately ruled by the aggressive use of force. ithin our nation, we have chosen to limit aggressive force to the political arena, and the use of ideological negotiation in order to facilitate our country's leadership. However, many countries around the world do not respond to negotiation. hile smiling and reaching out to shake right hands at the negotiation table,….

Iran-Contra Affair
Historical ackground of the Iran-Contra Affair

Events Surrounding the Decision.

Nicaraguan context. In the 1970s, dissatisfaction with a manipulative and corrupt government was escalating. All socio-economic classes were impacted and by 1978 the situation deteriorated into a short-lived civil war. Through violent opposition, the Marxist Sandinista guerillas achieved power in 1979. y September of 1980, the Sandinistas had suspended elections and taken control of the media. Leftist rebels in El Salvador received aid from Nicaragua and as a result of these ties, during the 1980s, the U.S. sponsored aid to the anti-Sandinista contra guerillas. El Salvador was undergoing a violent civil war at the time, with contention between the leftist rebels who were demanding political and military reform and the government in power.

The United States context referencing Nicaragua. In February of 1979, the U.S. suspended all new military and economic aid to Nicaragua. In 1981, head of the CIA, Casey, established….

Whereas Poindexter defended the President staunchly, orth did not. orth genuinely believed that his orders were issued by the President, via Poindexter and McFarlane before him ("United States v. Oliver L. orth").
Poindexter testified that he "deliberately withheld the information from President Reagan because 'I wanted the President to have some deniability so that he would be protected,'" ("United States v. John M. Poindexter").

According to the ational Security Archives, Poindexter's testimony served as a diversionary "tactic developed mainly by Attorney General Edwin Meese."

orth's "powerful, can-do persona, his enthusiastic commitment to both operations, and his ruthlessness to make them succeed" elevated him to celebrity villain status ("United States v. Oliver L. orth").

It was later leaked that orth "attracted drug traffickers looking for cover for their operations, then turned a blind eye to repeated reports of drug smuggling related to the contras, and actively worked with known drug smugglers such as Panamanian….

In the years following the Iran-Contra scandal, it seems there were many lessons learned. One, the government, when caught, is adept at covering itself and its own. Authors Lynch and Bogan note, "In the years since then, this conclusion was underlined by the fact that no one was impeached, few criminal convictions occurred, and no significant government reforms were enacted."

In fact, high ranking officials, such as the president and his advisers all managed to steer clear of any major implication in the event. In fact, when the final findings were disclosed in 1994, few people, including the press were interested in what the special prosecutor had to say. Somehow, everyone managed to avoid long prison terms, and the affair has generally been forgotten. Another writer notes, "National polls indicate that many Americans remain confused about the meaning and importance of the Iran/contra affair. Part of this confusion can be attributed….

Libya and the Iran-Contra Affair:
Recent events of American intervention in Libyan affairs have sparked a debate upon whether or not support should include arms. Support for this measure can be found on both sides of the isle in Washington. The white house seems to be ignoring the issue for the present; however, it has come to light the CIA is on the ground, and some arms are coming from Egypt. History has shown this sort of intervention as counterintuitive to American, as well as humanitarian, interests. Current policy of meddling from afar draws undeniable parallels to the Iran-Contra affair, and the activities of American intervention in the Afghanistan / Soviet conflict. Looking into the failures of policy concerning the past will show how present ambitions of arming the rebels of today as misguided; moreover, dangerous.

During the 1980's America, as seen in the Iran-Contra scandal, became interested in actively providing arms….

Iran-Contra Presentation
One of the last major events of the Cold War in the Americas was the so-called Iran-Contra affair, which occurred under the presidency of Ronald Reagan. My approach to the Iran-Contra affair is to examine the American domestic ideology and strategy which underlay this late, and complicated, episode in the Cold War.

The basic starting point, however, is to look at the investigation of Iran-Contra from the U.S. Senate. When Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North finally did testify in the Senate hearings in 1987, there was a crucial phrase that was used both by North and by the lawmakers who interrogated him. That phrase was "plausible deniability." And indeed "plausible deniability" is my basic subject here.

What is "plausible deniability"? In short, it is the concept that an American President would be able to order some specific action -- possibly military -- in such a way that the President could later "plausibly….

Iran-Contra Affair. Specifically, it will discuss what the Iran-Contra Affairs were, how they developed, how they were discovered, the Congressional hearings, and the aftermath of the affairs. The Iran-Contra Affair was really a series of covert operations initiated by the Reagan administration and carried out first by the CIA and then the NSC. These affairs were investigated by Congressional committees after they became public, and were as detrimental to the government as the Watergate affair, because they subverted the Congress and the Constitution.
THE IRAN-CONTRA AFFAIR

In reality, there was more than one Iran-Contra Affair, but the entire turn of events has become known as simply the "Iran-Contra Affair." In fact, the scandal surrounding the arms deal to Iran, and to the Central American contras were many different undercover operations, led by a variety of members of the National Security Staff. The first event to take place in the affairs was….

Iran-Contra Outline
Oliver North, Ronald Reagan, and "Plausible Deniability."

This paper will attempt to contextualize Oliver North and the Iran-Contra Affair within a larger discussion of Cold War strategy.

The introduction will present the paper as having basic sections. The first will discuss the idea of "plausible deniability" -- invoked by North during his 1987 testimony -- and show how it fit into Cold War strategy in the 1950s. The second section will discuss Reagan's own Cold War strategy, and his reversal of the 1970s policy of detente -- this will also necessarily entail Reagan's interest in supporting the Nicaraguan Contras, and Reagan's first-term standoff with Congress over funding the Contras (leading to the passage of the Boland Amendment for three consecutive years, 1982-1984). The third section will show how North revived the notion of "plausible deniability" after it had been disavowed in the 1970s, and will demonstrate that this was consistent….

Proxy WarfareProxy war s an armed conflct between two actors or states, fghtng on the behalf of other partes who are not drectly engaged n the armed conflct. Proxes are typcally supported by the other partes va fundng, armng, tranng, or some other form of assstance. Ncaragua s a key legal case that hghlghts the problems that can arse from proxy warfare. As Heckman (2017) ponts out: In Ncaragua, the Court found that the Unted States was gulty of tranng, armng, equppng, fnancng and supplyng the contra forces. It further found that the actons of the Unted States n and aganst Ncaragua created an nternatonal armed conflct (IAC) between Ncaragua and the Unted States.[footnoteRef:2] However, the Court also found that a non-nternatonal armed conflct (NIAC) was gong on n the state of Ncaragua at the same tme. Dnsten has also ponted out how ncongruous such a rulng can be wth….

It was a poor policy at best, and the President's Cabinet approved the plan, even if he did not. In fact, Congress specifically denied the request to send money to the Contras, so it was done in secret, and this violated the law and the trust of the nation. It was dishonest, it was covert, and it cast a dark cloud over the presidency and eagan's own motives.
In comparison, oosevelt has his own legacy of poor judgement, too. oosevelt tried to pack the Supreme Court by proposing to add new justices, and many believe he pointed the country toward socialism.

oosevelt felt the Supreme Court was too conservative when they overthrew many of the social changes he had created in the New Deal. He felt they were not following the Constitution in their decisions, but were following their own feelings. He wanted to bring the number of Supreme Court justices….

Zionism is even being identified with Christianity, with evangelicals uniting themselves to Israeli interests. Need we remind ourselves that Zionism is a politico-religious belief that is diametrically opposed to Christian values? The post-war propaganda that followed II even helped obliterate the notion of Jesus Christ as Holocaust and replace it with the Shoah, the Jewish holocaust. At the heart of Zionism is the eradication of Christian culture and the elevation of Zionist policies like the one currently being enacted on the Gaza Strip. Israel is an apartheid state and has been murdering Palestinians for years -- and now it has convinced millions of Christians and evangelicals that they must destroy the Arab before he destroys them. hat kind of value is this? It is a diabolical one.
Refusing to embrace diplomacy also undermines our prosperity. Rather than attacking and occupying countries in the Middle East, we should be working with….

The situation in El Salvador was also a parable of what was happening all over the region. Central America seemed to be covered in revolt in 1981, when the massacre occurred. Along with the revolution in El Salvador, there was an armed conflict going on in Guatemala that was bringing terror and bloodshed to the country, and the Sandinistas had just taken over control in Nicaragua. In the midst of the Cold War, America supported the Central American regimes that fought Communism, no matter how corrupt and dictatorial they became, because Communism was the "real" evil that threatened the world. As such, they supported regimes that committed unspeakable crimes, such as the massacre at El Mozote, while keeping the true nature of their support from the American people. The Nicaraguan situation (Iran-Contra affair) with Oliver North supporting the rebel Contras against the Sandinistas by selling weapons to Iran is probably….

Media in America as the Fourth Estate: From Watergate to the Present
During the 1970's, the role of the media changed from simply reporting the news to revealing serious political scandals (Waisbord, 2001). The media's role during Watergate was viewed as the mirror that reflected the most that journalism could offer to democracy: holding powers accountable for their actions. This became a trend in the American media and journalism had high credibility in the years that followed, and a great increase in journalism school enrollment followed.

However, during the 1980's and 1990's, this trend withered away. Investigative journalism is no longer rampant the firmament of American news. While the tone of the press was self-congratulatory in the post-Watergate years, the state of American journalism is currently viewed in a less positive light.

For the elite, the shift in journalism is welcomed. For example, according to John Dean, an American journalist, President ush….

A Critique of Democracy: the Latin American Left Introduction
The Latin American Left was mainly inspired by the idealism of Marx. Marx (1873) believed that “the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind and translated into forms of thought.” For the Left, the main problem has always been rooted in class—as materialism is the basis of their worldview, class and class struggle was the biggest issue, and equality and egalitarian principles enacted and served in society were the goal. Marx wanted the workers to own the means of production and thus end the rule of the bourgeoisie over the laborers. This was his ideal—and the Latin American leaders on the Left made it their priority to nationalize private industry and for the state to take control of the means of production. Whether it was Evo Morales in Bolivia, Chavez and Maduro in Venezuela, Castro in Cuba….

Powell was unanimously approved by the Senate and became the first African-American to hold that position. His service as Secretary of State is a clear example of his reticence, yet readiness, for war. hile Powell is known for "the so-called Powell doctrine -- that U.S. military power only be used in overwhelming strength to achieve well-defined strategic national interests," (answers.com 3) he made a famous speech to the United Nations in which he voiced support for the war in Iraq. Although he clashed with the often "hawkish" members of the Bush hite House such as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, "one of Powell's best known moments as secretary of state was his speech last year [2003] to the U.N. Security Council in which he made a case for invading Iraq" (King 3). The initial invasion of Iraq was billed as necessary by the Bush hite House because of the….