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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (59963)	12/5/2002 4:19:28 AM
From: tekboy	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

"Criminals" ... "Good Guys" just as what defines terrorism is not ends but means, so what defines crime is not the purpose behind an action but whether the action violates a law. It is extremely difficult to dispute that the operations collectively known as "Iran-contra" did indeed violate laws (ironically, in the contra part, not the Iran part, even though it was the latter that caused more public outrage). Government officials who violate the public trust, lie to Congress so as to evade oversight, and so forth give me the willies. They are not the sort of people who should be entrusted with the vast and largely discretionary power of the state, no matter what their policy views are. There are plenty of honest and law-abiding right-wing loons, no? So why not give them a shot? Reagan's biggest failure, IMO, was not backing up the people he gave a "Nudge, Nudge, Wink, Wink," to get this done for him. If he had come out when Iran Contra broke and said, "Yes, I ordered this, and if you don't like it, impeach me!", it would have been a one week story. Perhaps. But he didn't, thus implicating himself in the mess. Note that truly honorable believers would be proud to pay a price for breaking laws they disagreed with (like conscientious objectors, say), and do so openly, or at least retrospectively throw themselves on the mercy of the court of public opinion (as you suggest). But these slime relied first on not getting caught, and then on pardons from their friends. Not exactly my idea of heroes. tb@where'stheoutrage?.com PS for some interesting contemporaneous discussion of these and similar thorny issues raised by the Iran-contra affair, the obsessed could check out "When Presidents Break the Law," The National Interest, Fall 1987, and "Crimes and Blunders," The National Interest, a couple of years later.