The Iran Contra Scandal and Israel

A story of authoritarian arrogance, criminality, and Empire

When I stumbled across the Forgotten History channel and saw the guy doing it was both an Army and Marine veteran, as a Navy veteran I was going to have a full salt shaker handy.

So I thought I’d watch his take on something with which I am very familiar, the Iran Contra scandal, and I came away impressed. He touches on all the tentacles of this globe-spanning imperial conspiracy, spares no one, and names the long list of neocon assholes involved, all in less than 17 minutes.

The video spends some time discussing Israel’s role in selling and delivering weapons to Iran in exchange for money which was kicked back to the NSA and CIA to fund the Fascist contras fighting the revolutionary Sandinista government in Nicaragua. Iran, in turn, would obtain the release of both Western and Israeli hostages being held by people like Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The video suggests Israel both wanted its hostages freed and to do a good turn for the Reagan Administration, which had told it to get the hell out of Lebanon a few years earlier.

I disagree about any concern for the hostages. We all know that Israel doesn’t give a shit about its own hostages or civilians. The Hannibal Directive and the events of October 7 proved that beyond any reasonable doubt.

The Iran-Iraq War was in full swing at the time, and I think Israel wanted to do whatever it took to prolong that war, as did some of the Americans involved, and thought at the time that Saddam Hussein was the lesser evil.

Other than that one quibble, though, I think this video is an excellent lesson on the subject. I hope you find it informative.

Thank you for reading and hopefully watching, good day or night, and good luck.

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