Jeb's Dark Alliances: Bush, Batista & the Contras

Over the years various researchers and investigations have suggested, even asserted at times, that as Vice President George Bush, along with some of his national security advisers, maintained close ties with a secret air-re-supply operation in El Salvador during the Reagan years. In October 1986, a week after the Nicaraguan government shot down a plane carrying supplies for the Contras, front page press reports actually announced that the operation led to both the CIA and Bush.

When it was revealed that Contra resupply project Chief Felix Rodriguez met several times with Bush and a key aide, the VP claimed they didn't discuss Nicaragua. That actually worked! But here's where it gets really interesting: the trail also led to the vice president’s son, Jeb. According to the Manchester Guardian, Jeb Bush “long acted as a liaison man with the fiercely pro-Contra, anti-Cuban and Nicaraguan settlers in Miami.”

Yes, this is the Republican "establishment choice" for 2016.

When the Iran-contra scandal began to break in October 1986, mainstream sources like CBS Evening News and the Miami Herald quoted unnamed officials as saying that Jeb Bush had served as his father’s chief point of contact with the contra rebels. Jeb’s denials were narrow. He didn't deny being his father’s liaison to the contras, only the idea that he had participated "directly" in the illegal contra resupply effort directed from the White House.

And yet, like Keyser Soze, such stories just vanished. George Bush, by then heir apparent to Reagan, was insulated from probing questions as he campaigned for president for the next two years. The one person who connected the CIA, NSA and the mercenary forces on the ground. Instead of being investigated he became president.

Robert Parry, an Associated Press reporter who investigated the Reagan-Bush administration’s secret support for the Contras, confirms Jeb Bush’s association with Contra supporters operating out of Miami. More recently, he recalled that one Nicaraguan businessman with close ties to both Jeb and the Contras told Parry that Jeb Bush was involved with a pro-Contra mercenary named Tom Posey, who was organizing groups of military advisers and weapons shipments. In 1988, Posey was indicted along with several other individuals on charges of violating the Neutrality Act and firearms laws. The charges were dismissed in 1989 when a federal judge ruled that the US was not "at peace" with Nicaragua.

Jeb was also integral in securing a number of “pardons” of Cubans involved in terrorist acts. A prominent example was his intervention to help release Cuban terrorist Orlando Bosch from prison and grant him US residency. A notorious figure, Bosch was convicted of firing a rocket at a Polish ship en route to Cuba and was implicated in many other acts of terrorism, including the 1976 mid-air bombing of a Cubana Airlines plane, which killed 73 civilians.

The Cubana Airlines bombing and several other major acts of terrorism by Cuban right-wingers occurred while George H.W. Bush was CIA director and was working closely with anti-communist Cuban exiles employed by the CIA, including Rodriguez, a close associate of Bosch’s alleged co-conspirator in the Cubana bombing Luis Posada Carriles.

Bosch’s release, often called a pardon by media, was the result of pressure by hardline Cubans in Miami -- with Jeb Bush as their point man. In July 2002, while he was Florida’s governor, Bush nominated Raoul Cantero, grandson of Cuba's deposed dictator Batista, as a Florida supreme court judge despite his lack of experience. Cantero had previously represented Bosch and acted as his spokesman, once describing Bosch on Miami radio as a "great Cuban patriot.”

Cuba Confidential: Love and Vengeance in Miami and Havana recounts that in 1984 Jeb “began a close association with Camilo Padreda, a former intelligence agent under the Batista dictatorship, overthrown by Fidel Castro. Jeb was then the chairman of the Dade county Republican party and Padreda its finance chairman.” Later, Padreda was convicted of defrauding the housing and urban development department of millions of dollars.

With baggage like this, it's hard to imagine Bush making it through the race -- or just the primaries -- without opening up his shady past. And as for improving relations with Cuba, at least Trump would just want his name on a casino.

Building Solidarity to End South African Apartheid

Published in Toward Freedom, December 1981

By Greg Guma

The American movement to break a rapidly developing alliance between South Africa and the United States was launched in October, 1981 at an historic conference in New York. 

Just days after the US stood alone in the United Nations by refusing to condemn South Africa’s attack on Angola, the Conference in Solidarity with the Liberation Struggles of the Peoples of South Africa adopted a forceful anti-apartheid declaration and a comprehensive plan of action designed to isolate the apartheid regime and assist liberation struggles in both South Africa and Namibia.

Representatives of hundreds of labor, religious, academic, youth and grassroots organizations gathered at New York’s Riverside Church from October 9-11 in an optimistic mood – despite the escalation of violence in southern Africa and the Reagan administration’s willingness to move toward full relations with South Africa.

Still, there were few illusions. Although the National Program of Action adopted on the final day focused on sanctions, a cutoff of aid and investment, and an end to cultural and sports contact between the US and the apartheid regime, most delegates accepted – in fact, embraced – the necessity of armed struggle in order to liberate while-dominated Namibia and South Africa.

The unanimously-adopted conference declaration made this stance quite clear. “We are inspired,” it stated, “by the example of the men and women of SWAPO and the ANC, who, having exhausted all peaceful means, have been compelled to take up arms to free Namibia from illegal South African control, and to free the people of South Africa from the racist dictatorship that has made it an outcast among nations.”

Congressional representatives and labor leaders echoed the call. After describing her horror at witnessing the destruction of a black settlement, Rep. Shirley Chisholm said she was now certain South Africa had no intention of changing its racial policies. Later Cleveland Robinson, long-time activist with the United Auto Workers, advised that, “If the freedom fighters of the ANC and SWAPO decide they have to take up arms, our obligation is to support them.”

In fact, that phase of the struggle was already well underway. ANC and SWAPO representatives reported on the upsurge in labor, student and military actions, including the destruction of communication lines, police stations and, in Pretoria itself, a military headquarter.

The conferees nevertheless understood that resistance and pressure within the US was essential to the success of movements in southern Africa. The 21-page program emerging from the event detailed ways to organize a groundswell of opposition to apartheid that would isolate South Africa, force its withdrawal from Namibia, reinforce the much-abused embargo, and provide material assistance to both the liberation movements and the frontline states, which increasingly felt the effects of South African aggression.

A State Department policy paper reviewed in New York linked a Namibian settlement with the removal of Cuban troops from Angola and a demand that the Angolan government share power with UNITA. Furthermore, the paper suggested that US officials cover up that linkage: “We would insist that these are unrelated, but in fact they would be mutually reinforcing…”

Ultimately, the US State Department and South African regime hoped to forestall an expected victory for SWAPO in an election. Prior to President Reagan’s election, terms for that vote had been worked out. But now South Africa flatly refused to move forward with the plan.

Sanctions, Delays and Propaganda

According to Randall Robinson of TransAfrica, the US was willing to give the South Africans about two years to “work something out – to get the government the US wants in Namibia.” The assumption was that the longer it took the more possible became the defeat of SWAPO by internal forces. But conference delegates heard from SWAPO and observers that its base of support was actually growing, while the focus shifted from political to military strategy.

The approach to changing US policy toward Namibia from within America included work toward a criminal tribunal for mercenaries, congressional action to impose comprehensive sanctions – military, economic, political, social and cultural, lobbying to protect and extend the Clark Amendment, and nationwide educational efforts to counteract what many conferees called “propaganda” inspired by South Africa to cloak US-SA collaboration in national security assumptions.

Among the people to address the media’s role was Michigan Congressman George Crockett, who bluntly stated that the “American people are misinformed and lied to about what is going on in other countries.” Noting that the South African government had the money and media connections “to sell apartheid like a tube of toothpaste,” he maintained that, in reality, the regime had to plans to abandon its homelands policy, pass laws, use of Namibia as a military staging area, or the exploitation of that country’s natural resources.

Quoting Fidel Castro’s statement that the main core of the current US government was fascist, Crockett said that actions by the Reagan administration had persuaded him to agree. And if that rightward shift continued, he concluded, a resource war could emerge.

In working sessions, experts in media and cultural relations with South Africa supported Crockett’s accusation concerning the impact of propaganda within the US. For example, Rutgers University Associate Professor George Wilson explained how South Africa planted stories in the US with the help of the CIA. He also pointed to an increase in South African investment in US media. One US businessman, John McGoff, had received more than $1.7 million from the South African government to purchase a controlling interest in UPI Television, the second largest news-film producer in the world.

South African businessmen working with their government had also gained control over six daily and 61 weekly US newspapers, Wilson claimed. In response, once working group proposed research to identify South African-influenced media with an eye to initiating legal action against some publishers as unregistered South African agents.

A Mobilization Begins

The UN’s special interest in the role of the mass media was also reviewed. Having declared 1982 International Year of Mobilization for Sanctions Against Apartheid, it had held a conference on mass media in Berlin in August. That conference urged that all media workers “mobilize world opinion against apartheid.”

Like most of the proposals adopted in New York, that would be difficult to implement. It seemed unlikely, for instance, that major US media would adopt such an advocacy stance. In fact, during the weekend of the conference not one word about it appeared in The New York Times.

On the other hand, features generally supportive of South African-backed UNITA recently appeared in The Washington Post, and columnists such as James Kilpatrick persisted in downplaying apartheid and South Africa’s illegal occupation of Namibia while attacking the UN as an “impotent body” unworthy of support.

The delegates were nevertheless optimist about the struggle. The overall mood was proud and angry; the participants were ready to support both congressional lobbying efforts through the black caucus and open war to topple the South African regime.

At the final plenary session, human rights lawyer Lennox Hinds called the event “the seed that will take root in every city, village and state across the United States.” He reminded delegates that despite the myopic view often taken in US and reinforced by mass media, “the global struggles for liberation are winning.”

His message, despite entrenched racism and US complicity, was powerful and compelling. Quoting an ANC slogan, Hinds told an enthusiastic crowd, “Victory is certain.”

Greg Guma has been a writer, editor, historian, activist and progressive manager for over four decades. His latest book, Dons of Time, is a sci-fi look at the control of history as power.

Contras, Drugs and Money

The Hunt for the Secret Team

By Greg Guma

Death of a Whistleblower

Steven Carr joined the Reagan administration's "secret" war against Nicaragua because he "wanted to fight the Sandinistas." Too young to have served in Vietnam, he was hungry for adventure in an anti-communist crusade.

    As Carr later admitted, he and four other mercenaries met in Miami in March 1985. From there he drove a truck loaded with weapons to the Fort Lauderdale Airport. The weapons -- M-16 rifles, .50 caliber machine guns, and 66-mm mortars -- came from storage facilities belonging to various Cuban exile groups. Some may have been pilfered from National Guard armories.

     The recruits flew with the supplies to El Salvador, where, with official assistance, they transferred the shipment to another plane and went on to Costa Rica. There they found a Contra base coordinated from a ranch owned by John Hull, a US citizen who claimed to have CIA and National Security Council (NSC) connections. 

     Over the next month Carr participated in a raid on a small Nicaraguan town, as well as plans to bomb power lines. He heard about other schemes, including the assassination of enemies and staging attacks that could be blamed on the Sandinistas. These were supposed to provide a pretext for further US involvement, and ultimately an invasion.

     To Carr, it looked like a sanctioned US operation. Hull talked often about his "buddies" in the NSC. When Carr went on a raid, Costa Rican Civil Guard troops accompanied the attacking force, he claimed. He also learned about cocaine shipments flowing through Hull's ranch on their way to the US. For his various services, Hull claimed to be receiving regular $10,000 payments, which he ballooned by trading currency on the black market.

     It seemed like a soldier of fortune's dream come true.

     But in April 1985, the Costa Rican government apparently turned sour on the "expeditionary" force, arresting Carr and his associates (not including Hull) for violating neutrality laws. The once gung-ho 27-year old, bitter about "being made the scapegoat for everybody else," decided to talk. On videotape and later to US investigators, he spoke about moving weapons, assassination plots, and Contra assistance to drug smugglers. He recommended that others do the same.

     In a letter to Jesus Garcia, another witness with details about the Contra network's "dirty tricks," Carr wrote about his plans: "I've put all my marbles in their (the investigators') corner hoping to get to the truth of things and show how our 'wonderful' CIA are a bunch of assholes, liars, cheats and murderers.  I'm an American all the way but I stop at killing other Americans for the sake of CIA war games."

     After his release by the Costa Ricans, Carr came home and began to cooperate with officials in Florida and congressional investigators. He also became paranoid -- with good reason. The US administration wanted to discredit his testimony about the arms shipments and another plot, devised at the urging of Colombian drug lords. The traffickers had offered a $1 million reward to the Contra network in Costa Rica, he claimed, for the murder of Lewis Tambs, former ambassador to Colombia, who had been attempting to crack down on drug smuggling.

     The pressure on Carr was intense. One of his companions, Peter Glibbery, still jailed in Costa Rica, had received a death threat from an employee of John Hull.

     On December 17, 1986 Steven Carr was found dead near Los Angeles. Local authorities were quick to label it suicide. He apparently had stumbled to his car at 2:30 a.m., foaming at the mouth, and dropped dead in the driveway, probably from a cocaine overdose. Medical reports were inconclusive and a coroner's toxicity report failed to resolve the mystery.

The Contra-Cocaine Connection

During a televised speech on March 16, 1986, President Reagan displayed a photograph taken in Nicaragua and claimed that it proved top Nicaraguan officials were involved in cocaine trafficking. As it turned out, there was no real evidence and the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) later issued a low-key "clarification." But the smear was effective; it distracted attention from the ongoing investigation of Contra involvement in the drug trade.

     Barry Seal, the only person who might have told the true story about the grainy picture of men loading a plane near Managua, was already dead. A DEA informant and pilot, Seal had been murdered on February 19 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, reportedly on orders from the Colombian cocaine magnate who had arranged the shipments in association with the Contra network. One of the suspects, in federal custody on an unrelated charge, was Jose Coutin, a suspected drug dealer and Miami gunshop owner with links to John Hull's ranch operations.

     Seal's story, and the Contra-cocaine connection, were subsequently the subject of several investigations. In a report by the International Center for Development Policy, directed by former US Ambassador to El Salvador Robert White, Seal emerged as a dangerous pawn who knew too much. For example, he knew that the Colombians were using Hull's ranch as a shipping point.

     He also knew that the famous incriminating photo had been taken on DEA orders, and that other US government figures were aware of the shipments. But when the White House leaked the story about the Sandinistas and drugs, along with the photo, Seal's cover was blown. He’d taken the picture himself. The Colombians, according to White's report, put a $2 million price on his head.

     Dan Sheehan of the Christic Institute, an interfaith law and policy center that independently dug into the private arms network fueling the Contras, concluded that the Seal shipments were merely a small part of the network's deal to transport cocaine in exchange for funds to purchase arms. In 1983, Sheehan revealed, several anti-Castro Cubans and Hull agreed to provide refueling and packaging services on the Costa Rican ranch in exchange for up to $25,000 per shipment from the Colombians.

     "As amazing as it sounds," Sheehan claimed later, "the conspiracy is continuing to bring in about one ton or 1000 kilos of cocaine to the US each week." The street value of such a shipment was more than $25 million. Some of the profits, he added, were deposited in Miami and Central American banks and later withdrawn to purchase weapons.

     The picture that emerged from these overlapping investigations was of an alliance stretching back years and providing smugglers with secure routes to the US in exchange for cash. According to Jesus Garcia, a former Dade County, Florida deputy sheriff who was part of the operation before he went to prison for illegal firearms possession, "It is common knowledge in Miami that this whole Contra operation in Costa Rica was paid for with cocaine. Everyone involved knows it. I actually saw the cocaine and weapons together under one roof, weapons that I helped ship to Costa Rica."

     The same charge was leveled in a civil complaint filed by journalists Tony Avirgan and Martha Honey. They alleged that the network was responsible for a bombing in Costa Rica in which Contra leader Eden Pastora and several journalists were injured. Avirgan was one of those wounded. Several others, including one US reporter, were killed.

     Honey and Avirgan claimed that, in order to fund their operations, a deal had been struck between Hull, some Cuban-Americans, and Contra leaders hostile to Pastora, who refused to merge with other Contra forces. Drugs flowed freely through Costa Rica to various US points; profits paid for weapons from Florida, Israel and South Korea, according to the White Report. When Pastora remained uncooperative, the same group contracted with a Libyan professional assassin, Amac Galil, to eliminate him.

     Citing White House sources, the New York Times reported on January 20, 1987 that the DEA had known since at least the previous fall that US flight crews carrying arms to the Contras were smuggling cocaine on return trips to the US. When told about the investigation one crew member reportedly warned that he was under the protection of Lt. Col. Oliver North.

     "The Contra operation," emphasized White's report, "like all covert operations, breeds criminality, attracts criminals, and results in the cover up of criminal activity. The most profitable criminal activity today is narcotics. It is not surprising to find Contra and Contra-related figures using the opportunities provided by the operation to enrich themselves in the name of a cause nor to find the US officials responsible for the operation either condoning their actions or not taking active measures to stop them."

Bush in the Loop

Various researchers and investigations have established that Vice President George Bush and his national security advisers maintained close ties with the secret air-re-supply operation in El Salvador. In October 1986, a week after the Nicaraguan government shot down a plane carrying supplies for the Contras, front page press reports announced that the operation led to both the CIA and Bush.

      Resupply project Chief Felix Rodriguez met several times with Bush and a key aide, but the VP claimed they did not discuss Nicaragua. The trail also led to the vice president’s son Jeb Bush, who had “long acted as a liaison man with the fiercely pro-Contra, anti-Cuban and Nicaraguan settlers in Miami,” according to the Manchester Guardian.

     Such stories soon vanished, however, and Bush, heir apparent to Reagan, was insulated from further probing questions for the next two years. Nevertheless, he was the one person who connected the CIA, NSA and the mercenary forces on the ground.

     In 1984, when Congress cut off Contra aid, the administration privatized the war. Oliver North designed the plan, NSA chief Robert McFarlane approved it, and the President was briefed. The arrangement was summed up in a Miami Herald report: “The NSC recruited technical and logistical personnel retired from the CIA or the Army Special Forces to establish the network, and Bush’s staff concentrated on organizing Cuban exiles in Miami, many of them veterans of the CIA-organized Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961.” Assistant Secretary of State Elliot Abrams became “general strategist,” with CIA Director Bill Casey and North handling operations.

     Elliott Abrams was deeply involved in Contra activities, coordinating between the Department of State, NSC and CIA. But this was only part of a larger inter-agency program masterminded by CIA Director Casey. The Defense Department planned airdrops over Nicaragua and provided troops to build the Contra infrastructure. A private aid network, including John Singlaub's World Anti-Communist League, various non-profit fronts, mercenary groups and CAUSA, the political wing of the Moonies, provided cover for an operation that ultimately led back to the Oval office.

     Rodriguez, both ex-CIA and a Bay of Pigs vet, coordinated the supply route from El Salvador after approaching an old CIA colleague, Donald Gregg, a Bush aide. With administration blessings, he established the Ilopango air base, which involved at least eight planes and hundreds of missions. But the cost was too high for the private organizations coordinated by Gen. John Singlaub, head of the World Anti-Communist League.

     In 1985, after Honduras decided to hold up Contra supplies, Rodriguez met with Bush. Soon after their talk the Contra flights through Ilopango increased, according to witnesses and press reports. It was illegal to supply weapons, yet Rodriguez was able to maintain a direct line with both the US embassy and Don Gregg at the White House. The money, it turns out, was coming from Washington via Israel, Iran and a Swiss bank.

     Money also came from Saudi Arabia as part of a kickback for the sale of AWACs. According to the New York Times, the point man for this was Richard Secord, a retired Air Force general and Pentagon official who eventually led what became known as the Secret Team.

    Secord used money from Iran arms sales and other sources to acquire weapons and channel them to Central America, South Africa, and Angola. The team and the aid network worked with both the Ilopango airlift in El Salvador and the South Front, coordinated from Hull's ranch. Drugs and guns moved back and forth. One beneficiary was the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, led by Adolfo Calero and former Somocistas.

     Over 80 people, in and out of the US government, actively worked in this covert network, with additional financial support from Saudi Arabia and Brunei. President Reagan was aware of and approved most phases of this covert foreign policy.

Private Agents of Chaos

This was only one episode in a longer, even more convoluted tale. An earlier "Contra" war was mounted against Cuba under the direction of Richard Nixon, then vice president, beginning in the late 50s.

     With the cooperation of Mafia don Santo Trafficante, a private "sub-operation" was developed to assassinate Cuban leaders. Members of the "shooter team" included Rafael "Chi Chi" Quintero, who later coordinated arms shipments to the Contras with Secord; Rodriguez, a CIA operative who headed the Ilopango operation and met with Bush; and several of the future Watergate burglers. The Cuban operation was supervised by Secord associates Theodore Shackley and Thomas Clines.

     Secord was a key figure in both the Iran and Contra operations. Years before he had flown missions with another Major General, Singlaub, and, as a Pentagon official, embezzled millions while overseeing arms sales. One of his business partners was Shackley, who had been engaged in secret wars since the early 60s, becoming deputy director of covert operations during George Bush's tenure as CIA chief. Clines, another ex-CIA man and a major Contra arms supplier, eventually pleaded guilty to overcharging the Pentagon in 1984.

     The same group had directed CIA secret wars in Southeast Asia between 1965 and 1975. In Laos they backed up Vang Pao, a major opium trafficker. Drug money was used to train Hmong tribesmen in guerrilla war, resulting in the assassination of 100,000 non-combatant "communist sympathizers" in Laos, Cambodia and Thailand. Shackley and Clines also directed the Phoenix Program in South Vietnam, an effort resulting in the murder of 60,000 Vietnamese civilians. That operation was financed by Vang Pao heroin sold in the US by Trafficante.

     During the early 1970s, they were active in Chile, directing the CIA's "Track II" project to overthrow the Allende government. In 1984, members of the Team recruited Amac Galil through the Chilean military to execute the bombing of Pastora's press conference.

     After Vietnam, the Team moved on to Teheran to conduct private, non-CIA activities like helping the Shah's secret police to identify and assassinate his opponents. Beginning in the mid-70s, Secord, who had become an Assistant Secretary of Defense, supervised the sale of US weapons to Middle East nations. Using middleman Albert Hakim, an Iranian-born US citizen, he purchased weapons at the manufacturer's cost and sold them to countries at a profit, illegally depositing the proceeds into private Team bank accounts. The same practice was used later during the arms sales to Iran.
     The Secret Team's activities stretched around the world. In Australia, they used opium money and weapons profits to help destabilize the Labour government in 1975. In Nicaragua, they assisted Somoza after Carter and Congress stopped further aid; after the dictator's fall, they armed and advised ex-National Guardsmen until the CIA assumed control of the Contra war.

     When Congress cut off aid in 1984, Oliver North, who had worked under Singlaub in Laos, reached out to the Team to illegally recommence funding and re-supply the Contras. During the 1980s operations in Central America, they established major supply bases in Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Costa Rica. In the meantime, CIA Director Casey developed other Contra operations in Africa. In return for South African assistance in ferrying arms to Central America, for example, he arranged with Saudi Arabian King Fahd to provide aid to the South African-backed UNITA rebels fighting the Angolan government.

Exposing the Team

Before his death, Steven Carr told an aide to Senator John Kerry that he had loaded an arms shipment bound for Costa Rica in broad daylight at the Fort Lauderdale airport. The weapons went to an Air Force base in El Salvador, where military personnel unloaded the plane. In an interview taped after his arrest, he argued that without CIA knowledge "it's improbable that a private charter plane could land at an Air Force base. It's not like we were going on vacation."

     In a video report, "The Costa Rica Connection," Carr and his British associate, Peter Glibbery, alleged their covert work had the full support of Costa Rican officials at first. They said John Hull presented himself as the chief CIA and NSC liaison for the operations. Glibbery claimed to have seen Hull with Robert Owen on the ranch when arms were arriving. Owen, a retired military officer and representative of a Nicaraguan "humanitarian" aid group, was North's contact with the Contra network.

     Predictably, the State Department denied any knowledge of Contra involvement in cocaine deals, and the US Customs Service claimed to know nothing about arms shipments leaving Florida without official clearance. The evidence, however, indicated that the weapons and the drugs did get delivered, and the same network was involved in both operations.

     Avrigan and Honey exposed the private network behind much of this mayhem long before the Tower Commission and Iran-Contra Committee launched their investigations. Working with the Christic Institute, they eventually filed a lawsuit charging 29 US citizens with conspiracy. The specific instance spurring the suit was the bombing of Pastora's press conference. 

     The Secret Team, which helped make that attempted assassination possible, had roots stretching back decades. Including figures such as Secord, Clines, Shackley and an assortment of Cuban exiles and ex-military men, this private military network had long been handling sensitive, often illegal operations at the behest of the US government. In fact, it was an instrument of US policy from the early days of Castro (when some members helped plot the leader's death), in Laos and Vietnam, in the overthrow of Salvadore Allende in Chile, in propping up the Shah of Iran, and throughout Central America.

     After releasing their findings, the journalists were sued for libel in Costa Rica by Hull, the CIA contract agent named in the case. They won. But afterward they were the targets of a police raid, and one of their lawyers was arrested for accepting a package at the post office.

     Police claimed the package contained cocaine from a "T. Borge," a desperate attempt to perpetuate the stale disinformation campaign connecting Sandinista officials such as Tomas Borge with drug smuggling. In reality, the evidence says that the so-called Southern Front, run in the 1980s by John Hull, Oliver North, head Contra Adolfo Calero and Cuban exiles -- and sanctioned at the highest levels of the US government -- was for a while a major shipping point for Colombian cocaine headed to US cities.

Greg Guma's forthcoming novel Dons of Time, to be released by Fomite Press in October, explores the danger of privatized national security and the surveillance state.

Nicaragua and the Road to Contra-gate

This is the thirteenth chapter of a series excerpted from “Maverick Chronicles,” a memoir-in-progress. Previous stories can be found at VTDigger.  By Greg Guma

In July 1983, only weeks after being arrested with other anti-war protesters for nonviolently blocking the gates of the GE Gatling Gun plant in Burlington – ironically, on the orders of Progressive Mayor Bernie Sanders -- I joined the first Witness for Peace delegation to Nicaragua, spent weeks meeting with leaders of the Sandinista revolution, and became a human shield against Contra attacks at the border.

     At the time the CIA said that $19 million a year wasn't enough to pay and arm all the Contras eager to invade. President Reagan called the small country, crippled with debt, struggling to rebuild a looted economy, a totalitarian threat to US security.

     UN Ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick openly urged overthrow of the three-year-old regime.

     After a stop in Managua, the national capital, the plan was to move on to Jalapa. A week before several of us arrived two US journalists had been killed a few miles away. Nicaragua and Honduras blamed each other for the crime. On the day I flew out of Miami, the Contras, many of them former supporters of the late Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza, based in Honduras, announced plans for a major offensive against the Sandinista government.

     The rural region looked bucolic. Lush green forests and undulating hills reminded me of home. There wasn't a paved road for more than 50 miles. It was here, nevertheless, and on the Atlantic Coast and at the southern border with Costa Rica, that the CIA was conducting its latest "secret" war.

     Jalapa wasn’t much involved in the revolution that ousted Somoza in 1979. Now it was a battleground in a counter-revolutionary struggle being stage-managed by the US administration. Yet training, Honduran complicity and US millions to build a mercenary army hadn't yet translated into military victory. Instead, destruction of bridges, crops and lives hardened campesinos against their attackers. Even some of those peasant who hadn't helped to win the revolution were now arming themselves to defend it.

The audience in Jalapa

 As our bus lurched over a rutted, muddy road I thought about the previous day – July 4th, America's Independence Day. I’d spent it in barrios and church learning about reconstruction and democratization. Our group’s movements were being dutifully recorded in the local press. The pro-government newspaper, Nuevo Diario, exploited us like gringo celebrities, Americans who said "Si a Nicaragua y No a Reagan." It was surely odd being publicly embraced in a country my own government was intent on destabilizing.

     The day ended with an immersion in revolutionary faith, an evangelical service climaxing in an ecumenical mass at Santa Maria de los Angeles. Between remarks by Father Uriel Molina and others about Contra violence, the nuclear threat and God's protection of the poor an acoustic band played songs of love and peace. Children roamed through the domed church as the Americans and Nicaraguans rejoiced and reflected.

     At one point Molina read a letter from the Christian community in Jalapa. "The defense of one's life against unjust aggression has always been justified by Christian faith," the writer argued. Two weeks later President Reagan labeled that type of self-defense, in the form of local militias, the building of a "war machine" and sent warships to surround the country.

     "We don't believe that power lies in arms," Interior Minister Tomas Borge told celebrants at the mass. Unannounced and greeted with cheers, a military hero had joined us during the service.  The US Right considered Borge a "hardliner." His vigorous defense of an armed citizenry tended to support the theory. But he also talked about "moral force" and his hope that social transformation in a "new Nicaragua" would produce a "new man and woman."

     As people hugged and linked arms, the service turned into a celebration of solidarity. Doves were freed as people flocked to the altar for communion. This was liberation theology in vivid practice, a revolutionary synthesis of faith and principles that had become an engine for social change.

     As we poured out of the church at midnight, exhausted but inspired, I recalled the words of Ernesto Cardinal, a Catholic priest and Marxist poet. After resisting Somoza and developing a militant Catholic vision, he’d become Nicaragua's Minister of Culture. One of his poems, written during the most brutal phase of the dictatorship, concluded:

    At midnight a poor woman gave birth to a baby in an open field

                   and that is hope.

    God has said: "Behold I make all things new"

                   and that is reconstruction.

Front Page, El Nuevo Diaro, July 7, 1983 (Greg's the one in the cap.)
Main headline: "Viaje secreto de Jefe de la CIA"

Struggle at the Border

The caravan reached Jalapa after a day on the road, plus an unscheduled stop when one of the buses couldn't make it over a washed-out section. By this time the delegation had grown to 150 people from over 30 states. The goal was to confront violence with conscience.

     Once upon a time this was a quiet place, a town of about 10,000 people in a region that produced corn, rice, beans and about 75 percent of the tobacco grown in the country. Now Jalapa was swollen with refugees, driven into town from homes in the mountains by Contra attacks. Crop production was down and peasants lived in a constant state of anxiety, girded for an invasion. Still, as we made our way to the Instituto, our lodgings, people greeted us with smiles. The generosity of spirit was humbling.

     Originally built in 1980 as a center to train Brigadistas for the nationwide literacy crusade, the Instituto had no beds or running water. We were tired, hungry and dehydrated -- and shortly drenched by a rainstorm. But many people, even children, were dying in similar circumstances – despite government vaccination programs and other efforts to fight disease and malnutrition. No one complained.

     Would a vigil and public witness make any difference? Could it make clear that not all Americans supported US-backed terrorism? Maybe. On a more basic level, we’d also brought food and medical supplies. But what the people we met seemed to value most was our support and our presence.

     We were promised a military briefing.  Before that, however, we attended a rally. In heavy rain 500 peasants squeezed into Jalapa's town hall. As we entered the crowd parted and cheers erupted. On the stage, we lined up with local leaders as a theologian in the delegation told the audience that Reagan's plan for Central America did not represent the will of the American people.

     After the rally Captain Gonzalez, who commanded about 3,000 troops in Nuevo Segovia, outlined the mathematics of aggression: 400 murders and abductions by Contras in the last six months. The attacks were not a recent development, however. Ever since the 1979 revolution, the Contras had been intent on invading this remote region, about 300 miles from Managua. The fighting intensified after 1980 with CIA advice and funding, and training of Contras in US camps like Libertad outside Miami, owned by Cuban exiles.

     Small Contra bands frequently crossed the border from Honduran bases, under cover of Honduran helicopters and small planes. They abducted local leaders, ambushed travelers, burned buildings and farm equipment, and kidnapped youngsters to carry their cargo. Occasionally there were major operations, involving up to 600 men and mortar shelling.

     The short-term objective was to take Jalapa, Gonzalez explained. The methods included repeated attacks from at least nine locations along the jagged border, and the indiscriminate shelling of civilians. Sometimes the Nicaraguan army shelled Honduras in response.

     The US was allegedly backing the Contras so that they could "interdict" arms moving through Nicaragua to El Salvador. But this was a farming region, not an ideal weapons supply route; it faced rugged Honduran mountains over which arms shipments could reach only Contras. No, the battle for Jalapa was a case of aggression designed to make the region uninhabitable, turning farmland into a staging area for an invasion force. And even if that failed, the Contras could still provoke the Sandinistas into war with Honduras.

Action for Peace

At 7 a.m. the next day delegation of peasants joined us on the Instituto's concrete basketball court. With blankets as cushions, we had spent the last few hours resting on the tile floors. Some of the supplies we used were Russian imports.

     Campesinos and mothers of several local martyrs joined the vigil under a scorching sun. They shared stories and revealed their grief as US group unfurled banners and offered their own testimony. One Nicaraguan woman, tearful, dressed in black, painfully recalled how the Contras had taken her son. They had tried to "recruit" him for their army. But when he refused to work for men who were devastating his community they cut him into small pieces, she said. Not being able to see her son was, in a way, more painful than the realization that he was gone.

Border vigil, July 1983

     After the vigil we walked out of the Instituto into a cornfield. Sandinista soldiers guarded us from a hilltop barracks silhouetted against the sky. The border was just ahead, the route a line of trenches that divided the fields, slashes of red earth about four feet deep. The campesinos hid there when Huey helicopters from Honduras flew overhead. We linked hands as people planted corn with water from our two nations.

     There were many moments of forgiveness and mutual support that day, but the war obviously didn’t end. Yet our presence in Nicaragua did mean something, and certainly built a deeper commitment within members of the group to oppose this and other undeclared, illegal wars.

     Back in Managua we soon found an opportunity to confront US Ambassador Anthony Quainton. At an Embassy event, we asked for the justification of the covert US role in a Honduran-Nicaraguan war?

     "We are trying to get back to the original goals of the revolution" he said. The reply sounded arrogant. Asked about the pointless violence he tried to explain that "the killing of women and children is not the policy of our government," then attempted to define the situation as "Nicaraguans fighting Nicaraguans." Witness for Peace members became enraged as he defended the Contras, claiming that they wanted to "return to democratic political institutions."

     When someone said that war wouldn’t bring peace he had to agree.

     In a private conversation later, Quainton did acknowledge that Reagan's characterization of the Sandinistas as "totalitarian" wasn’t constructive. He also agreed that US actions such as aid cut-offs and import sanctions were pushing Nicaragua toward the Soviets, a situation policy-makers claimed they were trying to prevent.

     "But the problem of regional destabilization is at the head of the agenda," he said, "and that determines policies and makes other things less important."

     In other words, it made little difference that Nicaragua had a mixed economy, open elections at the local level, or a Council of State with representatives from various parties and social groups. The country's social and economic progress, agrarian reform and literacy crusade were simply cancelled out. Why? Perhaps because the existence of a "New Nicaragua" served as a good example that raised aspirations throughout the region. Now, that was "destabilizing" to US interests.

     Reagan put it more plainly. He wasn’t about to let "communists" get a foothold in Central America – even if they did hold elections. The administration therefore wanted people in the US to think that the Sandinista government was a brutal dictatorship increasing the misery of its people. After seeing Nicaragua, however, that was very hard to swallow.

Next: The Hunt for the Secret Team 

MAVERICK CHRONICLES, 6/10/2011

A preview of Greg Guma’s Rebel News Round Up, broadcast live on The Howie Rose Show at 11 a.m. Fridays on WOMM (105.9-FM/LP – The Radiator) in Burlington. This week: Deconstructing the Reagan myth, Comedy Central trumps Fox, manufacturing mental illness, foreclosing on Facebook, food war, the Weiner factor, and suborbital action.

Let’s begin with a private sector initiative we can all get behind…

DANES IN SPACE: A company called Copenhagen Suborbitals has a “non-profit rocket” that was successfully launched on Tuesday -- from a catamaran launch platform in the Baltic Sea. The organization plans to eventually send an amateur-built manned rocket into suborbital space. The craft includes a HEAT 1-X rocket booster and a Tycho Brahe capsule that can accomodate a crew of one. Cramped, but still. The ascent last week was a bit sideways, but the team is confident about eventually getting it straight. This may be the world’s largest amateur-built, space-worthy rocket. The objective is “to show the world that human space flight is possible without major government budgets and administration.” Now there's a reality show.

JOKES RULE, FOX FALLS: Comedy Central shows, particularly The Daily Show, are beating Fox News and the rest of cable in the ratings. May brought their best Nielsen numbers yet. Jon Stewart's Daily Show dominated its time slot, posting an impressive 19 percent increase in viewership. Meanwhile, Fox News saw an overall decline in the highly desirable 25-to-54-year old demographic. Total ratings were down 10 percent. Bill O'Reilly dropped 9 percent, Sean Hannity 6. Greta Van Susteren and Glenn Beck saw the steepest losses. She lost 12 percent of her audience, his slipped by 17.

Beck has been a loser on TV for months (longer off camera), which helps to explain why Fox is letting him go. His TV drop is echoed in ratings for radio shows hosted by both Beck and Rush Limbaugh. Both blowhards lost a third of their listeners last year. That’s according to Arbitron, the industry standard. Has Right-Wing talk finally peaked?

The Daily Show averaged 2.3 million viewers, beating every Fox show except Bill O'Reilly, who attracts an average of 2.8 million people. Stewart and Stephen Colbert beat all other cable and broadcast programs in various categories, including most affluent viewers and most active websties.

Great. But what does it mean when the most watched news shows on cable are satirical?

FORECLOSURE FRIENDS: A strange development overseas may be coming to the US: using Facebook to send legal notices, including foreclosure notifications. According to Bloomberg news, the practice has already been accepted by courts in Australia, Canada, and Great Britain. Not the kind of friending most users have in mind.

FOOD WARS: True or false? Warnings from British intelligence that al-Qaeda and other groups could contaminate the food supply are part of a continuing plot line that hides the obvious: our food already has been poisoned. Ok, it's a rhetorical question.

LOST MEMORIES: The weekly rant/essay, Unpacking the Reagan Myth (out on the web)

People sometimes say I’m soft on the Left and leaders like Bernie Sanders. I say the political establishment, as well as most mainstream and right wing media, have been more than soft on Ronald Reagan. They’ve been spreading a false history and a fake biography, perhaps one of the Big Lies since the Cold War. Has America been roofied by reaganism, and can we remember what really happened before getting fooled again...?   Read the Essay

Other Topics: Sex, Politics, and the Weiner Factor – another installment of men behaving badly in power. Plus, Is Big Pharma increasing mental Illness?

What’s Ahead: Michelle Obama is coming to Vermont at the end of June: What does she need to know? Does anyone beyond the usual suspects plan to “greet” her?

Tune in The Radiator (WOMM-FM/LP) for details.

You actually want more?

Sometimes people who hear a show or have seen something I’ve done over the years ask: Hey, where can I can get more of those great insights, or maybe Greg's various books, videos and CDs. Masochists, I hear you. In recent years I’ve published several hundred articles, in print and online. And yes, I am exhausted. But some of the best archived collections, with overlaps, are the following:

Global Research

Alternet

ZNet/Z Magazine

Common Dreams

Some have a few articles, some have dozens. The style, tone and content varies – from formal prose and features to reports, commentaries and satire. So keep that in mind. Still other writing can be found through searches on Toward Freedom, Truthout and Countercurrents.

Most of my books are available via Amazon. So, don't hesitate to spend money. Writers must eat. Personally, I recommend Spirits of Desire, an entertaining novel, and The People's Republic, on the rise of Bernie Sanders. In addition to Maverick Media, I’m developing a new site, The Vermont Way, in conjunction with a book that will appear next year.

Meanwhile, keep in touch on Twitter and Facebook. Love it when that happens.

Unpacking the Reagan Myth (before it spreads)

Upon the death of Ronald Reagan seven years ago in June, mainstream media created a fake, soft-focus biography of the first celebrity president. Even today it’s common to hear politicians, including President Obama, voice deep respect for his communication skills, overall performance and impact on the country. It’s as if millions of people have been dosed with a drug that makes you forget years of greed, debauchery, and abuse – the political equivalent of Rohypnol.

You could call this movie The Reagan Hangover: Dude, Where’s My Country? And wonder, can the American people, apparently hung over since the 80s, gradually remember what transpired during that wild extended date with the aging film and TV star? Unfortunately, it’s a gross out flick. The lesson: be careful in the future about bedding down with anyone who claims the 40th President as a role model.

Mitt Romney, for example. Last week the candidate from central casting allegedly channeled the dead president during his announcement speech, robotically repeating sentiments expressed in the Gipper’s 1980 campaign kickoff. Phrases recalled Reagan’s views on state’s rights, American exceptionalism, and government as the problem, seasoned with Reaganesque optimism about the nation’s future. Unless the public recovers its real memory such clumsy seduction could work. Many people already see Obama as another Jimmy Carter, a disappointing and compromised big government liberal. Killing Osama hasn’t changed his overall image.

During an early June presidential pre-announcement on Fox News, Tea Party darling Michelle Bachmann used Reagan like a club. Prompted by Roger Ailes’ socket puppet Sean Hannity, she said Obama “can't get away from his failed report card on dealing with the economy and job creation. President Reagan had created a million jobs a month. President Obama saw 38,000 jobs created in this recovery.” It’s nonsense. But as Tim Dickinson establishes in his Rolling Stone story “Fear Factory,” Fox is a new type of political operation, a giant soundstage created to mimic a news organization and disguise GOP propaganda as journalism.

Fox protégé and contributor Sarah Palin brings up Reagan incessantly. During her recent bus tour, for example, Alaska’s Fame Monster talked about her hero’s 1980 visit to Liberty State Park. “He spoke of the Americans who passed through Ellis Island and whose first glimpse of their adopted country was the grand statue in New York’s harbor,” she gushed. “He talked about our shared values and the common thread of the American dream across an endless mix of backgrounds.”

Reagan as diversity advocate. Classic Sarah, twisted, fact-free and catnip for her base.

Myths of a Not-So-Great Communicator

For most Republicans, calling forth “Dutch” Reagan is like bowing before a religious icon – part faith, part ritual. He’s the GOP Uber-President, The One who supposedly rolled back government and ended the Cold War, the likeable conservative “change agent” par excellence. An even broader public accepts the equally deceptive notion that he was a “great communicator” and a “straight shooter” who, at worst, didn’t know all that was being done in his name. Hearing such descriptions, it can feel like we’re being sucked into a parallel universe where things are slightly, creepily different, sanitized and airbrushed.

The myth-making began as soon as he left the building. CBS reporter Anthony Mason covered news of his death in 2004 by asserting that Reagan “had an uncanny ability to make Americans feel good about themselves.” Absolute hype, but central to the idea that he had bonded uniquely with the masses. Dan Rather piled on by claiming he wasn’t just the great communicator, “he was also a master at communicating greatness.” Rather is always a contender for the Pointless Overstatement Award.

What really happened? In the 1980s US politics continued its gradual merger with show business. Now it looks like a form of reality TV, a 24/7 series where celebrities like Palin and Donald Trump compete for the title of America’s Top Political Predator. The process was just underway in Reagan’s time and he was well trained for it. One-liners could change history. Fatuous banalities passed for a philosophy and ex-cathedra statements masquerading as arguments – “government is the problem” comes to mind – burrowed deep into the nation’s psyche. Reagan and company were especially adept at using reporters and cameras as props, ignoring the occasional tough questions while sticking with the “line of the day.” Journalists adapted, beginning to think in terms of narratives and story lines.

He did know how to stay on message. But what was it? Basically, Reagan put a smiley face on free market extremism. In this neo-Darwinism world it was everybody for themselves. He also taught many a media gatekeeper that the truth was no longer so important. As Dick Cheney put it in his Reagan eulogy, “He showed us that words change things more than acts.”

Another way to explain it is that he said one thing and did another. For example, Reagan insisted that a balanced budget was one of his priorities. Yet by the time he left office a combination of lower tax revenues and higher spending for the military sent the deficit through the roof.

Was He a Straight-Shooter?

Related to Reagan’s vaunted communication chops is the assumption that he was honest and principled. The record, however, shows rampant corruption on his watch, and not just the constitution-shredding outrage known as Iran-Contra but a modern record for the number of indicted officials. By the end of his second term, at least 138 administration officials had been convicted, indicted or investigated for misconduct or criminal activity. Many have been forgotten, some were “rehabilitated” by the two Bushes.

Did Reagan know what was happening and simply ignore it? Or was the early onset of Alzheimer’s a convenient tool for his “advisors?” When I met the man in 1980, he was already having distinct senior moments. The press corps teased him about it with trick questions – but never informed the public. Either way, it was more a matter of being oblivious than straightforward or especially clean.

Though much lying was done on his behalf, Reagan did utter some clear falsehoods of his own. On invading Grenada, for instance, he claimed that the OAS pleaded for intervention. The pleading actually came from the US. He once also claimed that the Russians had sprayed toxic chemicals over Afghanistan. It turned out to be pollen-laden feces dropped by honeybees over Laos and Cambodia.

A Man of the People?

Another myth is his relative popularity. The most popular president ever upon leaving office, the media has claimed. Taking that cue, some have pressed for a monument and other forms of recognition. But Bill Clinton’s approval rating when he left office was higher. Same for Franklin D. Roosevelt, and that was after three-and-a half terms and a world war.

Was Reagan one of the most popular presidents, of the 20th or any century? Actually, he ranks about the same as most post-World War II leaders. An average approval rating of 52 percent puts him behind Kennedy (70 percent), Eisenhower (66), George H.W. Bush (61), Clinton (55) and Lyndon Johnson (55). During his first term Reagan’s popularity frequently dipped below 50 percent, and slipped to 46 during Iran-Contra. His personal high was 68 percent, three points below Clinton’s. The 19th century may have suited him best.

What about likeability? He certainly had that, right? Yes, in a weird grandpa way. But while it’s impossible to know his real personality – even his son Ron says he was inaccessible – the official likeability numbers aren’t significantly different than for other presidents, including Jimmy Carter. And plenty of people thought at the time that he was dangerous, a cowboy who talked grandly about a Star Wars defense.

Nor was he especially optimistic, or a promoter of “old time values,” as The New York Times and others have insisted. Let’s face it: He ran a union busting administration and unleashed a war on the poor. Not an especially compassionate conservative. Back in 1964, he joked about the fact that 17 million people went to bed hungry each night. “Well, that was probably true,” he said, “they were all on a diet.” Two years later he called unemployment insurance “a pre-paid vacation for freeloaders.” And let’s not forget his “bombing starts in ten minutes” joke about the Soviet Union before a presidential TV address.

Speaking of compassion and communication, he didn’t mention AIDS publicly until 1987. By that time the disease had killed at least 19,000 people in the US alone. While public health professionals pressed for education and prevention, Reagan moralists like Education Secretary Bill Bennett insisted on limiting the response to abstinence.

Reagan appealed mainly to private rather than public interests. Where were the calls to service, common effort, shared sacrifice or anything that extends beyond gratification of the individual? Nowhere to be found. Instead, his world view led to a celebration of selfishness, a green light for a new wave of conspicuous consumption. So, we should at least give him credit for making the 1980s the Decade of Greed.

The Cold War Closer?

Even if you take away honesty, popularity and compassion, didn’t he end the Cold War? People like Cheney go as far as to claim it was his courage and perseverance alone, a deep insult to the courageous men and women throughout the Communist bloc who risked their lives. Reagan risked nothing, except a record deficit that took a decade and a Democratic president to eliminate.

He had no idea that the Soviet regime would collapse. According to George Kennan, “the suggestion that any United States administration had the power to influence decisively the course of a tremendous domestic political upheaval in another great country on another side of the globe is simply childish.” Kennan thought that US militarism strengthened Soviet hard-liners, delaying rather than hastening the change.

Asked whether Reagan’s military spending or “evil empire” rhetoric helped open up the country, Aleksandr Yakovlev, a close advisor to Gorbachev, said “it played no role. None. I can tell you that with the fullest responsibility. Gorbachev and I were ready for changes in our policy regardless of whether the American president was Reagan, or Kennedy, or someone even more liberal.”

If anyone should get credit for the changes in Eastern Europe and the USSR during the late 1980s, both positive and questionable ones, it’s Gorby and those he set loose. Despite all the tough talk from Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, nothing significant happened until the Soviet Union had a reform leader.

What Really Happened

From the start of his political career Reagan was an unapologetic voice for the wealthy, the greedy and the lucky, a corporate shill who apparently thought Medicare threatened civilization. Many of his current disciples secretly agree. Yet he is called a man of the people. Both the merging of show business and politics that his rise to power represented and the contradictions within his message were anticipated by Hollywood in the late 1950s when a TV star named Lonesome Roads (young Andy Griffith in a wonderful film debut) became an amoral kingmaker in the film A Face in the Crowd. Think Glenn Beck with a guitar and drawl.

So, what’s the Reagan record? Secret wars, scandals, tax cuts for the rich, greater debt, and slashing the social safety net. Just for starters. Reagan functionaries pushed for structural adjustment programs, an international prescription that combined deregulation, privatization, an emphasis on exports, and cuts in social spending. Much of the same was also applied at home. By deregulating the savings and loan industry, his regime paved the way for a financial meltdown and a bailout that cost taxpayers hundreds of billions. Plus, the table was set for a long-term deregulation push that exacerbated the recent economic crisis.

As poverty and homelessness surged, Reagan defended his record with this insight: “One problem that we’ve had, even in the best of times, and that is the people who are sleeping on grates, the homeless who are homeless, you might say, by choice.” Pretty cold, right?

The hallmark of Reaganomics was, of course, tax cuts. In 1981 he spearheaded one of the largest in US history. Heavily weighted toward the wealthy, it widened inequality. As his budget director David Stockman later admitted, the intended effect was to starve the government and justify cuts in spending – except on corporate welfare and the military. Some things haven’t changed. On the other hand, he also supported four tax hikes in his first term and a corporate tax increase in 1986.

Reagan’s team rewrote antitrust laws and oversaw an unprecedented merger binge. The way his chief enforcement official, William Baxter, viewed it, “There is nothing written in the sky that says the world would not be a perfectly satisfactory place if there were only 100 companies.” There’s a “free market” vision. The nation’s trade gap hit new records, while the environment deteriorated and the EPA budget was cut by half. Countless regulations were discarded or revised based on pseudo-scientific conclusions. There’s more but you get the point.

Criminal Intent and Big Lies

The biggest myth about Reagan may be the claim that he was a reluctant warrior eager to make peace, and not a celluloid cowboy and knee-jerk imperialist who supported dictators and death squads, illegally pursued secret wars, and backed Islamic radicals destined to turn against the US.

Is this exaggeration? Let’s start with General Efrain Rios Montt, who carried out a near holocaust against Indians and peasants in Guatemala. He was condemned around the world. Yet Reagan visited the dictator in 1982, and afterward said he was getting a “bad deal” over human rights abuses. And let’s not to neglect Saddam Hussein, whose regime was actively assisted by the US with weapons components, military intelligence, even ingredients for making biological weapons. So much for democracy and non-proliferation.

In El Salvador, election fraud and the murder of anyone who dissented led to civil war. Reagan responded with unlimited money, military and training that led to torture and para-military death squads. CIA and other US personnel played active roles. The outcome was a least 75,000 civilian deaths, the thwarting of social change, and more wealth for the oligarchy.

As for secret wars, do we really need to go farther than Nicaragua, under vicious attacks for years by Reagan’s proxy army, the Contras? It was all-out, though largely covert combat directed from DC, and aimed at destroying the government, burning down schools and clinics, mining harbors and dropping bombs. Reagan called his thugs freedom fighters, one of many linguistic subversions. Plus, we had “arms for hostages,” the Secret Team and other off-book covert ops.

Although the idea of backing Islamic fighters in Afghanistan dates from the Carter era – Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter’s National Security Advisor and initially part of Obama’s brain trust, has taken credit – the government went all-in during the Reagan’s time. Outcome: More than a million dead, three million disabled, five million refugees, the rise of a medieval regime, and a generation of hostile fundamentalists, originally trained and armed by the US.

Is all this just ancient history? Not if people continue to accept the fantasy that Reagan was a benign, small government, John Wayne type with compassion and deeply held principles. Not if they believe that those currently exploiting his false bio will somehow restore his imaginary legacy. At times like these doesn’t someone need to shout, “Wake up. You were totally screwed by that guy.”

It matters because the political establishment and most media have been worse than soft on the man once known as Ray-Gun. They’ve been marketing a fake, possibly one of the big lies since the Cold War. According to Joseph Goebbels, the monster who coined the phrase, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie."

The shielding was pretty effective until the financial meltdown, and the deception persists. So, if we don’t want to be roofied by another political predator in the future, let’s get clear on what happened in the past. When Reagan was in charge government grew—along with the deficit, taxes rose – except on the rich, secret wars raged, corruption reigned, violations of human and civil rights were widespread, and the president was a stone-cold diva who didn’t seem to care. Wake up and re-smell the 80s.

This is what Romney, Palin, Bachmann and the gang want to bring back? They must be on drugs. Fortunately we can just say no. As Gil Scott-Heron sang, we don’t need no Re-Ron. The last one was bad enough.