If any background on Reagan's Iran-Contra is needed Wikipedia supplies a decent summary. I'll not vouch for the whole work however. The news isn't everywhere in the so called liberal media yet Michael Ledeen's name is turning up in at least a few places since the Senate Intelligence Committee's Phase II report dropped.John Walcott of McClatchy Newspapers work titled Did Iranian agents dupe Pentagon officials? is a good place to start. The question isn't answered fully but at least we know Michael Ledeen was surely a part of the mix.
I'll quickly touch on the reporting that in 2003 Rummy shut down the investigation of Dead Eye Dick's minions in the White House and Pentagon. That DOD's counter-intelligence investigators recommended that U.S. officials attempt "to map Ghorbanifar's relationship within Iranian elite social networks and, if possible, his contacts with other governments and/or intelligence organizations," in that month or so before Rummy pulled the plug. This seems very relevant. I suppose Bu$hCo would have been so embarrassed and in fact turned out in 2004 if it had been revealed that they and theirs got played by Iran. Getting to the truth via a "comprehensive analysis" was perhaps just too dangerous. That the allegedly liberal New York Times, plus other media outlets, also sat on other stories that might reflect poorly on Bu$hCo until after the election comes to my mind as well.
Air Force Reserve Colonel/Pentagon official Larry Franklin, then working for Douglas Feith, is mentioned as well in the McClatchy reporting. Don't forget Franklin's guilty plea to passing secrets on to AIPAC.
That Doug Feith has been given an academic post at Georgetown and manages to churn out work will be mentioned later. He gets to appears on 60 Minutes to try to sell his apologia and even Jon Stewart books him on The Daily Show. I'd have wanted to interview the TSFGOTP as well, and Jon did a fine job as indicated by this Crooks and Liars piece, yet I'm bothered that Feith is still rocking on and likely earning a decent living as one of the swells. As an aside, I applaud certain Georgetown faculty members raising questions about Feith joining their ranks. At least Feith could have the decency to go on wingnut welfare like Michael Ledeen at AEI.
William O. Beeman asks and answers, Who is Michael Leeden? Katherine Yurica also provides Everything You Need to Know About Michael Ledeen and notes his sympathy toward both “Christian” Dominionism and at least temporary dictatorships. Ledeen even has his own blogging effort at Pajamas Media, noted by Jane at FireDogLake way back in 1995 to be "subsidized". and it hasn't always been pretty there either.
The news that Ledeen and others of the neo-cons and Bu$hCo set were up to no good lets us note that Digby plus John Marshall, Laura Rosen, and Paul Glastris were anticipating in 2004 much of what we've now learned. Returning to what Digby was writing I'll share:
This is another edition of "when you let Republicans get away with murder, they will do it again." In this case, it's literally true. The worst decision Bill Clinton ever made was letting Iran-Contra slide in the name of healing and "getting things done." He got impeached for his trouble and these people came back and perpetrated the Greatest Strategic Blunder In Modern Memory.Amen! What Digby goes on to share from Richard Clark is also well received. We can't let these outlaws back into polite society. Be it a truth and reconciliation commission or something else, to move past this Reign of Error the nation has a collective need for authentic healing rather than making nice with Machiavellians like Michael Ledeen. John Gunn
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