Posted on 02/14/2002 2:17:15 PM PST by rdavis84
WASHINGTON (AP) - Retired Adm. John Poindexter, who was President Reagan's national security adviser during the Iran-Contra affair, is directing a new Pentagon office that will focus on new kinds of military threats, including terrorist organizations.
Poindexter became head of the Information Awareness Office last month.
The office is one of two created recently by the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, which finances research into new military technology. The office was created following the Sept. 11 attacks.
Poindexter had been a consultant for DARPA for several years before his appointment.
Along with former National Security Council aide Oliver North, Poindexter was convicted as part of a guns-for-hostages deal that prompted a congressional investigation. He was convicted in 1990 on five felony counts of conspiracy, making false statements to Congress and obstructing congressional inquiries into the affair. The convictions against both men were later overturned.
Yeah, right. The bravest, most incredible civilian army of the 20th century rises up spontaneously and with the help of the Reagan administration defends its country and what turns out to be the entire Southern hemisphere from the advancement of Communism and to the looney brigade they're drug-runners and gangsters.
You "patriots" wouldn't know truth if it peed in your ear.
I guess you'd prefer a president like Gerald Ford or someone who would sit around and allow the world to be engulfed rather than fight back and win.
Keep reading them Mena books and always remember...the CIA is the real enemy!! The Birchers say so.
Yeah, they should have thrown their allegiance to the supporters of the communists supporting Daniel "The Molester" Ortega and the stooges in our own congress who practically invited communism into South America. I would suggest that you rethink your position but I doubt that you would bother. You managed to turn a thread on Poindexter into another referendum on Clinton who is another socialist who wants to redistribute the wealth of the world.
"Hey, I have some moral issues with the deal that brought about this release, I'll stay."
Not here. Although if you can find my ideological/stylistic twin, be sure to introduce me ;)
You're good though, I'll grant you that.
Nah. It's the obvious counterargument. Since I make no particular claims, I don't really have to "prove" that there's no conspiracy here. Which is probably a good thing, since I don't think it would be possible to prove such a thing. But what I can do is show that there are enough holes in the case being presented that the conclusions we are asked to believe are rather suspect.
If such a conspiracy exists, I want to know about it, so that I can do something about it. But I'm rather attached to the process of rational thought, so I can't just suspend that and accept uncritically whatever I am told. That's not to say that people who believe in this stuff are irrational - maybe they've done exactly what I'm trying to do, and have decided that the only rational conclusion is that a conspiracy exists. In which case, I want to know how they got from "A" to "B", so that I might follow that path for myself.
But in any case, if you (the generic "you", not you specifically) believe in something, you really have a responsibility to yourself to examine the flaws and weaknesses of your reasoning. Otherwise, you'll be believing in a lot of things that you have no real right to believe in.
I believe it was the pattern recognition thing...maybe you lifted that yourself from somewhere else.
I've spent a lot of time asking myself why people see things that apparently aren't there. The example of the faces I did indeed lift from elsewhere - it's too good of an illustration of the principle to pass up, particularly in light of how people find conspiracy based on that second Mars face picture.
If you want to see lots more like those, there's a book by a fellow named John Mitchell called "Natural Likeness: Faces and Figures in Nature". While you're at the library, you can look for "How We Know What Isn't So" by Tom Gilovich. And there's always the classic tome in this area - Charles Mackay's "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" - still in print, AFAIK, despite being written in 1841. Must-reads for the aspiring conspiracist. ;)
If you have any proof the Contra's ran drugs into the U.S. and the CIA helped then I think you should work to get these law-breakers convicted. In the meantime, we won and the Commies lost. Sorry
First time I've ever heard of Hillary taking sides against the Commies. Any articles to back this up or did she do it so quietly that she left no trace?
Agreed. I like LTC North's views. I do not like that he and Poindexter violated their oaths taken as Commissioned Officers by lying to Congress - yes, they lied. The fact that Congress or the Independent Counsel were out of control does not diminish their obligation as officers.
This is a political question rather than a moral question, and the answer is yes.
The Constitution gives the president authority over defense and foreign policy. It also gives the president unfettered power to pardon -- a power obviously intended to be moderated by elections rather than by courts.
When the people tuned in to the congressional hearings and heard what had happened, the majority approved.
So, are you upset that the Contra's won and there are now free elections in Nicaragua? Or are you glad the Contras won but not happy about how they did it?
If this is simply a "political question" and the administration has the right to lie to Congress to carry out a policy that the executive branch has formed, then this takes away any authority that Congress has to be an effective branch of government. If the administration can withhold the information that Congress needs to make policy decisions or if the executive branch can give false information to Congress, then we are down to government by one branch, by executive decree.
What do you suggest when members of Congress are performing their own foreign policy and even co-operating with, for instance, Daniel Ortega and the Communist government of Nicaragua?
Does the executive branch still have a responsibility to fully brief Ron Dellums when he was briefing the Marxist leader of Grenada about our plans?
We've been thru this crap a zillion times. You pea-brains choose to smear someone like Oliver North, whose entire life has been nothing but service to his country, and you choose to believe (hahahaha) Terry Reed!! Gets me everytime. And can you point to any proof of Reed's credibility? Is there any reason why you hang your argument on him and reject everything written in North's book?
Take a hike and don't leave Reed's smell behind. We finally got it out.
Oh, you might want to ask ole Terry what ever happened to that movie Steven Seagal was gonna make out of his book!!! Hahahahaha!!
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