Other brilliant ideas Richie Perle and Ollie North had

This is worth a look. From a book about the CIA's war in Afghanistan, back during the Soviet occupation, titled Charlie Wilson's War.

Apparently Perle and North decided--against the combined wisdom of many people with real on-the-ground experience over there--that it would be a "neat idea" (to use Ollie's Iran-Contra term) to get Russian soldiers to defect to the Mujahaddin. Just think how easy it would be, and what a great propaganda coup for the US!

This was, to say the least, an unlikely concept. You'll recall that the Muj. had a game kind of like polo that they liked to play with the heads of Russian soldiers they'd captured? Well, apparently that wasn't the worst of it.

Here's a clip from the book:

Their idea was to encourage Soviet officers and soldiers to defect to the mujahideen. As Avrakotos derisively describes it, "The muj were supposed to set up loudspeakers in the mountains announcing such things as 'Lay down your arms, there is a passage to the West and to freedom.'" Once news of the program made its way through the Red Army, it was argued, there would be a flood of defectors.

....Avrakotos thought North and Perle were "cuckoos of the Far Right"...."What Russian in his right mind would defect to those fuckers all armed to the teeth?" Avrakotos said in frustration. "To begin with, anyone defecting to the Dushman would have to be a crook, a thief, or someone who wanted to get cornholed every day, because nine out of ten prisoners were dead within twenty-four hours and they were always turned into concubines by the mujahideen. I felt so sorry for them I wanted to have them all shot."

The meeting went very badly indeed. Gust accused North and Perle of being idiots....Avrakotos thought that would be the end of the...idea, but he greatly underestimated the political power and determination of this group, who went directly to Bill Casey.

In short, they actually were able to force the program through--as the blogger whose site this comes from sez,

How can you trust the judgment of someone who not only proposed an idea like this, but fought long and hard for it in the face of massive ground level evidence that it was absurd? Is it any surprise that someone who thought Russian soldiers would defect if we just set up loudspeakers in the mountains of Afghanistan might also think that governing postwar Iraq would be simple and easy?

Remember this the next time you hear Richard Perle say anything. And then give his opinions all the consideration they deserve.

Check out Calpundit--pretty good stuff. And do share this little anecdote with your rightwing friends....

I saw the link this morning on Josh Marshall's TPM.

Pretty freaky. These guys are simply RONG about everything they dream up.....and never admit that they screwed up or attempt to correct their behaviour to avoid future mistakes....which I have heard some say is the definition of "insanity".

Fits

Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. It's credited to him, anyway.

There is information in the article about the earlier insane actions of some of our "favorite" neo-cons that bears wider publication.

:kick:

If the President says it's legal, it's not against the law, right?


This is Your Goverment On Drugs

Excerpted from Conspiracies, Cover-Ups and Crimes

by Jonathan Vankin

EXCERPT...

The CIA-contra-cocaine connection is a complicated conundrum. One of the biggest names in the business was Manuel Noriega, the former dictator of Panama. To comprehend the government's role in cocaine traffic, Noriega is useful as a kind of focal point. He was on the payroll of the CIA at the same time he worked for the Medellin Cartel for four million dollars per month. The Medellin Cartel is the Colombian cocaine syndicate, responsible for most of the cocaine that enters the U.S.A. Noriega was also connected to George Bush, and through Bush to Oliver North. They used Noriega as a conduit for getting arms to the contras. Bush, North, and other government insiders at the CIA and the National Security Council (which under Reagan got heavily into covert operations) most likely knew about Noriega's involvement with drugs.

Revelations about Noriega, and about direct contra and CIA involvement with cocaine smuggling, found their way into the public record via a subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chaired by John Kerry. In 1986, Senator Kerry received information that the Costa Rican branch of a Miami-based shrimp company Ocean Hunter, widely regarded as a drug-running front, had received checks for more than $200,000 dollars from the U.S. government. The money was part of the "humanitarian aid" allocated for the contras by Congress.

Wondering why the cash was channeled to this shrimp-and-dope outfit, Kerry went to the FBI asking for an inquiry. Instead, the FBI investigated Kerry himself. According to FBI reports, North asked the FBI to investigate Kerry, to find links between the Massachusetts senator and th Nicaraguan Sandinista government. The investigation was reportedly initiated by a crack FBI counterintelligence group usually employed to track foreign agents in the United States. To North's distress, the agents did not find evidence to follow through with a full-scale investigation.

North may have had reason to worry. The Drug Enforcement Administration had knowledge in the fall of 1986 that the flight crews making clandestine arm deliveries to the contras were flying cocaine into the U.S. on thei. return trips. When DEA agents confronted one of the pilots, he told them he had White House protection. He dropped North' name. The agents didn't pursue the North connection, dismissing the pilot's statement as "a bluff." Accounts of secret testimony before Kerry's committee revealed that Felix Rodriguez, CIA agent and friend of George Bush, arranged a 10-million dollar donation to the contras direct from the Medellin cartel. The cartel's chief accountant and money launderer (at least until he was arrested), Ramon Milian Rodriguez, testifiedto the donation. Milian Rodriguez is said to have conveye~ $180, 000 in campaign contributions from the cartel to Ronald Reagan's 1984 presidential campaign, and was invited to Reagan's inauguration as a gesture of thanks from the grateful candidate.

CONTINUED...
http://www.conspire.com/drugscia2.html