Diary of a Dictatorship (7/4/05)
by Dean Hartwell
Recently, I gave my reasons for believing that a dictatorship led by George W. Bush rules the United States of America (see http://www.politicalgateway.com/main/columns/read.html?col=372). In all fairness, this dictatorship did not start with Bush. Rather, the lies of other presidents and their illegal actions set the stage upon which Bush acts.
1942 - It didn’t start with the Second World War, but one of the most outrageous acts of dictatorship took place shortly after the war started. President Franklin Roosevelt ordered the internment of tens of thousands of United States citizens of Japanese descent. He did so despite overwhelming evidence that these citizens did not sympathize with Japan. Even FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, no civil libertarian, opposed the internment.
1961-1969 - Presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson misled the public about United States involvement in Southeast Asia. Kennedy insisted he was only sending “advisors” to that area of the world, when in fact he sent troops there. Johnson, during the 1964 election, insisted that he was not going “to send American boys nine or ten thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.” After the election, he escalated the War in Viet Nam.
1969-1970 - Johnson’s successor, Richard Nixon, continued U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia by secretly bombing (and later invading) Cambodia, a neutral nation. He also mined harbors in Viet Nam, in contradiction of international law.
1971 - But Nixon’s biggest acts of dictatorship were here at home. Former Defense Department official Daniel Ellsberg leaked the so-called “Pentagon Papers,” which detailed the lying of Presidents Kennedy and Johnson about Viet Nam. Nixon retaliated for this action by bugging Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office.
1972–1974 - Whether or not Nixon ordered the break-in of the Watergate complex, the Democratic Party’s headquarters is the subject of much debate. What is undeniable is that Nixon ordered the CIA to interfere with the FBI investigation of the Watergate break-in. Faced with certain impeachment and removal from office, Nixon became the first president to resign.
1980 - Ronald Reagan challenged President Jimmy Carter for the presidency. The polls showed a close election with fifty-three U.S. hostages held in Iran. Reagan’s campaign, which had no official governmental authority, made a deal with the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran to delay the release of the hostages until after the election. Although Reagan’s advisors have denied making this deal, 1980 third-party candidate John Anderson told me that the Iranians approached him about a similar deal, which he rejected and promptly reported to Carter. There is no plausible reason to believe that the Iranians would approach Anderson and not Reagan. In any event, Reagan won the election, in part because of public dissatisfaction with the hostage situation.
1985-1987 - A few years later, President Reagan again made a deal with Iran to ship weapons to them via Israel in exchange for money and the release of U.S. hostages held in Lebanon. Some of the money went to aid the Nicaraguan Contras.
This deal broke two U.S. laws Reagan had the responsibility to uphold: the Import-Export Terrorist Act and the Boland Amendment (which forbid aid to the Contras). Vice-President George H.W. Bush claimed to be “out of the loop” about this scandal, known as the “Iran-Contra Affair” but then-Secretary of State George Schultz has disputed this claim.
Today - As the public, we have the responsibility to demand accountability and integrity from our leaders. We must study history, as it tends to show patterns of unethical and illegal behavior on the part of our presidents. Now that it is clear we live in a dictatorship in which presidential dishonesty has become common, we must insist upon the truth as the only path back to freedom and democracy.