Nixon's Treason Set Pattern For All GOP Presidents; Trump Is No Different

John Farrell in the NY Times has an article that shows that recently discovered notes from H.R. Haldeman show conclusively that Richard Nixon directed his campaign to scuttle peace talks with the North Vietnamese in the run-up to the 1968 election. There has always been plenty of concrete evidence that members of Nixon's campaign were involved in a back channel to the South Vietnamese government advising them that they would get a better deal when Nixon became President if the backed out of the peace talks. The Nixon campaign used Anna Chennault, Chiang Kai-shek, and Louis Kung, all Chinese nationalists, as its intermediaries to the South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu. Earlier releases of documents from both Nixon and LBJ demonstrated Nixon aides coordinating the back channel negotiations. However, there has never been any direct proof that Nixon knew of these actions or approved and/or coordinated them. White House tapes show that Nixon denied being involved when confronted by Johnson and that provided at least some defense for Nixon not being involved. That defense has crumbled with the release of the new Haldeman notes which clearly show Nixon directing his aides to do whatever it took to throw a "monkey wrench" into Johnson's peace initiative. The direct result of this treasonous act was another four more years of war in Vietnam and Southeast Asia, costing the lives of 20,000 Americans, another 100,000 American wounded, and over a million Southeast Asians killed or wounded. Nixon's treason came at a very high price.

The next Republican President after Richard Nixon was the sainted Ronald Reagan. Like Nixon, Reagan and his campaign have also been accused of a similar deal with the Iranians in order to scuttle the release of the hostages until after Reagan's election. Those initial accusations were deemed unworthy until the later revelation of Reagan's Iran-Contra deal, which sold military hardware to the Iranians in order to illegally fund the war in Central America. While there have been multiple sources on both the US and Iranian sides who say that a deal like this did take place, investigations have shown no definitive evidence to substantiate that claim.

George H. W. Bush succeeded Ronald Reagan as President and continually claimed he was "out of the loop" when it came to the Iran-Contra deal. But the investigation by Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh showed that Bush had been aware of the deal almost from the beginning, in direct contradiction of his claims. In addition, Bush apparently withheld important documents from Walsh and preemptively pardoned those senior officials who had not already been convicted of a crime as well as those who already had, leaving Bud MacFarlane and Oliver North to take the fall.

Dick Cheney learned the lessons of the successful cover-up of the Iran-Contra affair quite well and that was to stonewall any investigation, by legal or other means, in order to get what you wanted done. And he took that attitude with him in the George W. Bush administration where he was largely the instigator of the successful effort to distort the intelligence in order to pave the way for the invasion of Iraq. Thirteen years later, we are still dealing with the fallout from that fateful decision. The country of Iraq has largely been destroyed and the rise of ISIS is a direct consequence of that invasion.

Based on this history of Republican treason, lies, and deception, I don't think anyone should be surprised that the announcement of a cease-fire in Turkey comes in the immediate aftermath of Donald Trump's election. I have no proof that there was any direct quid-pro-quo but for someone as skeptical as myself it does seem "interesting" that the Russian's rebuffed all our efforts for a cease-fire before suddenly implementing one with last week with America excluded. More importantly, Russia clearly hacked this election and did everything in its power to help Trump get elected. A number of Trump advisers, some of whom are now cabinet appointees, have had close connections to Putin and the Russian government. And Trump's own positive view of Putin as well as his wish that the Russians hack Hillary all add to the suspicions of some sort of deal between Trump and Putin. We know that the most important item that Putin wants is to get the sanctions that are strangling the Russian economy lifted. The real question is why Trump is so eager to please Putin and what he thinks he may get in return. Rumors of Trump being compromised on his visits to Russia abound. But it is hard to see that anything Trump did in Moscow would be any worse than what we already know about the philandering, narcissistic, congenitally lying abuser. Like the Republican Presidents before him, he will sell our country down the river. Will we only get a few Trump hotels in return?