communion; gradually frees them from all religious prejudices; cultivates the social virtues; and animates them by a great, a feasible, and
“This is the great object held out by this Association: and the means of attaining it is Illumination, enlightening the understanding by the sun of reason, which will dispel the clouds of superstition and of prejudice. The proficients in this Order are therefore justly named the Illuminated. And of all Illumination which human reason can give, none is comparable to the discovery of what we are, our nature, our obligations, what happiness we are capable of, and what are the means of attaining it. In comparison with this, the most brilliant sciences are but amusements for the idle and luxurious. To fit man by Illumination for active virtue, to engage him to it by the strongest motives, to render the attainment of it easy and certain, by finding employment for every talent, and by placing every talent in its proper sphere of action, so that all, without feeling any extraordinary effort, and in conjunction with and completion of ordinary business, shall urge forward, with united powers, the general task. This indeed will be an employment suited to noble natures, grand in its views, and delightful in its exercise.”
“And what is this general object? THE HAPPINESS OF THE HUMAN RACE. Is it not distressing to a generous mind, after contemplating what human nature is capable of, to see how little we enjoy? When we look at this goodly world, and see that every man
Such is the aim, and such are the hopes of the Order of the Illuminated […]
Iran—Contra Scandal
Like Watergate, the Iran—Contra scandal—“Irangate”—was unambiguously true. A president didn’t fall, but he wobbled alarmingly. Worse for succeeding administrations, the lid on the can of worms that is US foreign policy
The beginnings of Irangate lie in the 1979 Islamic revolution, which overthrew the pro-Western Shah of Iran. Supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini’s regime invaded the US Embassy in Tehran and held staff hostage for a year. The inability of US President Jimmy Carter to secure the hostages’ release cost him a second term. (By the “October Surprise” conspiracy theory, candidate Ronald Reagan did a deal with Tehran that they would delay the hostages’ freedom until the presidential election campaign was done so he could win.) The anti-American militancy of the Khomeini regime, together with its sponsorship of Islamic terrorist outfits like Hezbollah, led Washington DC to implement Operation Staunch: an arms embargo against Iran.
Once in power, the new Republican administration of Ronald Reagan found it had its own personal hostage crisis. In Lebanon, CIA station chief William Buckley was seized by Hezbollah. A moderate wing of Khomeini’s regime suggested to Israel that, if the US sent Iran a shipment of arms, it would secure Buckley’s release. On 18 July 1985 Reagan, his chief of staff Donald Regan and National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane discussed the Iran deal, and two weeks later, over the opposition of some government advisers, it was agreed to send Iran a shipment of BGM-71 100 TOW (Tube launched, Optically tracked, Wire guided) missiles.
No hostages were released. The Iranian moderates asked for 400 more TOW missiles, at which Hezbollah released not Buckley but another hostage, Reverend Benjamin Weir. A further 3,500 missiles were sent to Iran. McFarlane and a National Security Council staff officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Oliver D. North, went to Iran secretly to press the US case—in clear contravention of the Reagan mantra that “America will never make concessions to terrorists”—but Hezbollah still failed to release Buckley. At this point the Lebanese newspaper
In 1979, the same year that Khomeini ejected the Shah of Iran, halfway across the world in Nicaragua left-wing Sandinistas overthrew the military dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza. Later, the Sandinistas (more properly known as Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional) won free and fair democratic elections. Somoza supporters, meanwhile, kept up a contra-revolution (hence “Contras”) against the Sandinista regime. In 1982 Reagan authorized the CIA to create a 500-strong army of Nicaraguan exiles to fight alongside the Contras. Queried by a Congressional intelligence committee over this “action team”, CIA director William Casey misleadingly stated that its activity was restricted to intercepting arms sent by the Sandinistas to El Salvadoran Marxist revolutionaries. The disingenuity of Casey’s reply was exposed, and Congress passed the Boland Amendment which banned the spending of federal money on the Contras. Ignoring the Boland Amendment, Reagan tasked the CIA with mining Nicaragua’s harbours. Congress responded in June 1984 with a second Boland Amendment, which explicitly forbade all CIA operations in Nicaragua.
Fast forward two years. On 5 October 1986 a plane piloted by one Eugene Hasenfus was shot down over Nicaragua while carrying arms to the Contras. Hasenfus appeared on TV, where he publicly announced that his co-workers were CIA operatives. This story coincided almost exactly with
Oliver North and his immediate superior, Admiral John Poindexter, the National Security Advisor who had replaced McFarlane, were convicted on multiple accounts of lying and obstruction of justice, but their convictions were overturned on appeal because their testimonies had been used against them despite a grant of immunity. A final 1987 report into the affair by Congress failed to answer the key question: how much Reagan knew. Some researchers consider that North’s five memos sent to the president on the Contras’ illegal funding might give a clue. Then there is the entry in Reagan’s own diary from January 1986: “I agreed to sell TOWs to Iran.”
William Buckley was killed after torture by captors in Iran.
Lawrence Walsh, Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters,
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