History is so incredibly important to understand the world we live in. It let's us know the pattern of the world and how it repeats itself. In this video we see the recent history of the United States during the Iran Contra scandal. We see how the CIA and FBI are organizations that are counter to a free society. We see how war is truly the health of the state. We see how we are repeating ourselves.
The loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or imagined, from abroad. - James Madison
Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. . . . [There is also an] inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and . . . degeneracy of manners and of morals. . . . No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare. . . .
[It should be well understood] that the powers proposed to be surrendered [by the Third Congress] to the Executive were those which the Constitution has most jealously appropriated to the Legislature. . . .
The Constitution expressly and exclusively vests in the Legislature the power of declaring a state of war . . . the power of raising armies . . . the power of creating offices. . . .
A delegation of such powers [to the President] would have struck, not only at the fabric of our Constitution, but at the foundation of all well organized and well checked governments.
The separation of the power of declaring war from that of conducting it, is wisely contrived to exclude the danger of its being declared for the sake of its being conducted.
The separation of the power of raising armies from the power of commanding them, is intended to prevent the raising of armies for the sake of commanding them.
The separation of the power of creating offices from that of filling them, is an essential guard against the temptation to create offices for the sake of gratifying favourites or multiplying dependents. - James Madison from Letters and Other Writings of James Madison.
Excerpts from the film:I wouldn't be here if my father and my brothers were involved in the secret war. I am here because I have no choice of being here...[The] CIA goofed up because they weren't willing to carry through with their goals. They think it's so simple that people are like pawns in a game like a chess game. In a game you can move them wherever you want but you have to understand that human life is very different from playing a game because a game once you lose there's nothing at stake, but when you lose a person's life or devastate a whole country, as they did to my country. - Hmong man from Laos
Can we have perpetual war and democracy? - Bill Moyers
If we continue these policies to rob ourselves in order to feed this national security monster we're going to continue to degrade American life. That's real national security. National security for the United States is making the United States a good place to live where people want to be active, intelligent, involved citizens. For people at the top to say this world is so complicated and so dangerous, just a few of us need to govern it and hold the secrets in, and we will tell you what's good for you. That is moving down the road to dictatorship. - Roger Wilkins
Oliver North was the Colonel who was spot lighted in the video. He believed in obeying orders of the president (king) regardless if they were legal or ethical.
The person that posted this video had the following commentary. Not all his beliefs are necessarily mine.
This is the full length 90 min. version of Bill Moyer's 1987 scathing critique of the criminal subterfuge carried out by the Executive Branch of the United States Government to carry out operations which are clearly contrary to the wishes and values of the American people. The ability to exercise this power with impunity is facilitated by the National Security Act of 1947. The thrust of the exposé is the Iran-Contra arms and drug-running operations which flooded the streets of our nation with crack cocaine. The significance of the documentary is probably greater today in 2007 than it was when it was made. We now have a situation in which these same forces have committed the most egregious terrorist attack on US soil and have declared a fraudulent so-called "War on Terror". The ruling regime in the US who have conducted the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, are now banging the war drum against Iran. We have the PATRIOT act which has stripped us of many of our basic civil rights justified by the terror of 9/11 which is their own doing.
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