McCain and Death Squads

"Republican Sen. John McCain served on the advisory board to the U.S. chapter of an international group linked to ultra-right-wing death squads in Central America in the 1980s."

Juicy stuff, huh? Almost sounds so sensationalistic that I must be making it up right? Nope, it comes from an article from that reliably conservative magazine, Forbes. You see, McCain was on the advisory board for the U.S. Council for World Freedom. Sounds innocent enough, I agree. But as the article states, "The council created by retired Army Maj. Gen. John Singlaub was the U.S. chapter of the World Anti-Communist League, an international organization linked to former Nazi collaborators and ultra-right-wing death squads in Central America." Not so innocent after all.

But like those late night infomercials, wait, there's more. The Council ended up being a front group for arms being shipped to Nicaragua. Congress had cut off military assistance to the Contras, but Reagan didn't think he should have to play by the rules. So in came the Council so it didn't look like the government was involved. And where was the money coming from to buy these arms. Come on everybody, it's the Iran-Contra Scandal. We were selling weapons to our arch enemy Iran, the very same one that McCain thinks he now wants to bomb.

So McCain has associations with people involved with the three largest scandals in American politics for the last half century; The Iran-Contra Affair, The Keating Five and S&L Scandal, and Watergate. But let me throw in one little more tidbit of history. The journalist who broke the stories about the death squad killings associated with this group was a guy by the name of Jack Anderson. Sound familiar? It should to readers of my blog. It's the same Jack Anderson that G. Gordon Liddy admitted to in his autobiography of plotting to kill.