How Did Colonel Oliver North Violate The Just War

soldiers on subjects, and no martial law in peacetime. To continue receiving subsides for his

The Iran Contra affair is historically defined as the “Reagan administration scandal that involved the sale of arms to Iran in exchange for its efforts to secure the release of hostages in Lebanon and the redirection of the proceeds of those sales to the Nicaraguan Contras.” As the Nicaraguan counterrevolutionaries, known as the Contras, began their efforts to retaliate against the Socialist Sandinista Regime, American government forces stepped in to support the Contra cause in a hope to support the world-wide elimination of Communism. To understand the entire history of the scandal, many individuals, groups, policies, and deals must be researched and put together to tell the complete history of the Iran Contra affair.

Also, the growing presence of the Soviets and Cuba in Nicaragua escalated the cold war and in order to ‘draw the line” the Reagan administration “doubled economic aid for El Salvador to a hundred and forty four million dollars” (pg 40). According to Danner, “the priorities of American Policy in El Salvador had become unmistakable” (pg 41).Second, The American government was “opposed to dispatching American combat forces to Central America” (pg 22) and in order to prevent another Nicaragua, Congress agreed to “reform” the Salvadoran Army by financing, training and arming its troops to fight the FMLN. As Danner notes, “the Americans had stepped forward to fund the war, but were unwilling to fight it”. Third, the Monterrosa led Atlacatl led batallion through American funding descended in El Mozote with “the latest M-16’s, M-60 machines guns, 90 millimeter recoilless rifles, and 60- and 81 millimeter mortars”(pg 39) and with a list of names massacred an entire village because “communism was cancer”(pg 49). The U.S. government was clearly responsible for the Massacre at El Mozote because without the funding, supporting, and training of El Salvador troops the war would have been tilted in the guerillas favor as they had managed to hold the disorganized army in certain areas. In contrast to neighboring departments El Mozote and its inhabitants of born-again Christians did not fit in as guerilla sympathizers. In fact, the training at American hands

This made it almost inevitable that something would go wrong, and it did. The arms deal was soon found out and it was made the center of media attention. Ignoring this warning, McFarlene and North traveled to Teheran personally to deliver missiles and talk to Iranian officials. North even brought Iranians into the White House secretly at night to discuss the situation. ("Iran-Contra")

A2: It has been acceptable to violate the constitution when engaging in wars with other countries or your own.

It states that under article 90 during times of war a military member who willfully disobeys a superior commissioned officer can be sentence to death. The importance of rules and regulations in the military aswell as NCO's to uphold them in the military are there so a soldier knows how to act and behave while in the military as well as to instill upon a soldier how to properly conduct himself while in military uniform or even off duty.

Challenges that the relationship between the “people” and congress will and should always continue as a check and balance system. One example of a challenge between some members of the NSC, congress, and the people come from the controversial program later called the Iran- Contra affair. Iran-Contra started when President Ronald Reagan started funding the rebel group, known as the Contras, in Central America. During the early days of funding the rebel group a story by Newsweek entitled: Americas Secret War brought a different and unfavorable attention to the program (Brown.edu, 2013).

The Iran-contra scandal of the 1980’s, first brought to light in November 1986, is a complicated mess of scandal, arms dealings, hostage deals, and illegal acts (“Iran-Contra Affair” Infoplease.com). The original purpose of the arms sales was to improve United States-Iran relations (Sanders SNU.edu). However, when American hostages were taken throughout the 1980’s, members of President Reagan’s staff negotiated implicit deals with Iranian groups, which resulted in the U.S. selling arms in return for the release of hostages (Wolf PBS.org). Later, the deal was modified so that the U.S. sold arms directly to Iran at a high markup, with no guarantee of hostages being released, and the markup funding the contras in Nicaragua (“The

Imagine a time in which rebels swarmed army officials and attacked them. Or millions of people reviling British soldiers because they were doing their job clearly and well. This time was none other than the American Revolution. A time where American rebels mercilessly took on the British Soldiers because they felt that their rights were violated. But I feel that the British were right where they stood and all of their policies and regulations were justified. They were right because the rebels were still part of British government and were still the king’s subjects so they had to obey the king, and the rebels didn’t have the right to name their own nation independent because they still followed the Parliaments rules. And lastly they were colonists sent on an expedition that the king agreed

The United States’ involvement with the Nicaraguan Contras was limited by the Boland Amendments, which explicitly stated that intelligence agencies were forbidden to provide support to the Contras (Gordon, 2987, para. 8). While the Reagan Administration wanted to deal arms with Iran, the Boland Amendments limited ways of negotiations. Reagan used Democratic Representative Edward Boland’s statement of, “only the CIA and Pentagon [are] intelligences (Gordon, 1987, para. 8)” to use the NSC to negotiate with Iran. As a result of Boland’s statements, the Reagan Administration used the National Security Council, specifically Lt. Col. Oliver North, to provide funds for the Contras (Winess, 1989, para. 3). North would use the money from the arms deal to fund the Contras. North was heavily involved in the release of the seven hostages from Lebanon, and was a key figure in the illegal activity preformed during Reagan’s presidency. Congress appropriated $27 million for the Contras in the 1986 fiscal year (Special, 1987, para. 4). Which means the US already gave funds for Reagan to distribute in Nicaragua without having to obtain more; however, Congress did allowed the Administration “to solicit Contra aid from other nations,” but forbid them from using any funds to purchase weapons (Special, 1987, para. 4). The Reagan

“The economic strain of the effort to keep up with the United States military brought the Soviets to the bargaining table and led to a de-escalation of their international military adventures” (Thomas Sowell, 2001). Reagan is the only president that may lay claim to the end of the Cold War that plagued America. However, a black mark on his record is the Iran-contra affair which involved the secret provision of funds from selling arms to Iran for Nicaraguan contra rebels (See Woodward and T. Draper, 2012). Despite the scandal of the Iran-contra affair, Reagan is praised for his foreign policies in which he spent a majority of his presidency playing the role of international peace-maker, leading to both a safer and more prosperous home and international front (George Nash,

Those funds were then redirected to Nicaragua to provide support for the Contras. The Iranian portion of the scandal provided the information that exposed the criminal acts being committed by the Reagan Administration. Arms sales to Iran were committed as a trade between the United States and Lebanon through Israel to free seven American hostages. A Lebanese magazine reported on the deal and forced then President Reagan to publicly admit to unauthorized dealing with a foreign government. The context of this report is very important as at the time this was revealed the United States instituted an arms embargo against Iran and Reagan emphatically proclaimed the he would never negotiate with terrorists (History.com, 2017) According to the Reagan Administration, dealing weapons to Iran would create an ally for the negotiation of hostages in Lebanon as Iran had vast influence in Lebanon. In just over a week after the Lebanese magazine Ash Shiraa revealed the arms sale, Reagan’s Senior Aide to the National Security Council Oliver North had to testify before Congress. His testimony revealed his superior attempted to destroy evidence of the arms sale which prompted President Reagan to fire Oliver North and his superior Admiral Poindexter being forced to resign (Glass, Farrell, Cottee, Storrs, and Pollack,

To this Kim Jong-un dissolved the Korean Armistice Agreement of 1953 that established the border between North Korea and South Korea. With the treaty dissolved, North Korea threatened South Korea, a long-time ally of the United States, with military action if it cooperated with the sanctions placed upon North Korea by the UN and other countries. The United States Air Force publicly flew bomber planes over South Korea to show North Korea that it was still under the protection of the United States (“Missile Defense”). Many people argue that a show of force goes against the just war theory because it used simply to intimidate the other side, which is not a just reason for war. However, Aquinas states, “ Manly exercises in warlike feats of arms are not all forbidden, but those which are inordinate and perilous, and end in slaying or plundering” (486). In this circumstance, the US was showing force in order to protect its ally, and not for the use of destroying the enemy, which is justified by the just war

Even this is determined to be an “unprecedented war,” do the means of operating outside international law and norms justify the ends?

Each of these rules must be shown and satisfied. “Failure to fulfill even one renders the resort to force unjust, and thus subject to criticism, resistance, and punishment” (Orend 61). Just war theory is meant to be more demanding than international law. Even though the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) agreed to send troops to Somalia, this approving body does not automatically render the gesture moral. One must apply the principals of just war theory first.