ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, July 20, 1993                   TAG: 9307200579
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

NORTH'S PLACE IN HISTORY

I'M AMAZED at those, including your editorial staff, who continue to denigrate Oliver North and decry his apparent intentions to seek the GOP nomination for the Senate. Those liberal-lefts must be absolutely terrified that he might win the nomination and the election.

Those who claim that North is not a patriot or a statesman are incredibly naive or willfully ignorant! Perhaps a short history lesson will snap them back to reality.

When the United States discovered that Daniel Ortega (an avowed communist) was receiving massive arms shipments from Russia and Cuba, Congress voted (at President Reagan's urging) to appropriate funds to the Contras. The Contras wanted to liberate Nicaragua, establish free elections and a democratic government.

After making a commitment to the Contras and putting them on the front line, Congress withdrew its support, suspended payments and reneged on its promises. Within a matter of weeks, the rebels became cannon fodder. They had few weapons, medical supplies or food, and thousands were being killed.

At the same time, Democratic leaders Jim Wright, Joe Biden, Ted Kennedy, et al, went to Nicaragua to meet with Ortega. They even invited him to America to address Congress. Lest you are not aware, the U.S. Constitution empowers the executive branch to conduct foreign policy, not the legislative branch! Congress, in enacting the Boland amendments (withdrawing support from the Contras) clearly overstepped its constitutional bounds.

It was against that backdrop that North, Gen. Secord and their superiors discovered a way to circumvent the "illegal" Boland amendments. They secured private funds by purchasing arms from our government, selling them at outrageous prices to Iran and funneling the profits to the Contras. Anyone who thinks that North could have pulled that off by himself is a dreamer! Certainly Casey and Reagan knew about it.

North, like a true Marine, followed orders, and he is a patriot, a statesman and a true American hero. He placed himself and his family in grave personal danger to keep America's commitment to the Contras, and to preserve democracy in Central America (much unlike a president who consorted with the enemy and demonstrated on foreign soil against America).

It is Wright, Biden and Kennedy who should be on trial and ashamed. Is there any doubt where Nicaragua would be today were it not for North and those in the administration who directed this effort? It would be under the communist thumb of dictator Ortega. Other Central American nations' democracies would have been threatened as well.

Thank God for men of principle like North. If he does decide to run, he will have my vote. DON ASSAID ROANOKE 


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