BY TAYLOR MARSH
Ever since Sunday, when Paul Begala revealed the associated of John McCain
to the “Council for World Freedom,” everyone has been buzzing about
it. Well, now the AP has unloaded
a story that links John McCain to that group, which was deeply involved
in Iran-Contra, but also is affiliated with virulent anti-semites and radical
death squads.
In the 1980s, 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.The U.S. Council for World Freedom aided rebels trying to overthrow the leftist
government of Nicaragua. That landed the group in the middle of the Iran-Contra
affair and in legal trouble with the Internal Revenue Service, which revoked
the charitable organization’s tax exemption.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. After setting up the U.S. council, Singlaub served as the international
league’s chairman. …
Greg
Sargent, however, has a bit more:
Now we’ve gotten a hold of another fun little nugget that shows how whacked
out this group really is: A newsletter from the group from July 1985 that
lashed out at people who criticized Ronald Reagan for visiting the Bitburg
cemetery in Germany, which includes the graves of members of the SS.The Reagan visit was widely controversial among Jews, but the Council newsletter
— which
you can view right here — was less than charitable towards Reagan’s Jewish
critics. …
McCain tells the AP that he resigned from the fanatical group in 1984, further
asking to have his name removed from the letterhead in 1986.
“I didn’t know whether (the group’s activity) was legal or illegal,
but I didn’t think I wanted to be associated with them,” McCain said
in a 1986 newspaper interview.
There’s just one problem. Singlaub doesn’t remember McCain ever resigning, though that hardly matters today.
McCain was a congressman when he was involved with Singlaub’s group, at a time
when he voted for military assistance to the Nicaraguan Contras, a CIA-organized
guerrilla force. Not long afterwards, however, Congress voted to cut off funding
for the Contras.
Singlaub’s group, the Council on World Freedom, was the front for the Reagan
White House and their illegal activities that became known as Iran Contra, which
unraveled in 1986. But Singlaub had further designs, which were orchestrated
through his World Anti-Communist League, what the AP calls “umbrella group
Singlaub chaired.” Jack Anderson, the noted columnist, reported that this
umbrella group was connected to right-wing death squads in Nicaragua. Singlaub
says he tried to “purge” the group of radicals, but it’s clear the
group was radical, so how that was accomplished is iffy for anyone who knows
the history of the times. See the Boland Amendments if you want to know what Iran Contra wrought.
After all these years, the Republican primaries and the entire general election,
not one single traditional media organization has bothered to report on McCain’s
associations with the Council on World Freedom. People talk about Obama getting
a pass in the media, which I complained about in the primaries. That may be
true, but McCain’s been around for decades. Nobody has carried his water more
than the traditional press. That it’s coming out now is due to one factor only.
McCain going negative on Obama citing Ayers, with Palin parroting every negative talking
point, is coming back to bite him. Desperation is what got people digging into a part of McCain’s past that until Begala mentioned it on “Meet the Press” this past Sunday, had been left entirely alone. Selling your soul has a price and McCain’s going to pay it. Nobody likes what this once admired man has become.
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