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Hardcover
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Addressing, for the first time, the events that led to his trial, Oliver North explains his role in the Iran-Contra affair and discusses the involvement of other powerful politicos. 450,000 first printing. $300,000 ad/promo. BOMC. First serial, Time. Tour.
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| Under Fire Reviw |
| Customer Rating: 4 out of 5 |
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Not too bad of a book. Explains alot of the details in the Iran-contra affair and he explains his personal involvement in the Vietnam War.
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| A Traitor |
| Customer Rating: 1 out of 5 |
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How could a Marine (North) even consider selling weapons to a nation (Iran) that financed the suicide attack (carried out by Hezbollah) that murdered over 140 of his fellow Marines in Beruit in '83? It boggles the mind. He is a traitor who should have been sent to Leavenworth, along with all of the morally challanged officers and politicians above him.
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| Ally of fascism and terrorism |
| Customer Rating: 1 out of 5 |
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The main issue, unacknowledged in North's disgusting, self-justifying book and unmentioned in most of these reviews, is not whether North was acting 'illegally' or without Reagan's consent - it's the fact that he was involved in siphoning money to fascist death squads so that they could overthrow a democratic government. The Contras murdered, mutilated, tortured and raped civilians; 30,000 people lost their lives in the civil war between the Contras and the government. The victims of the Contra attacks were not 'evil Communists', but priests, teachers, nurses and schoolchildren.
The Sandinista government itself was not, as another reviewer claimed, a Soviet stooge, but a non-aligned, Leftist government who favoured a mixed economy, human rights and democracy. The Sandinistas introduced free healthcare and education, land reform and fair elections; they started a massive literacy campaign and abolished the death penalty. The Sandinistas' only serious human rights violation, their treatment of the indigenous Miskito population, was acknowledged as such after pressure from human rights groups, and the Sandinistas ultimately granted the Miskito full autonomy. This is in marked contrast to the US's refusal to even acknowledge, let alone attempt to rectify, its many abuses...
Many of the Contra fighters were loyalists of the previous Somoza regime, a vicious military dictatorship that the US had supported for years. All of the guff about restoring 'democracy' to Nicaragua was either a lie or a gross misunderstanding of reality; it would have been more accurate to talk about restoring fascism. The freedom-loving US appears often to get these two political systems mixed up, given that they also funded, armed and trained barbarous military juntas in Guatemala, Chile, Brazil, Argentina and El Salvador, a country where 70,000 people were killed.
So the issue is not the 'illegality', by US terms, of North's actions. The shocking reality is that North was only carrying out standard US foreign policy. The crimes here are not those of a lone individual, but of an entire administration. After all, in the early 1980s, the World Court indicted the US for conducting a campaign of state terrorism against Nicaragua.
This said, North's role in the funding of the Contras makes him, by any rational standards, a war criminal, an abetter of terrorism, an accomplice in mass murder. That's the real story here.
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| colonel makes more hits than a nicaraguan death squad |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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colonel north does it again by giving the reader a searing and fascinating look into his life all while importing enough cocaine into america to finance a large village in columbia, what a busy guy!!!. The only thing that disapointed me was the colonel's lack of detail's regarding the time he spent destroying incriminating documents after former head of c.i.a william casey gave him the heads up to get rid of the documents, nice work ollie!!!......
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| Almost bought it. |
| Customer Rating: 1 out of 5 |
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I almost bought this book but then read the 9/11 report and was reminded that Mr. North broke the law, was indicted, and then was pardoned because of a technicality;and now for some reason, there are those trying to make a hero out of him....he's taken advantage of his ill begotten fame and has made himself a millionaire...Fox news loves him....I then decided not to contribute to his coffers....
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