Iran-Contra and the Constitutional Paradigm - Essay Example

Iran-Contra and the Constitutional Paradigm In considering the Iran-Contra affair, it is obvious that the actions that took place were in complete opposition to the ideas put forth in Paul E. Roush's essay "Constitutional Ethics." This sort of incident is perhaps one of the main reasons for American resentment in the international community; in order to counteract these sentiments, it is necessary for everyone involved in our government and armed forces to uphold the laws of our own constitution and not to ignore them whenever the opportunity for furthering personal agendas arise. Unfortunately, we live in a country where the most powerful person in the country at the time had a complete disregard for the laws that he was supposed to be protecting: "for the most part, this inquest has simply revealed what was already known: that the crimes of the Reagan administration derived from an imperial president who 'created or at least tolerated' an environment where 'disdain for the law' and 'pervasive dishonesty' became routine bureaucratic procedure" (Kornbluh1). Let us first consider the actions of Lt. Colonel Oliver North and compare them to the ideas put forth in the constitutional paradigm by Paul Roush. According to Roush, "other loyalties may intervene, for example, those to family, to Supreme Being, etc. As long as the intervening loyalties do not conflict with the loyalties of the profession, the oath is still being complied with." Here is the conflict of loyalties: the Congress had clearly forbade the funding of the Contras with the Boland act, yet North claimed that he participated in the funding of the Contras under orders of his superiors. If he followed his superiors orders, he would be breaking a congressional law; if he disobeyed his superiors, he would be guilty of refusing to follow orders. The constitutional paradigm then states that one must resolve conflicting loyalties; however, it would not be possible to resolve these conflicts. These two issues were completely at odds with one another. This is where the third aspect of the paradigm comes into play. If one is unable to resolve these conflicts, the person should resign. North decided, however, to follow the commands of his superiors and broke the Boland amendment and a trade and arms embargo against Iran. The constitutional paradigm has a fourth condition under which it allows for the violation of justice, but this was not followed by North. The fourth condition states that if there is a "fundamental violation of justice," and resigning from one's position would be just as immoral because it would allow this violation to further continue, then one must choose to disobey to attain a higher good. There are two main aspects of North's actions that should be considered. First, did he actually have moral objections to his superior's orders If so, according to Roush, he should have attempted to resolve this matter though legal actions first. If this was not possible, he should have publicly refused to follow the orders of his superiors, and then he would have had to been willing to accept the consequences of his actions. Secondly, if North's objections were to the Boland Amendment, then what should have been done was to make the fact known to the public that he intended to fund the Contras and been willing to accept the consequences of those actions. Those steps were not taken. According to Roush, "the fundamental problem was the failure to resolve in advance of action." Whether his actions came from a belief that the contras should be funded or that he should follow the orders of his superiors despite the illegality of the orders, he chosen actions brought disgrace to this country. North's destroying of the government files that would have implicated others furthered his disdain for the laws of his country. Though he claimed that he was merely protecting other people's lives, that was not his decision to make. Each person involved in this matter had to go through the same process as he did to decide what course of action to take. They all took the same course of action, which was to knowingly violate the Boland Amendment and the arms embargo against Iran and to do so without the knowledge of the public. The former National Security Advisor John Poindexter had similar choices to make. Where the whole process seems to get murky is where the president's involvement comes into play. Reagan claimed to have little to no knowledge of the actions as they were happening; though there is no proof of his involvement, few people doubt his unofficial authorization was granted. It is a well-known fact that Reagan waged a war against communism and socialism during his years as president; it is difficult to imagine Reagan not at least turning a blind eye to his National Security Council's involvement with the Contras. Even though it was in clear violation of the Boland Amendment, there seems to be some degree of questioning as to whether or not the actions that took place were outside of the bounds of presidential power. According to D. Bruce Hicks, "The 'Minority Report' countered that 'much of what President Reagan did in his actions toward Nicaragua and Iran were constitutionally protected exercises of inherent Presidential power'" (1). If this is the case, then herein lies the first problem to Roush's paradigm. For the paradigm to work, the system in which it is being practiced must not contain any contradictions or loopholes. For the lumbering giant that is U.S. law and policies, it is not difficult for anybody to find enough loopholes to further one's own personal agenda. How is the paradigm to be effective if there are no clear cases of whether or not there are any actual conflicting loyalties This seems to be more of an issue as to how it would be possible for a president to be constitutionally protected from breaking the constitution, and its implications are worrisome; if this is the case, then the laws and policies of the U.S. government must be revised in order for the paradigm to be useful. The Tower Commission, which was supposed to investigate into the Iran-Contra Affair, seems to have been put in place to cover the track while appearing to criticize the administration: "Early on, the Iran-Contra panel signaled that its enterprise would in no way challenge the administration's right to conduct secret wars against countries. 'The fact is that most members, if not all members, are going to support the continuation of covert activities,' stated Senator William Cohen, Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence" (Kornbluh 2). How useful in the first place are laws and punishments to a country when the people involved in a crime decide upon the people that will investigate into the crime For this reason also the paradigm is rendered useless. Other problems exist within Roush's paradigm. Roush says that "the constitutional paradigm is based on values external your own, and therefore must be resolved externally." This ignores one of the most base instincts, the necessity for self-preservation. One could go so far as to say that self-preservation is a human trait, and that suggesting that a conflict should be resolved completely externally supposes that a person should attempt to not be human. It would be ideal if everyone were to act in this manner and apply it not only to the constitution but to any system of rules and governance. When put in a catch-22 situation, such as the one Oliver North was put in and described in the constitutional paradigm, the most likely resolution to the conflict would be to go along with it and hope that one isn't found out. As opposed to putting oneself in harm's way by publicly breaking a law to attain a greater good, hoping that one will not get caught originally sounds like a much more appealing solution. Of course, there is not much a person can do once caught other than wish different actions had been taken. The next problem with the constitutional paradigm consists of the aspect of an individual resolving conflicting loyalties. First, this requires a person to make decisions on a completely subjective basis. How is one to decide whether following the orders of superiors should be followed over congressional law If the consequence of breaking either one is virtually the same, then how can one properly weigh the consequences Perhaps the largest problem with Roush's constitutional paradigm comes from its sheer idealism. As was already mentioned, it must be used in a system without any contradictions. Also, there would be no scandal in government, politics, military, etc., if only everyone would follow this paradigm. But herein lies the paradoxes involved in any sort of system of rules: the rules are in place not to tell people how to act, but to let people know how they will be punished when and if they get caught. To expect people to follow a law simply because it was made and is supposed to be in the best interest of everyone is not realistic. If this were the case, then there wouldn't need to be punishments written into the law; it would be a simple matter of people following the law, and there would be no need for contingencies in case a law was broken. The Iran-Contra Affair has been described by many people as the most scandalous incident since Watergate. This country knew scandal before this incident, and unfortunately it has yet to escape this sort of political scandal since. The American people did not learn that people in power would take advantage of their situation in order to further political agendas; they learned that their system of government had enough loopholes to allow this sort of scandal. Though he faced a sharp decline in approval after this incident, Reagan's approval bounced back and was as high as ever when he left office. It seemed as though keeping as few people in the know as possible had its advantages as Draper states: According to Secretary Weinberger, however, Poindexter was encouraged in this mania for compartmentation by President Reagan. "It was a very small narrow circle of people who needed to know," Weinberger explained about the transfer of arms to Iran, "and it was deliberately kept small because of the considerations the President continually emphasized that it was necessary to make sure that very few people knew about it" Weinberger himself thought that "you can carry compartmentalization too far, and I think that it probably was in this case without any question" (559). After the pardoning of those involved in the ordeal, most people have seemed to have disregarded this incident in U.S. history, as there have been many people saying that what the Republican party needs in this latest electoral process is someone Reagan-esque. Works Cited Draper, Theodore. (1992) A very thin red line: the Iran-Contra Affairs. New York, Hill and Wong. Hicks, D. Bruce (1996) Dueling decisions: contrasting constitutional visions of the United States president's foreign policy role. Policy Studies Journal vol. 24 Retrieved February 25, 2008, from Questia Online Library Kornbluh, Peter. (1987) The Iran-Contra scandal: a postmortem. World Policy Journal vol. 5. Retrieved February 25, 2008, from Questia Online Library. Rousher, Paul E. ( ) Constitutional Ethics Walsh, Lawrence E. (1997) Firewall: the Iran-contra conspiracy and cover-up. Boston, MA, W.W. Norton. Wolf, Julie (1999). The Iran-Contra affair. Retrieved February 25, 2008, from The American Experience. Website: www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/reagan/peopleevents/pande08.html Read More