Trump’s Victory Seals the Coffin of “Bush-Clinton era” Which Lasted Three Decades
So much is being written now about Donald Trump’s victory in the United States’ presidential election. Few analyses however, if any, are paying attention to a remarkable development, namely the end of the Bush-Clinton era. You might have not paid much attention to it (in all likelihood, you never heard of it), but it started in the 1980’s, and lasted all the way to 2016. Let us go back in time, then.
This is how it worked: starting in 1981, either a Bush or a Clinton was in the White House (as a powerful Vice President or as the President himself) for years onwards. Or, later, in charge of foreign policy. If one recalls, from 1981 to 1898, Republican George H. W. Bush, also known as George Bush Senior, served as Vice President under Ronald Reagan. Being a former Director of the mighty Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), it is only fair to describe Bush Senior as a powerful Vice President. As the founding father of an era, he deserves a closer look.
Those were the Cold War years, and the CIA was quite a big deal (it still is, of course). The Agency is well known for teaching torture technices to foreign groups, as well as promoting “regime chances” (a code for coup d’état) false flag terrorist attacks, assassinations of foreign leaders, and the like. During the Regan years, keeping up with such a record, Bush admittedly played a role in the so-called Iran–Contra scandal which was about the illegal sale of arms to Iran and then clandestinely using the arms sale to fund the Nicaragua anti-communist rebel group known as the Contras. The Contras were involved in death squads, cocaine dealing, terrorism and torture. To make matters worse, the CIA was accused of getting involved in the Contras narcotraffic operations.
According to diplomat Peter Dale Scott, historian Alfred McCoy, and journalists Gary Webb and Alexander Cockburn, this is in line with a long record of CIA involvement in the dope trade. Back to the Iran-Contra affair: at the time, CIA agent Barry Seal took part in bringing at least three billion dollars worth of cocaine through Mena Airport (Arkansas). This is where Bush and Clinton meet: while Bush was part of the administration running the Iran-Contra, Bill Clinton, who later became President, was the then governor of Arkansas and was accused of being complicit in this operation. That is not the only alleged connection Clinton has to the organized crime world, by the way: his brother Roger Clinton had ties to the Gambino crime family and even served time for cocaine dealing – only to be later pardoned by President Bill Clinton.
Back to Bush Senior, he was so powerful a vice that when former American Nazi Party member John Hinckley Jr. shot and injured President Reagan in March 30, 1981, in an attempted murder, rumors and conspiracy theories were spread about Bush being involved in the deed so as to rise to the Presidency. The fact the Hincley family had connections with the Bush family did not help much in that regard: for one thing, the shooter’s brother (Scott Hinckley, Vice President of the family’s Vanderbilt Energy Corp) was friends with George Bush’s son (Neil Bush). Scott Hincley was in fact going to attend a dinner party at Neil Bush home before the incident. It is a small world.
George Bush Senior did not be
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LewRockwell.com is a libertarian website that publishes articles, essays, and blog posts advocating for minimal government, free markets, and individual liberty. The site was founded by Lew Rockwell, an American libertarian political commentator, activist, and former congressional staffer. The website often features content that is critical of mainstream politics, state intervention, and foreign policy, among other topics. It is a platform frequently used to disseminate Austrian economics, a school of economic thought that is popular among some libertarians.
