Good Enough

                In the wee hours of the night on January 16, 2016, pallets of shrink wrapped cash were filmed being loaded into the cargo hold of a plane in Geneva (I think, Geneva, you wouldn’t believe how elusive that one detail is). It peaked a little interest because that’s just not the kind of thing you see every day unless you live in a Latin clime where drug cartels are a big deal.

                Turns out it was $400 million in Swiss Francs and Euros being secretly (like the entire Iran nuclear deal) sent to our pals in Iran by the Obama administration as part of a three-installment payment totaling $1.7 billion. Barack forgot to tell Congress about it. Oops.

                The administration maintained it was a settlement, including interest, from a 1979 arms payment made by the Shah of Iran for which Iran received no guns or ordinance after the Ayatollah Go Crazy ran the Shah out in February of 1979. Even President Carter knew it was a bad idea to send guns and stuff to a new regime whose primary goals were to eliminate Israel from the face of the earth and bring “death to America” as they are so fond of chanting.

                1979? Really? It took 37 years for us to get around to deciding we needed to pay a debt after telling Iran to go pound sand (pun totally intended) back when Gilligan’s Island reruns were still on the air? Allegedly Barry O did the good citizens of the US of A a huge favor by avoiding a settlement before a Hague Tribunal that could have come to 10’s of billions of dollars.

                Man, those Hague guys have got a really full docket if it took them 37 years to get around to hearing that case. Call me skeptical. What’s the statute of limitations on an arms deal rip off? Anybody?

                But that hard to swallow wheelbarrow load full of manure is only one of the bothersome details of that whole transaction.

                It turns out the flight o’ cash was delayed until we knew four American citizens being held in Iran as spies had been released and were on a plane of their own. Barry claimed though, that the money was absolutely, unequivocally not ransom money. No way. That would be against U.S. law. It was a coincidental separate negotiation that was part of the new and improved Iran path to a nuclear weapon deal that Barry and that Rhodes (roads) Scholar John Kerry whipped up.

                In other words, we didn’t start saying “no” to anything Iran asked for until they got further down their wish list than 37 years ago. I’m almost surprised they remembered a payment made by a guy whose entire government was overthrown in a somewhat more than bloodless coup where the new government assumed none of the debt of the Shah’s but apparently felt entitled to all of the restitution. Whatever.

                That “separate negotiation” thing was a little thin, even for that chronic, pathological liar Barry Hussein Obama. As I recall, even CNN was having a little trouble swallowing that whopper. So the administration later released a statement that said the release of the prisoners at the exact same moment as the exchange of $400 million in cash might not have been entirely coincidental.

                But it still wasn’t ransom. It was “leverage.”

                Oh, ok. Good enough for the mainstream media.

                Except that days later two more Americans were arrested in Iran for looking like spies. Being under the microscope and all, we didn’t pay a ransom for them and they are enjoying their stay in a fine Iranian dungeon in the bowels of Tehran thanks to a spineless President who had an alarming soft spot for all things Muslim.

                So here’s another thing that kind of makes my head spin, the entire $1.7 billion toilet flush was made in cash. Cash. In 2016 when almost every transaction larger than a pack of gum is made electronically.

                There are $60 trillion in use by the world at the moment. (Those of you as good at math as this liberal arts major may have just realized your government owes one third of all the money in the world. Sleep well.) Only $6 trillion of that is actual currency. No joke. Everything else is done electronically.

                World historian Yuval Harari observed that over $50 trillion of the world’s wealth only exists on computer servers and money is moved from account to account almost exclusively electronically. “Only a criminal,” Harari writes, “buys a house, for example, by handing over a suitcase full of banknotes.”

                Hmmm.

                Barry O said we couldn’t transfer the money electronically because the very sanctions we put in place prevented any such financial transaction with Iran. Again, good enough for your mainstream media. But a cash transaction was OK?

                Oh no. That was illegal too. But taking 400 million American taxpayer dollars and exchanging them for Swiss Francs, Euros and whatever other currencies may have been on those pallets, that was fine. As long as they weren’t American dollars we’re just fine.

                It begs the question, how stupid did Barry O think the American public was? And apparently we were because there are no Robert Mueller’s pursuing this particular concrete, filmed illegal action by a sitting American president. Nope we’re busy trying to figure out if the Russians had a vested interest in whether or not Donald Trump gets two scoops of ice cream or not.

                Good enough for the mainstream media.

                Except that now Americans traveling to Iran (I know, hardly anybody would be stupid enough to do that) are extremely vulnerable to being kidnapped/arrested and held for precedented ransom--$100 million per head. Plus interest.

                Except that it is against U.S. policy and law, to pay ransom.

                Except that only the dim-witted would actually believe we were obligated to pay a 37-year-old debt to the government that replaced the government that was owed the debt and has been clamoring for an end to our country and way of life ever since.

                Except that no matter how much lipstick you put on it, paying another country $1.7 billion in shrink-wrapped, untraceable bank notes seems so, so wrong. How could any of that money go to anything corrupt? Oh, yeah, and the administration forgot to tell Congress about it because there was nothing shady going on.

                You know, part of a secret deal that was never approved by Congress in the first place so why should Barry have had to tell them about it?

                No need for a special investigator. Besides, it was close to two years ago. What difference could it possibly make now? Good enough for the mainstream media.

                Therein ends the actual blog. 1100 words.  If you’re interested, I looked up who the four guys were we “leveraged” back from Iran and you may see below.

                All were charged in closed door hearings and while some details of the charges are available Iran’s judicial system does not require disclosure of such information publicly.

                Washington Post Correspondent, Jason Rezaian. It makes me crazy we paid anything to get a journalist back from Iran’s dungeons where they all belong, let alone $100 million ($425 million with interest.)

                Former US Marine, Amir Hekmati. Various charges of espionage which allegedly all came as quite a shock to Hekmati.

                Christian Pastor, Saeed Abedini. As if being a Christian weren’t crime enough to get yourself beheaded in Iran they had thrown him out nine times and told him not to come back. I guess 10 was the magic number. It doesn’t seem like being a Christian should get you arrested but if you’re stupid enough to go back 10 times, I don’t know. Well, it was worth a few hundred million in leverage.

                Former Iranian soldier, Nosratollah Khosrawi-Roodsari. Nosy had run afoul of the Iranian government over some question about information he may or may not have been selling to the CIA in the 80’s so he fled to the U.S.. He thought he could sneak back in to visit Mom in 2003, knowing the only thing Iran keeps track of that long are arms payments by deposed dictators. He probably would have made it back out safely too but Iranian intelligence intercepted a late night drunken text to the FBI in which Nosy claimed to have some information they would be interested in.

                Honest to God, the internet news article described it as a “drunken text,” proving once again that brand new axiom: “Don’t text drunk after midnight.”