[Peace-discuss] (no subject)

[Mildred O'brien]

I came across an interesting fact in the N-G's "International History On This Date" (August 31, 1935) blurb on Saturday that should concern anti-war/peace-makers:                         "President Franklin Roosevelt signed an act prohibiting the export of U.S. arms to belligerents."  What is the duration of a Law?  Does legislation remain on the books until or unless repeal?  Of course the usual method  of violating law by opponents is to ignore it, as did Prescott Bush and others who profited from the Nazis, and the Reagan Administration when they defied (covertly) the Boland Amendments (1982 and 1984) prohibiting government funding of the Nicaraguan Contras.  Not until the plane carrying Eugene Hasenfus and CIA military supplies to the Contras was shot down over Nicaragua in 1986 were Oliver North, the Reagan Administration, NSC and CIA exposed violating the Boland law.  Hasenfus was convicted of terrorism in Nicaragua and sentenced to 30 years in prison but was pardoned by President Ortega a month later on humanitarian appeal by his wife; North was tried and convicted in U.S. Court for Iran-Contra and sentenced to three years (suspended).    We need binding laws to prohibit the export of U.S. arms today even more than in 1935! Midge
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