First thing is I don't give a damn what YOU call it. The $400 million was given to our govt from the Shah for weapons which were never delivered and we kept the money. Now our govt decided it was time to give that money back which was negotiated within the Nuke agreement. You can lie to yourself all you want but don't try to lie to the rest of us!!!! BTW, there will be more installments being paid over time since there is a lot of interest on that money. What are you going to say if there are no hostages to be returned the next time we send them a payment??
Did it ever occur to President Obama to ask why he couldn’t just cut a check to the Iranian regime? Outrage broke out this week over the revelation that Obama arranged to ship the mullahs piles of cash, worth $400 million and converted into foreign denominations, reportedly in an unmarked cargo plane. The hotly debated question was whether the payment, which the administration attributes to a 37-year-old arms deal, was actually a ransom paid for the release of American hostages Tehran had abducted. It is a waste of time to debate that point further. The Iranians have bragged that the astonishing cash payment was a ransom — and Obama has been telling us for months that we can trust the Iranians. The hostages were released the same day the cash arrived. One of the hostages has reported that the captives were detained an extra several hours at the airport and told they would not be allowed to leave until the arrival of another plane — inferentially, the unmarked cargo plane ferrying the cash. The reason American policy has always prohibited paying ransoms to terrorists and other abductors is that it only encourages them to take more hostages. And, as night follows day, Iran has abducted more Americans since Obama paid the cash. No matter how energetically the president tries to lawyer the ransom issue, if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck . . . More worth examining is why the transaction took the bizarre form that it did. To cut to the chase, I believe it was to camouflage — unsuccessfully — the commission of felony law violations. The Wall Street Journal has reported that the Justice Department strongly objected to the cash payment to Iran. As we shall see, that should come as no surprise. What is surprising is the Journal’s explanation of Justice’s concerns: Department officials, it is said, fretted that the transaction looked like a ransom payment. I don’t buy that. It is not a federal crime to pay a ransom; just to receive one. Our government’s stated disapproval of paying ransoms is a prudent policy, not a legal requirement. The Justice Department’s principal job is to enforce the laws, not to ensure good policy in foreign relations. It seems far more likely that Justice was worried that the transaction was illegal.
What is most likely is that you fools have to grasp on anything you can now to try one last time to hang something on Obama but it isn't going to work. All of this was reported 7 months ago and it was what it was--giving a country back money it had spent on planes but never got the planes. No one cares what you freakin' idiots think or want to believe!!!
