As you may know, a convicted -- but pardoned! -- Iran-Contra criminal, Mr. Elliot Abrams, was recently appointed Mr. Democracy by the White House. Specifically he has just become Deputy National Security Adviser for global democracy strategy. Reporter Bob Parry, who broke the Iran-Contra affair, suggests, in an interview with "Democracy Now", that Abrams has a unique point of view on what "democracy" means:

Finding common cause in supporting the Contra death squads in those days was Reverend Moon, owner of the Washington Times, whose right-hand man cut the $100,000 check that opened Oliver North's "Freedom Fund."

Well, it seems that Moon and Abrams haven't drifted apart since the Contra days. In 1998, Abrams hit the road to speak at a number of Moon's events.

In November, 1998, Moon's Unification Church hosted (through a front group, the "International Coalition For Religious Freedom") a seminar in Brazil. The conference tackled (along with the Scientologist perpsective and others) four "urgent contemporary problems":

• 1. Reverend Moon still banned from visiting various European countries
• 2. Parents keep hiring "deprogrammers" to kidnap young people who've left them for the Moon movement, Japanese government not doing squat about it
• 3. Japan not letting Reverend Moon visit (its Supreme Court having recently convicted his church of a gargantuan campaign to take the elderly for millions)
• 4. Followers in Moon's "True Family" still being called "cultists"

One featured speaker at the up-with-Moon conference was Elliot Abrams, according to this account in a Moon publication. He came all the way down to Sao Paolo to deliver a boilerplate speech on religious freedom that was "greeted with great enthusiasm by the participants."

And what is Moon's global democracy strategy? He openly preaches that it should be abolished and replaced with something called "Godism," declaring in a 1987 speech:

In that speech, Moon also said this of the U.S.:

Another Moon event that Abrams was drawn to was that summer's Special Convocation On The Family And World Peace. Columnist Maggie Gallagher, payola pundit, came too, according to Moon's Unification News.

At the opening banquet, Moon took the stage and said:

And before both of these appearances, in May that year, Abrams had also appeared in Tokyo on Moon's behalf, according to the Web site True Parents.

Some context: Reverend's Moon preacher Michael Jenkins claimed last year to have briefed "key American decisionmakers in the state department, Capitol Hill and beyond" on Middle East policy.

Updated and edited

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