So few who have the courage and are inclined to write about moral values. So amazing Obama put another medal on the chest of war crminal Henry Kissinger. I’m afraid Brzezinski and Madeleine Albright weren’t much better, yet their influence on the Democratic Party is continuing. From your link (h/t seabe) …
Why Is Hillary Clinton Bragging About This Endorsement?
Hillary Rodham Clinton picked up the endorsement of one John Negroponte:
In a statement provided by the Clinton campaign, Negroponte touted the former secretary of state’s “leadership qualities” in his decision. “She will bring to the Presidency the skill, experience and wisdom that is needed in a President and Commander in Chief,” he said. “Having myself served in numerous diplomatic and national security positions starting in 1960, I am convinced that Secretary Clinton has the leadership qualities that far and away qualify her best to be our next President.”
As it happens, I’ve just finished reading an early copy of Eileen Markey’s upcoming biography of Maura Clarke, one of the four American churchwomen raped and murdered by soldiers in El Salvador in 1980. These were the four women who Alexander Haig, that splendid nutball, said were killed trying to run a roadblock, and whom the late Jeane Kirkpatrick slandered as Communist sympathizers. The book is a vivid (if maddening) reminder of how the United States sold its moral credibility for a bag of magic jelly beans and the smiles of a fading actor. John Negroponte was in the middle of all of that. His endorsement should be as worthless as the promises he made to the Americans who came to him pleading for the lives of the people with whom they worked.
“In the years since, much has come to light about this pivotal event in the history of U.S. interventions in Central America. But the full story of how one of the most junior officers in the U.S. embassy in San Salvador tracked down the killers has never been told. It is the tale of an improbable bond between a Salvadoran soldier with a guilty conscience and a young American diplomat with a moral conscience. Different as they were, both men shared a willingness to risk their lives in the name of justice.”
[Source: The Diplomat and the Killer]And if anyone thinks I’m going to drop this because Donald Trump is a crazy person, by all means, find another shebeen.
Manufacturing Consent – The Political Economy of the Mass Media by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky
Secretary of State Alexander Haig stated before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs that the evidence “led one to believe” that the four women were killed trying to run a roadblock-a shameless lie that was soon acknowledged as such by the State Department. The Reagan ambassador to the UN, Jeane Kirkpatrick, went Haig one better, suggesting that the four women were political activists for the “Frente “-as with Haig’s statement, an outright lie-hinting quite broadly that they were fair game.
Although Kirkpatrick also asserted that the Salvadoran government “unequivocally” was “not responsible” for the murders, evidence was soon available that showed that members of the National Guard had killed the four women. The administration then moved to the position that it was clear that the local guardsmen had “acted alone.” This was asserted and reiterated despite the absence of any supportive investigation, and important leads suggesting the contrary were ignored.
A propaganda model would expect that this preferred government explanation would be honored by the mass media, and that in contrast with the Popieluszko case, where useful points could be scored by searching for villainy at the top, the mass media would now be less eager to find that which their government was anxious to avoid.
See Vietnam’s Phoenix Program and CIA’s manual: Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare.
See more recent links during the Obama administration of Ambassador Robert S. Ford and his role in the Syrian revolt. Death squads in Baghdad, death squads in Homs and later in Kiev …
○ An Ardent Flame
Witness to Distant Suffering, Human Rights and Unworthy Victims in the Coverage by The New York Times and
Two Journals of the Religious Left of the 1980s Civil Wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua.
