Thursday, February 14, 2019

This is What Should Happen


In my humble opinion, if someone's history involves covering up a massacre (El Mozote in El Salvador), supporting a dictator later convicted of genocide (Rios-Montt, in Guatemala) and withholding evidence in Iran-Contra (where the Reagan Administration sought to extralegally arm the Contras in Nicaragua), maybe that person's diplomatic expertise should very well be questioned.

This is very different to how "old hands" in the foreign policy business have often been treated, and Abrams' response to Omar shows it. And there have been no small number of supporters of Abrams who know him from CFR or other associations who somehow don't think that there's something about being tangentially connected with atrocities in countries (whose people still try to seek asylum here due to the very long-term destabilization that shitty diplomatic policies exacerbated) that might, even a little, let's say, be disqualifying.

Well, no. If his work in these areas had really bad outcomes that were appalling for human rights and involved mass graves, maybe whether he's otherwise a decent and well-educated chap who pays his bar tab and scintillates at social gatherings is not really germane here. Maybe it takes an outsider to the Washington culture who appreciates the import of bad diplomacy, mass killing, and population displacement, to say the thing that ought to be said.

There's reason to believe Abram's judgement with respects to Venezuela might be already influenced by past information.  I'm no fan of Maduro, who looks to me to be a thief. I just believe that a hand less bloodied should be involved in a region where the people have already suffered so much privation.  In any event, he was only subjected to a harsh question--and that should not be considered out of bounds. It is what should happen, because our diplomats abroad should be answerable to the people they represent and report honestly and deal faithfully.

2 comments:

Formerly Amherst said...

Greetings, Vixen. David Duke really admires Rep. Omar, and he tweeted an atta-girl because he approves of her blatant anti-Semitism. You know -- Nazis always like to align themselves with people who hate Jews. Omar tweeted that there is a war going on inside of her. I suppose we'll eventually find out what that means.

Here's my perspective:

Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream?
For these red lips, with all their mournful pride,
Mournful that no new wonder may betide,
Troy passed away in one high funeral gleam,
And Usna's children died.

We and the laboring world are passing by:
Amid men's souls, that waver and give place
Like the pale waters in their wintry race,
Under the passing stars, foam of the sky,
Lives on this lonely face.

Bow down, archangels, in your dim abode:
Before you were, or any hearts to beat,
Weary and kind one lingered by His seat;
He made the world to be a grassy road
Before her grassy feet.

--The Rose of the World, by W B Yeats

Ten Bears said...

David Duke? The cartoon character? The Laughingstock of Louisiana? Li' Abner in a suit and a bad haircut? His mother was his cousin. White fucking trash. Real credible.

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