Bush has nominated John Negroponte to be the US's first Director of National Intelligence. For those who don't know, Negroponte is currently the US's "ambassador" (proconsul) to Iraq. But more importantly, his history should rule him out of any such position. From 1981 to 85, Negroponte served as ambassador to Honduras, where he oversaw the training and operations of the US-backed death squads who kidnapped, tortured and killed thousands of Honduran leftists (not to mention the odd American nun). He also helped run America's illegal secret war against Nicaragua, part of which involved funelling arms to the Contras in violation of US law and UN sanctions (those with unfashionably long memories may remember this as the Iran-Contra scandal). In all of this, Negroponte showed his disdain for a fundamental principle of democratic government: civilian oversight and control of the military and intelligence services. To appoint someone with these attitudes to head America's intelligence services is simply begging for the same abuses to occur again.
But is this really surprising? In an administration which has appointed torture-excuser Alberto Gonzales as Attorney-General, which runs a system of rendition and torture by proxy, and which has speculated about using death squads in Iraq, Negroponte fits right in...
3 comments:
That would be the same administration fomenting righteous wars because nation states would like to develop nuclear weapons, while: - it sits on the world's largest stockpiles of nuclear weapons, - has unilaterally withdraw from weapons reduction treaties, - has signalled it's intentions to begin development of tactical nuclear devices...? Mmm, thought so.
Posted by Anonymous : 2/18/2005 02:16:00 PM
A good summary of Negroponte's past life in Honduras and beyond.
Posted by Hans Versluys : 2/19/2005 11:47:00 AM
Hypocrisy just implies that the person is doing one thing wrong and one thing right (or one wrong attitude and one right one etc). the opposite position is ALSO hypocricy.
So do you support the US having nuclear weapons and the rest of the world having nuclear weapons OR do you support the US's actions against other countries with nukes and also support the disarmament of the US?
If you oppose the USA on both issues then in itself the argument just points out your own hypocrisy.
It’s amazing how often people do that.
Posted by Genius : 2/19/2005 04:29:00 PM
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