Elliot Abrams: Eyewitness to a War Criminal -Dennis J Bernstein
 

[URL]https://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/55292-rsn-elliot-abrams-eyewitness-to-a-war-criminal[/URL]
[QUOTE]Through the 1980’s, I wrote extensively about the impact of US policies in Central America, particularly in El Salvador and Guatemala, which included the training and funding of brutal dictators, corrupt politicians, and paramilitary death squads — iron-fisted rulers who ravaged and tortured their people, and murdered tens of thousands of those who tried to resist — teachers, farmers, campesinos union people, priests and nuns and church workers, and generally speaking the very poorest of the poor.

In El Salvador, US-supported neo-Nazis such as Major Roberto D’Aubuisson raged regularly about Jesuit Communist scum that needed to be eradicated by any means necessary. D’Aubuisson studied unconventional warfare in the U.S. and Taiwan. He once told European journalists, “You Germans were very intelligent. You realized that the Jews were responsible for the spread of communism, so you killed them.” Former U.S. Ambassador Robert White called D’Aubuisson a “pathological killer.”

Many of those named by D’Aubuisson and other military death-squad activists would end up at the bottom of a ravine, hanging from a tree, or just lying akimbo in the street, shredded and providing an abundance of food for the vultures. The bullets that tore their bodies to shreds were often paid for by US tax dollars.

In her newly released book, [I]What You Have Heard Is True: A Memoir of Witness and Resistance[/I], noted poet Carolyn Forche offers an eyewitness account of the kind of abject violence supported and encouraged by the US in general, and closely supervised at the time by pardoned Iran Contra criminal Elliot Abrams, who was at the time the assistant secretary for Inter-American Affairs.[/QUOTE][QUOTE][B]Dennis Bernstein:[/B] Welcome, Francisco Herrera. Thank you for your willingness to talk about your eyewitness experiences in El Salvador through the 1980s — what you witnessed and your ability to overcome your own fear in order to bring medical aid and comfort to the many Central American victims of US foreign policy. Tell us when you first learned about Abrams and what some of the results were of the kind of policies he was overseeing there.
[B]
Francisco Herrera:[/B] I first became aware of the work of Elliot Abrams in 1981, when we were commemorating the first anniversary of the murder of Archbishop Romero, who was killed by the military under the leadership of Abrams and folks like him. I was in San Diego working in a Jesuit parish. From 1981 through 1985, we regularly collected medicines and received refugee families in San Diego, in LA, and in San Francisco and Oakland. We dealt with the trauma of people who had seen their relatives cut into pieces or burnt alive, who had survived horrific torture. I first went to El Salvador itself, coming from Panama, in 1985. I spent a few days there and then began preparing to work at Jesuit Refugee Services, which was operating internal refugee camps in El Salvador, helping people who had been displaced by war. It was basically a copy of the Phoenix Operation in Vietnam, where they were bombing the countryside and forcing survivors into refugee camps, kidnapping children and selling them off, just like they had done in Argentina. Ironically, this is what is happening again with the kids that Trump has separated from their families, and who are now being given up for adoption and put in foster care. From 1985 to 1992, I was either working there or taking delegations in and out of El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala.
[B]
DB:[/B] Let’s talk a little about the kinds of things that were happening in El Salvador as a result of the policy imposed by, among others, Elliot Abrams. This was a slaughterous military trained by the US government. Many who fled did so because the United States supported this so-called anti-communist slaughter.
[B]
Herrera:[/B] One of the things Elliot Abrams brought to El Salvador was cocaine. I remember the number of testimonies of soldiers who were traumatized after being forced to inhale cocaine so that they would be ready to go and kill unarmed children and families. The cocaine enabled soldiers to commit the atrocities they did. I remember one night I was counting the bombs I could hear in the distance. Within an hour, I had already recorded hearing over 250 explosions. It was very commonplace to see bodies along the roads. I remember one guy in his early twenties the death squads had left for dead. They had injected him with poison and dumped him in one of the dumps where they would throw human beings. He was able to drag himself to a house that rescued him. Every night we would have to clean his wounds and we had to put a rag in his mouth because we couldn’t afford to have him yelling and risk that a neighbor would hear and report us to the government. You never knew who would accuse you of being a communist or whatever.
[/QUOTE]

Is this guy saying that he [i]witnessed[/i] Elliott Abrams actually [i]in command[/i] of the soldiers that killed Archbishop Romero? And that he witnessed Elliott Abrams actually bringing cocaine into El Salvador?

I didn't think so.

I don't doubt that the atrocities are as described. I also don't doubt that US aid wound up, at least in part, paying for them. But it doesn't change the inconvenient fact that command responsibility for the El Salvador military was and is in El Salvador.

I [i]am[/i] aware of allegations (which I find credible) that El Salvador's Ilopango Air Base was used for sending drugs [i]to the USA[/i] while arms were going to the Contras, and the CIA was running the show. If Abrams was involved in [i]that[/i], it would be something that under US law could (in theory) send him to a Supermax for a long stretch. Be a darn good use of our drug laws IMO, but I'm not holding my breath.

[url=https://www.apnews.com/6ba2f69b77e2457da64593a7b8eced16]Venezuela power outage[/url]

Maduro is blaming the US, making unsupported accusations of "sabotage" at the main hydro facility.

They've been having intermittent outages all over the country lately. They've been blaming those on "sabotage" too.

To me, it sounds like a case of maintenance just not getting done. You start getting intermittent problems, with increasing frequency. And if you let things slide long enough, you finally have a major kerflooey. This brings to mind...[quote]And what accomplished villains these old engineers were! What diabolical ways to sabotage they found! Nikolai Karlovich von Meek, of the People's Commissariat of Railroads, pretended to be terribly devoted to the development of the new economy, and would hold forth for hours on end about the economic problems involved in the construction of socialism, and he loved to give advice. One such pernicious piece of advice was to increase the size of freight trains and not worry about heavier than average loads. The GPU exposed von Meek, and he was shot: his objective had been to wear out rails and roadbeds, freight cars and locomotives, so as to leave the Republic without railroads in case of foreign military intervention! When, not long afterward, the new People's Commissar of Railroads, Comrade Kaganovich, ordered that average loads should be increased, and even doubled and tripled them (and for this discovery received the Order of Lenin along with others of our leaders) — the malicious engineers who protested became known as limiters. They raised the outcry that this was too much, and would result in the breakdown of the rolling stock, and they were rightly shot for their lack of faith in the possibilities of socialist transport.[/quote]-- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, [u]The Gulag Archipelago[/u]

Debate Over Labeling Omar Obscures Vital Debate on Israel/Palestine
 

[URL]https://fair.org/home/debate-over-labeling-omar-obscures-vital-debate-on-israel-palestine/[/URL]
Well What do you Know? There has been just a bit of context missing in the baying of the hounds about Representative Omar's remarks. But, why let journalism get in the way of launching a firestorm of controversy?

[QUOTE]Though it was not their intention, Ilhan Omar’s critics did her a favor: They proved the very point she made at the Progressive Issues Town Hall at Busboys and Poets bookstore in Washington, DC, last week.
Referring to herself and fellow Democratic Rep. Rashid Tlaib, who was also on the panel, Omar [URL="https://www.facebook.com/busboysandpoets/videos/353129905294312/"]said[/URL]:[INDENT]It’s almost as if, every single time we say something, regardless of what it is we say, that is supposed to be about foreign policy or engagement or advocacy about ending oppression or the freeing of every human life and wanting dignity, we get to be labeled something, and that ends the discussion. Because we end up defending that, and nobody ever gets to have the broader debate of what is happening with Palestine.
[/INDENT]Of course, you wouldn’t know what she said or what point she was making, because the media and the politicians attacking her ignored those remarks and focused almost exclusively on a single sentence she added: “So I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is okay for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country.”

Jonathan Chait’s article in [B]New York[/B] magazine ([URL="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/02/omar-israel-hawks-allegiance-foreign-country-anti-semitism.html"]2/28/19[/URL]), which launched the days of outrage that followed, reported only on this “allegiance” sentence with the headline “Ilhan Omar Accuses Israel Hawks of ‘Allegiance to a Foreign Country.’” Yet the article Chait linked to as his source, a rather neutral report on the event in the [B]Jewish Insider[/B] ([URL="http://jewishinsider.com/15799/reps-omar-and-tlaib-anti-semitism-charges-shut-down-criticism-of-israel/"]2/28/19[/URL]), under the headline “Reps. Omar and Tlaib: Antisemitism Charges Shut Down Criticism of Israel,” contained the earlier sentences and a context for Omar’s remarks, which Chait chose to ignore.

[U]It also included the moderator’s question to which Omar was responding[/U], asking what[INDENT]we as a community here can do to support you criticizing Israel for some of the war crimes that it has done so that it’s not seen as “you’re antisemitic”? Because you’re not criticizing the religion, you’re not criticizing Jewish people, you’re criticizing the government policies.
[/INDENT][U]But Chait omitted that in his hit piece.[/U]
[/QUOTE]

Re: Debate Over Labeling Omar Obscures Vital Debate on Israel/Palestine
 

[QUOTE=kladner;510489][URL]https://fair.org/home/debate-over-labeling-omar-obscures-vital-debate-on-israel-palestine/[/URL]
Well What do you Know? There has been just a bit of context missing in the baying of the hounds about Representative Omar's remarks. But, why let journalism get in the way of launching a firestorm of controversy?[/QUOTE]
I agree, the debate over Israeli actions [i]is[/i] being obscured. IMO Rep. Omar needs to learn to avoid "hot button" phrases that make is [i]sound[/i] like she's being more anti-Jewish than she actually is. At this point, however, I am not optimistic about her re-election prospects. If you think the outcry is bad now, just think what oppo ads will be like...

At the same time, it takes a lot of willful disregard of context to substitute "anti-Semitic" or "anti-Jewish" for "critical of Israel government policies and practices."

Regarding the term "anti-Semitic," I chuckle when I recall an interview with Anwar Sadat in which the reporter intimated he was anti-Semitic. He cooly replied, "How can I be anti-Semitic, when I am a Semite?"

I also note that Israel's policy of making "settlements" in territories it occupies but are still in dispute, does indeed constitute a war crime under the Rome Statute [Article 8, section 2(b)(viii)]:[quote]The transfer, directly or indirectly, by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies, or the deportation or transfer of all or parts of the population of the occupied territory within or outside this territory;[/quote]That's one reason Israel isn't a State party to the ICC. China is a non-participant for similar reasons.

Trying to prevent States from using the boycott to protest Israel's unjust policies and practices is, IMO, un-American.

Agreed on all points. LOL @ the Sadat story.,

The Sins of Ilhan Omar Start With Challenging Rigid Orthodoxy
 

[URL]https://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/55395-rsn-the-sins-of-ilhan-omar-start-with-challenging-rigid-orthodoxy[/URL]
[QUOTE]Democrats have gone all atwitter (pun intended), scattering ruffled feathers all over the barnyard as if a fox were after them when the only serious threat to their blinkered preconceptions comes from a bird of different plumage. Not all Democrats are squawking like chickens with their heads cut off (as it were), but enough of the older, backward-looking birds are making enough noise to make the whole party look idiotic.

In plainer language, [U]the Democratic Party remains in the grip of white privilege, which can only be a losing position in a country where there’s no effective challenge to Trump for the white supremacy vote. Want proof? Nominate Biden.[/U] But that’s only a prediction. What’s going on right now in the House of Representatives is reprehensible enough as reflexive ideologues swarm to block the smallest whiff of any fresh air.

[U]The demonization of Rep. Ilhan Omar is a hari-kari move for the party, led by people dug in against almost any real change, doing as little as possible about all the actual crises.[/U] Demonizing a forthright congresswoman from Minnesota, who came to this country as a 12-year-old refugee from Somalia, is reactionary, mindless, unjustified and fundamentally stupid. Stupid? Yes, stupid, because it helps Republicans inflame division among Democrats with no offsetting gain. The American role in Somalia has been destructive for decades, but who’s thinking about apologizing for that?
[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=kladner;510496][URL]https://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/55395-rsn-the-sins-of-ilhan-omar-start-with-challenging-rigid-orthodoxy[/URL][quote]The demonization of Rep. Ilhan Omar is a hari-kari move for the party,[/quote][/QUOTE]The phrase "hari-kiri move" (which I'm guessing is intended to mean "suicidal" or "self-destructive") is really bizarre.

First, it uses a mipsplepping of "hara-kiri" ("stomach cutting").

Second, "hara-kiri" is itself a misnomer for a form of ritual suicide more properly called seppuku.

Third, the usage is about as culturally inapt as it gets. Seppuku was ritual suicide by disembowelment in feudal Japan, performed by an individual samurai who had been ordered to do so by his liege lord, or who had failed in his duty, or who was facing, say, the ultimate dishonor of being captured alive by an enemy. A modern-day vestige is when a company exec resigns -- or commits suicide, as did the head of the Japan Airlines catering service in Anchorage after a 1975 outbreak of food poisoning, in order to assume responsibility for a failure of his company. A somewhat similar European practice is "falling on one's sword."

In committing seppuku, the samurai was taking [i]individual[/i] responsibility for his dishonor, thus saving his family, liege lord or peers from being stained with his dishonor. In the present instance, it is the [i]group[/i] acting in a self-destructive manner in order to avoid [i]an individual[/i] highlighting a [i]collective[/i] dishonor which the group already bears.

The Party's "demonization" of Rep. Omar does fit fairly well with another aspect of Japanese culture still extant, described by the proverb, "The nail that sticks out will be hammered down," which says that conformity to the group, and being seen as a member of the group, is all-important. Criticism or individual stardom are simply unacceptable. This could be seen as detrimental in some cases. It is certainly alien to the US devotion to individualism.

I saw a curious example of this idea in practice about 30 years ago in a PBS program about baseball in Japan, "American Game, Japanese Rules." An American baseball player had signed up with a Japanese team. He was bigger than his teammates, so generally a better slugger. He remarked that, when his hitting began to outshine his teammates' hitting too much, things would happen, like pitches over his head would start being called strikes.

Dark days -- and nights -- in Venezuela
 

During the blackout, the citizens of Caracas are able to see the stars at night. I'm sure they are impatient to lose the privelege.

The AP story [url=https://www.apnews.com/42d3c5c6d3d842b183b509e29bba87e4]What’s behind Venezuela’s historic blackout?[/url] points to poor maintenance, relying principally on a single power source, and lack of needed expertise in supervisory positions. Thumbing your nose at the laws of physics in that way is a sure recipe for disaster.

I noticed one error in the story, regarding Maduro's unevidenced accusations of a "cyberattack:"[quote]Three engineers consulted by The Associated Press with direct knowledge of the Guri’s operating systems say it is almost impossible. They explain that the computers that operate the monitoring system are not connected to the internet and can only communicate with each other, making them immune to an outside attack.

Anurag Srivastava, an engineering professor at Washington State University, said the only way to carry out a cyberattack in a closed system would be through physical access to the substation where the system is located.[/quote]I'm certainly no computer expert, but even [i]I[/i] know that "physical access" can be as simple as someone who works there connecting a removable media gizmo that's got malware on it.

I'm not accepting Maduro's unsupported accusations. I think the case for the failure being due to ongoing neglect is a strong one. And, he's offered no evidence. But I don't like the lazy overreach in trying to dismiss the "cyberattack" scapegoating out of hand.

Not that Maduro & Co. are doing any better:[quote]The government has also detained a journalist who had previously spoken about Venezuela’s vulnerabilities to a blackout, a video of which was shown on state television as proof he had prior knowledge of an attack.[/quote]

Given the lamentable mismanagement of Venezuela's power grid, somebody having said in advance that the country was vulnerable to a blackout, can't legitimately be accused of anything worse than belaboring the obvious.

One thing is certain: making bogus accusations, while failing to address the ongoing engineering and maintenance problems, ain't gonna get the lights back on.

The lights are back on in Venezuela!
 

[url=https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/13/americas/venezuela-blackout-restored-intl/index.html]Power has finally been restored to Venezuela, minister says[/url]

Good news, to be sure. I'm glad for the citizens of Venezuela who will no longer have to, e.g. use iffy sources of drinking water.

It seems the Venezuelan government can't keep its story straight about what caused the blackout:

[quote]The Information Minister used to the press conference to accuse supporters of the opposition leader, and Venezuela's self-declared interim president, Juan Guaido, of trying to bring down the electrical grid by plugging in all their appliances.

He said military exercises have been "ordered this weekend to protect the electric grid."

On Monday, Maduro said the recovery from power outages will be "little by little" and blamed the United States for attacking the power structure, saying the "imperialist government of the United States ordered this attack." He offered no proof for the claim.[/quote]It is not clear to me whether the Minister is referring to the grid being overloaded during restoration attempts, or brought down by overloading in the first place.

Maduro is also talking about purging "traitors" and "infiltrators" from the national electric company. Perhaps some of the generals he appointed to replace engineers he booted out, will now be sent to new posts -- the kind that stands in front of firing squads.

The Information Minister asked people to unplug appliances and turn off lights. Good idea!

On the request of Juan Guaido, the National Assembly has declared a "national state of emergency." This enables the Assembly to seek international aid [i]or intervention.[/i]

Let the "regime change" shrieking begin anew!

Rubio’s Gloating Betrays US Sabotage in Venezuela Power Blitz
 

"US imperialists are so desperate in their regime-change predations over Venezuela, they seem to have a problem controlling their drooling mouths." -Finian Cunningham
It seems that Rubio and Company are not the only folks slobbering in anticipation of regime change.
[QUOTE]It seems the Venezuelan government can't keep its story straight about what caused the blackout:[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE]The latest orgy of American gloating was triggered by the massive power outages to have hit Venezuela. No sooner had the South American country been blacked out from its power grid collapsing, senior US officials were crowing with perverse relish.

Republican Senator Marco Rubio – who has become a point man for the Trump administration in its regime-change campaign in Venezuela – was a little too celebratory. Within minutes of the nationwide power outage last Thursday, Rubio was having verbal orgasms about the “long-term economic damage”… “in the blink of an eye”. But it was his disclosure concerning the precise damage in the power grid that has led the Venezuelan government to accuse the US of carrying out a sabotage.

Information Minister Jorge Rodriguez noted how Rubio, in his tweeted comments “three minutes” after the power outage, mentioned failure of “back-up generators” in Venezuela’s main hydroelectric plant, known as the Guri Dam, located in Bolivar State. The dam supplies some 80 per cent of the Venezuelan population of 31 million with its electricity consumption.

Rodriguez mockingly ascribed “mystic skills” to Rubio because the Florida Republican senator appeared to know the precise nature of the power failure even before the Venezuelan authorities had determined it.

The Venezuelan government has since claimed that the failure in the electric grid was caused by a cyber attack on the computer system controlling the Guri Dam turbines. Caracas said it will present proof of its claims to the United Nations.[/QUOTE]