The fact that US Presidents continue to hire someone so tyrannical, corrupt and murderous tells you everything you need to know about the nature of US foreign policy.
Caitlin Johnstone
CaitlinJohnstone.com
CNN reports that President Joe Biden has appointed criminal neocon Elliott Abrams to a position on the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, which the U.S. State Department says is responsible for “evaluating activities aimed at understanding foreign audiences , to inform and to influence”. and pays “close attention” to the US government’s official foreign propaganda agency, the US Agency for Global Media.
Referring to someone as a “neoconservative” is generally not a strictly technically correct description and is often used just to mean “warrior”.
In fact, however, Abrams is a bona fide neoconservative ideologue of the Project for a New American Century, with close ties to the oldguard neoconservatives of the 1970s, and has spent decades helping to promote violent US imperialism in Latin America and the Middle East.
Abrams not only served as the Trump administration’s special representative for Iran and Venezuela (two of the countries where former President Donald Trump’s foreign policy was most murderous), but is probably best known for his role in the criminal coverup of Iran admitted disadvantages during the Reagan administration.
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CNN, which is notoriously reluctant to criticize both U.S. foreign policy and the Democratic presidential administration, has been surprisingly critical of the issue in its coverage of Biden’s nomination of Abrams to office.
In an article titled “Biden Appoints Controversial Former Trump Nominee to Commission on Public Diplomacy,” CNN’s Jack Forrest writes:
“Elliott Abrams, who has served in three Republican administrations, most recently served as the Trump administration’s special envoy to Iran and Venezuela, where he was tasked with leading the campaign to replace Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
The Republican insider’s long history in foreign policy is marred by a 1991 guilty plea to withholding information about the IranContra affair, which earned him two misdemeanor charges, two years of probation and 100 hours of community service though his crimes were later pardoned by President George HW Bush.
The IranContra covert operation, which took place during Abrams’ tenure as Deputy Secretary of State in the Reagan administration, involved funding antiCommunist rebels in Nicaragua from the proceeds of arms sales to Iran, despite Congress prohibiting such funding.
Abrams served again under former President Ronald Reagan and was also criticized in a report by Human Rights Watch for attempting to discredit reports of the massacre of 1,000 people by trained and equipped military units in testimony before the Senate in February 1982 downplayed in the Salvadoran town of El Mozote in December 1981 the largest massacre in recent Latin American history.
He insisted the reported death toll was “incredible” and “lauded” the military battalion behind the mass killings positions he didn’t retract when they were exposed during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing in 2019. by Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Democrat from Minnesota, who used her history in Latin America to question her credibility.
If you’re so gross that even CNN is grossed out by you, you’re a special kind of gross.
As Forrest noted, this would be the fourth presidential administration that Abrams served, even though he was a committed criminal and, despite every opportunity, encouraged bloodshed in some of the most notorious criminal operations in the US empire.
Abrams is such a callous killer that during a conference in 1985 he openly admitted that the purpose of helping the Contras in Nicaragua was “to enable the people fighting with us to use more violence,” and that he encouraged US military violence against Iraq. Throughout his career he has negotiated Syria and Iran with remarkable vehemence.
The fact that someone so tyrannical, corrupt and ruthless should continue to be appointed to positions related to US foreign policy tells you everything you need to know about the nature of US foreign policy.
Indeed, it is a damning indictment of our entire civilization that swamp monsters like Elliott Abrams remain valued members of society, rather than outcast outcasts who cannot safely show their face in public.
They should be kicked out of any city they try to invade and not given entrylevel jobs that pay minimum wage. Instead, they are hired as highprofile commentators, thinktank pundits, and political officials, delivering expert insight into some of the most pressing issues in the world.
To paraphrase a quote often attributed to Jiddu Krishnamurti, being well rewarded in a deeply ill society is not an indicator of health.
Because our society is so deeply ill, one of the quickest ways to gain wealth and reputation is to be as obnoxious as Elliott Abrams. That’s the twisted inside you have to be to rise to prominence in the US power structure: be willing to say and do whatever is necessary to ensure the continued dominance of a global empire run on human blood.