Negroponte From Central America to Iraq, by Noam Chomsky

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2dleft

Wed, 10 May 2006 18:31:11 EDT

Negroponte's Death Squads Relocate

 

 

 

 

John Negroponte exports his Central American Death Squads of the

1980's to Iraq now:

 

 

" From Central America to Iraq, by Noam Chomsky "

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20040806.htm

 

From Central America to Iraq

Noam Chomsky

 

Khaleej Times, August 6, 2004

 

ONE moral truism that should not provoke controversy is the principle

of universality: We should apply to ourselves the same standards we

apply to others - in fact, more stringent ones. Commonly, if states

have the power to do so with impunity, they disdain moral truisms,

because those states set the rules.

 

That's our right if we declare ourselves uniquely exempt from the

principle of universality. And so we do, constantly. Every day brings

new illustrations.

 

Just last month, for example, John Negroponte went to Baghdad as US

ambassador to Iraq, heading the world's largest diplomatic mission,

with the task of handing over sovereignty to Iraqis to fulfil Bush's

'messianic mission' to graft democracy to the Middle East and the

world, or so we are solemnly informed.

 

But nobody should overlook the ominous precedent: Negroponte learned

his trade as US ambassador to Honduras in the 1980s, during the

Reaganite phase of many of the incumbents in Washington, when the

first war on terror was declared in Central America and the Middle East.

 

In April, Carla Anne Robbins of The Wall Street Journal wrote about

Negroponte's Iraq appointment under the heading Modern Proconsul. In

Honduras, Negroponte was known as 'the proconsul', a title given to

powerful administrators in colonial times. " There, he presided over

the second largest embassy in Latin America, with the largest CIA

station in the world at that time - and not because Honduras was a

centrepiece of world power.

 

Robbins observed that Negroponte has been criticised by human-rights

activists for " covering up abuses by the Honduran military " - a

euphemism for large-scale state terror - " to ensure the flow of US

aid " to this vital country, which was " the base for President Reagan's

covert war against Nicaragua's Sandinista government. "

 

The covert war was launched after the Sandinista revolution took

control in Nicaragua. Washington's professed fear was that a second

Cuba might develop in this Central American nation. In Honduras,

proconsul Negroponte's task was to supervise the bases where a

terrorist mercenary army - the Contras - was trained, armed and sent

to overthrow the Sandinistas.

 

In 1984, Nicaragua responded in a way appropriate to a law-abiding

state by taking its case against the United States to the World Court

in the Hague. The court ordered the United States to terminate the

'unlawful use of force' -- in lay terms, international terrorism --

against Nicaragua and to pay substantial reparations. But Washington

ignored the court, then vetoed two UN Security Council resolutions

affirming the judgment and calling on all states to observe

international law.

 

US State Department legal adviser Abraham Sofaer explained the

rationale. Since most of the world cannot be " counted on to share our

view " , we must " reserve to ourselves the power to determine " how we

will act and which matters fall " essentially within the domestic

jurisdiction of the United States, as determined by the United States "

- in this case the actions in Nicaragua that the court condemned.

 

Washington's disregard of the court decree and its arrogance towards

the international community are perhaps relevant to the current

situation in Iraq. The campaign in Nicaragua left a dependent

democracy, at an incalculable cost. Civilian deaths have been

estimated at tens of thousands - proportionately, a death toll

" significantly higher than the number of US persons killed in the US

Civil War and all the wars of the 20th century combined, " writes

Thomas Carothers, a leading historian of the democratisation of Latin

America.

 

Carothers writes from the perspective of an insider as well as a

scholar, having served in Reagan's State Department during the

'democracy enhancement' programmes in Central America. The Reagan-era

programmes were 'sincere' though a 'failure', according to Carothers,

because Washington would tolerate only " limited, top-down forms of

democratic change that did not risk upsetting the traditional

structures of power with which the United States has long been allied. "

 

This is a familiar historical refrain in the pursuit of visions of

democracy, which Iraqis apparently comprehend, even if we choose not

to. Today, Nicaragua is the second-poorest country in the hemisphere

(above Haiti, another main target of US intervention during the 20th

century). About 60 per cent of Nicaraguan children under age two are

afflicted with anaemia from severe malnutrition - only one grim

indication of what is hailed as a victory for democracy.

 

The Bush administration claims to want to bring democracy to Iraq,

using the same experienced official as in Central America. During

Negroponte's confirmation hearings, the international terrorist

campaign in Nicaragua received passing mention but is considered of no

particular significance, thanks, presumably, to the exemption of our

glorious selves from the principle of universality.

 

Several days after Negroponte's appointment, Honduras withdrew its

small contingent of forces from Iraq. That might have been a

coincidence. Or maybe the Hondurans remember something from the time

when Negroponte was there that we prefer to forget.

 

http://www.chomsky.info