Elliott Abrams-From Iran-Contra to Bush's democracy czar.

[LiviaOlivia]

Elliott Abrams
From Iran-Contra to Bush's democracy czar.
By Michael Crowley
Posted Thursday, Feb. 17, 2005

Hours before the president's State of the Union address earlier this month—a perfect moment for burying inconvenient news—the White House announced the ascension of Elliott Abrams to the highest ranks of its foreign-policy team. Abrams has moved from the staff of the National Security Council to the post of deputy national security adviser. It's a significant promotion, one that gives Abrams both an elevated stature and new management powers. Specifically, the White House says Abrams will be in charge of "global democracy strategy," effectively making him Bush's democracy czar. In other words, Abrams is now the brains behind George Bush's grand mission to fix the world. Over the next four years, he may come to represent, more than anyone, the id of the Bush administration's foreign policy.

Why would the White House bury Abrams' promotion? Because he still hasn't shed his image as a Reaganite villain. As Iran-Contra prosecutor Lawrence Walsh prepared to bring a multicount felony indictment against him in 1987, Abrams pleaded guilty to misleading Congress, a misdemeanor crime. Many Democrats also revile him as the lead apologist for brutal Central American dictatorships in El Salvador and Guatemala during the 1980s. He's "the guy who lied and wheedled to aid and protect human rights abusers," The Nation's David Corn wrote upon Abrams' 2001 return to government. Surely the White House grasps the ironies here: A man accused of subverting the Constitution is leading its charge for democratic government; a reputed defender of dictators is working to depose them. In this sense, Abrams embodies Bush's foreign policy as a whole. The goals are noble—but are the methods sound?

~snip~

Like so many other neocons, Abrams ditched the Democratic party in the late 1970s because of its post-Vietnam foreign-policy timidity. After a meeting with Jimmy Carter, he declared the president "hopeless" about confronting the Soviets. He joined Reagan's State Department and in the name of anti-communism placed himself on the front lines of the administration's Central American proxy wars with the Soviets. Abrams was among the first to agitate for the downfall of Manuel Noriega, and his loathing of Augusto Pinochet led him to feud openly with Republican Sen. Jesse Helms, who urged cooperation with the Chilean strongman. But Abrams undercut his credibility by stubbornly defending the U.S.-backed military regime in El Salvador even after evidence emerged of regime-sponsored massacres. This made him a villain among liberals like New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis, who accused him of whitewashing human rights abuses. A famously tough political operator, Abrams gave as good as he got. "I would like to take a machine gun and mow Anthony Lewis down," his wife once told the Washington Post. "I wouldn't waste the bullets," Abrams rejoined. "I would rather have them go to the contras."

That sort of self-certainty helped to enmesh Abrams in the Iran-Contra scandal. Though not a principal architect, he was well aware of Oliver North's secret aid program to the Nicaraguan rebels and played his own memorable role in the skullduggery. In a classic bit of John le Carré intrigue, Abrams traveled to London in 1986 armed with a Swiss bank account number and the code name "Mr. Kenilworth." He met in Hyde Park with an agent of the Sultan of Brunei and solicited a $10 million donation for the contras. When the Iran-Contra investigation revealed his role, Abrams took a beating and then hung on for the duration of Reagan's presidency. He wasn't invited to join the new team when George H. W. Bush took office in 1989, however, though Bush later granted him a Christmas Eve pardon to clear his legal record. Abrams never apologized for his Iran-Contra doings. "I don't have any regrets at all," he proclaimed upon leaving government. Much like the defenders of the Iraq war in the current administration, he felt he had done the right thing in the name of a larger, heroic cause.

~snip~

Meanwhile, Abrams' central task is to implement Bush's call for "the expansion of freedom in all the world.".....

Article URL: http://slate.msn.com/id/2113690/

[teryang]

1. Criminal, killer, and liar

He's qualified for his position as representive of a fascist foreign policy.

[dbeach]

2. Another chickenhawk with possible dual citizenship with Israel

What is their agenda? why would the evangelista chritians hang with this group
this neo-con variety love the war machine but don't want to dirty their hands with the blood..
BUT its still all over them!

[FlyByNight]

3. Terrorist enabler

What a vile pig. Orwell would love this one.

:puke:

[Say_What]

4. Surpise! Poppy pardoned him on Christmas eve...

Keeerist, another recycled war criminal.

Negroponte
Abrams
Poindexter

I'm waiting for Otto Reich and Ollie North's name to be floated for who knows what...

<clips>

Recycled Reaganites: Who's Who in the Bush Administration

The legacy of the Contra War and the Iran-Contra affair lingers today in the current Bush administration. Since taking office in 2001, President Bush has selected several veterans of the scandal to fill important posts in the U.S. government. The following Bush appointees were all convicted or implicated in illegal activities or involved in supporting them.

Elliott Abrams

Elliott Abrams served as assistant secretary of state for Inter-American affairs from 1981 to 1989. Abrams was indicted for lying to Congress about actions associated with the Iran-Contra scandal. He pleaded guilty to two lesser charges of withholding information and was sentenced to probations, fines and community service. Abrams received a pardon from President George H. W. Bush shortly after his electoral defeat in 1992. Abrams also denied the veracity of the El Mozote massacre in El Salvador in which 800 people were murdered by U.S.-trained military, suggesting it was communist propaganda.

In 2001 Bush appointed Abrams to the post of National Security Council director for democracy, human rights and international operations — a position that did not require Congressional approval. In December 2002 Bush promoted him to the post of National Security Council senior director for Near East and North African affairs, making him the president’s top policy advisor on the Middle East and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Otto Reich

From 1983 to 1986, Otto Juan Reich served as director of the Office of Public Diplomacy at the State Department. During his tenure at the OPD, which was declared illegal in 1987, Reich engaged in a campaign of propaganda and covert misinformation to sway U.S. public opinion on Nicaragua and the Contras. The Congressional report on the Iran-Contra affair found that the OPD, under Reich, was more involved in public relations lobbying than in actual diplomacy.

http://www.mayispeakfreely.org/index.php?gSec=doc&doc_id=47

[dbeach]

5. Abrams and Negroponte are a one /two punch against Liberty

Both chikenhawks are war mongering for their handlers..
negroponte ..his name means black bridge..is the connection to all that is sinister in govt..

LIARS BOTH.. Soon they will be reporting about all the bad guys and how its easier to nuke..than think..

Negroponte: Nominee for Baghdad Embassy, a Rogue for all Seasons

The central fact to the Negroponte story is that he misled Congress when some of its members attempted to question him about his complicity in helping to cover up his knowledge and direct personal involvement in the training, equipping and distracting attention from the heinous acts of Battalion 316, the Honduran death squad which at the time of Negroponte’s residence in Honduras was responsible for the murder of almost 200 Honduran dissidents opposed to their country being used as an “unsinkable aircraft carrier” in the U.S.-backed Contra war against Nicaragua’s leftist Sandinistas.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/WO0502/S00515.htm
the infamous Elliot Abrams. Abrams, an obsessive cold warrior, had as little sympathy for human rights issues in Honduras as he was in favor of them when it came to Cuba. This operation subverted the law, and Abrams eventually confessed to his role in the Iran-Contra war, but was later pardoned by the first President Bush