Negroponte: a Resume of Death Squads, Deceptions and Bribery

[Itsthetruth]

CounterPunch
February 18, 2005

Negroponte: a Resume of Death Squads, Deceptions and Bribery
Right Man for the Job, For the Wrong Reasons
By LARRY BIRNS

Yesterday President Bush named John Negroponte to be the new director of national intelligence. As the man responsible for managing 15 intelligence agencies, we find this appointment extremely alarming due to major unsavory aspects of his professional history centering on the massive misuse of his authority as U.S. ambassador to Honduras from 1981-85. In fact, given his calm manner and his proven Machiavellian philosophy, he may be the right man for this new James Bond-slot even if it means the diminishment of democratic principles, which has been the hallmark of his career wherever he has been assigned.

Negroponte's stint in Honduras was filled with chicanery and deception. As a result of the immensely compromised record he compiled there, rather than being rewarded with this new and elevated position, he should be facing proceedings concerning the role he played in the numerous human rights violations that occurred during his Honduran watch ­ nearly 300 dissidents "disappeared." Affidavits and testimony by Honduran survivors have reported on his involvement in sanctioning, protecting or covering up these death squads. Also, during the time Negroponte spent at the Tegucigalpa embassy, millions of dollars in bribes were paid to corrupt Honduran officials to allow room for the U.S.-backed contras to stage attacks on the Sandinistas in neighboring Nicaragua.

Throughout Negroponte's entire professional career he has subscribed to the thesis that the ends justify the means. As a result, Bush had made a brilliant if demonic appointment ­ Negroponte will likely get the job done, but at a insupportable cost to this and other countries' democratic institutions as he brings his well-tested authoritarian personality to the job.

Larry Birns is director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs.

http://www.counterpunch.org/birns02182005.html

[Nite Owl]

1. Does Bush ever pick any one that is

a 'good' person? They are all lying, theiving, murderers.