Progress is slow. That’s what I’ve learned – and come to expect – after twenty-plus years at this post, commenting on world events and swimming against the tide. However, after all this time, it looks to me as if the tide is turning – slowly, unevenly, yet surely – against the War Party.
Oh yes, the times they are a changin’, as Bob Dylan once put it, and here’s the evidence:
“Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has ordered his department to redefine its mission and issue a new statement of purpose to the world. The draft statements under review right now are similar to the old mission statement, except for one thing – any mention of promoting democracy is being eliminated.”
All the usual suspects are in a tizzy. Elliott Abrams, he of Contra-gate fame, and one of the purest of the neoconservative ideologues, is cited in the Washington Post piece as being quite unhappy: “The only significant difference is the deletion of justice and democracy. We used to want a just and democratic word, and now apparently we don’t.”
Abrams’ contribution to a just and democratic world is well-known: supporting a military dictatorship in El Salvador during the 1980s that slaughtered thousands, and then testifying before Congress that massive human rights violations by the US-supported regime were Communist “propaganda.” US policy, of which he was one of the principal architects, led to the lawlessness that now plagues that country, which has a higher murder rate than Iraq: in Abrams’ view, the Reagan policy of supporting a military dictatorship was “a fabulous achievement.” The same murderous policy was pursued in Nicaragua while Abrams was Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, as the US tried to overthrow a democratically elected government and provoked a civil war that led to the death of many thousands. In Honduras and Guatemala, Abrams was instrumental in covering up heinous atrocities committed by US-supported regimes.
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