Israel/Palestine and Iraq are not the only places in the world where American neoconservatives have contributed to death and destruction. I have just been to the southernmost border of the United States, to learn more about the flood of refugee mothers and children who are fleeing gang violence in Central America. My first-hand report in The Nation makes clear that America’s disastrous policies in that region back in the 1980s are a major reason the kids are running for their lives today. As I state there, Americans have little understanding of those policies.
Americans, especially young Americans, probably know more about the 1994 genocide in Rwanda than they do about how their own government funded murderous right-wing dictatorships in Central America back in the 1980s.
Neoconservatives, both in and out of the Reagan administration, were major supporters of the immoral blunders that have caused the huge refugee problem today. Elliott Abrams, who worked at the State Department, is Exhibit A. This site has already explained at some length how he lied to cover up for death squads in El Salvador. It is quite extraordinary to remember that Abrams and the Reagan administration he served maintained friendly relations with colonels who had actually ordered the murder of Archbishop Oscar Romero, a courageous man who is today being considered for sainthood. The U.S. actually gave these military murderers $5 billion.
Robert Kagan was not nearly as prominent back then. But Kagan, who today is publicly sucking up for a post in a Hillary Clinton administration (with the assistance of the New York Times), also worked in the Reagan State Department. Kagan later wrote A Twilight Struggle, his long, turgid account of the U.S. undeclared war against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. The book – I unfortunately had to read it to write a review – is a whitewash and a coverup of how the U.S. violated international law, by, among other crimes, mining the country’s harbors. Outside government, neoconservatives in the ’80s led raucous cheerleading for these callous, violent policies, even in the pages of supposedly liberal publications like The New Republic. What is astonishing about the mainstream press coverage of the present exodus from Central America – 90,000 unaccompanied children from there are expected to cross the border by September 30 – is that none of the reports take even a brief look at history; no mainstream accounts are making this vital connection, which shows American responsibility.
Great post, James.
Good article.
This is a “crisis” now because looking into what Israel is doing is so uncomfortable for so many Americans.
Last post on this–
The US press and the government often do talk about the I/P issue. The problem is in how they talk about it. I don’t think one should say talk about the immigrant issue is “changing the subject”, as though the immigrant issue is in competition with justice for Palestinians and we should change the subject back to the I/P conflict. We should change the content of how the I/P conflict is discussed, not complain that other issues are taking time away from it.
James, thanks for reminding us of that particularly awful episode in our glorious history. The recollection that sums it all up for me is Jeane Kirkpatrick, our UN ambassador, on Nightline saying that we were training a Nicaraguan exile army to invade because Nicaragua was reinforcing its military to defend against the invasion. This idea of aggression against others for the crime of defending themselves against our agression has always been a mainstay of imperial propaganda.
There’s a song related to that period that I’ve always had in my mind. It’s written by someone I admire greatly. It’s a song which I always have in mind wrt to the I/P issue and it conveys the lengths to which an oppressed people can be pushed. As many not know him Bruce is a declared and avowed pacifist. He has another song which is on topic which is entitled “And they call it Democracy”
I haven’t linked to a video here before and I haven’t coded html (too lazy to view source) since the 90’s so this may not work but..
Bruce Cockburn – If I had a rocket launcher