I have to admit to be a little upset at the lack of outrage on the submission of John Negroponte as the director of national intelligence. I understand that we have an awefull lot to be outraged about and there is just so much that it can be overwhelming. But to me this is about nothing less than the soul of our country. It's another link in the chain that will hold us in hell.
Billmon has a post up now with a few tidbits of Johnny's history.
Among his more recent assignments, Mr. Negroponte was Ambassador to Honduras (1981-85)."
U.S. Mission to the United Nations
Biography of John D. Negroponte
Date Unknown
more important stuff below
The DNI [National Directorate of Investigation] maintained a secret unit - the Honduran Anti-Communist Liberation Army (ELACH), a rightist paramilitary organization which conducted operations against Honduran leftists. According to DELETED, during the period ELACH operated (1980-1984), ELACH's operations included surveillance, kidnappings, interrogation under duress, and execution of prisoners who were Honduran revolutionaries.
CIA Inspector General's Office
Selected Issues Relating to
CIA Activities in Honduras in the 1980s
August 27, 1997
Intelligence Battalion 3-16 was also created in the early 1980s with the help of the CIA. Together with the DNI, Battalion 3-16 is blamed for the repression, capture, interrogation and disappearance of about 180 people, generally popular movement leaders.
U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service
Honduras
October 14, 1998
Battalion 3-16 counter-terrorist tactics included torture, rape, assassination against persons thought to be involved in support of Salvadoran guerrillas or the Honduran leftist movement. Information available to the United States Government in the 1980s indicated that named individuals were abducted and killed by Battalion 3-16 and the FUSEP Special Unit.
CIA Working Group Stipulations
Released by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
September 13, 2001
Ok, that gives you a little idea of what and how we were involved in the horrors down there. A while back Billmon wrote a post reagrding Newsweeks article The Salvadoran Option. I read it late the night he wrote it and it was hard to sleep.
On the Afternoon of 10 December 1981, units of the Atlacal Rapid Deployment Infantry Battalion (BIRI) arrived in the village of El Mozote, Department of Morazan, after a clash with the guerrillas in the vicinity . . .
Early next morning, 11 December, the soldiers reassembled the entire population in the square. They separated the men from the women and children and locked everyone up in different groups in the church, the convent and various houses.
During the morning, they proceeded to interrogate, torture and execute the men in various locations. Around noon, they began taking the women in groups, separating them from their children and machine-gunning them. Finally, they killed the children. A group of children who had been locked in the convent were machine-gunned through the windows. After exterminating the entire population, the soldiers set fire to the buildings.
UN Truth Commission on El Salvador
The El Mozote Massacre
April 1, 1993
One [Salvadoran] death squad member, when asked about the types of tortures used, replied: "Uh, well, the same things you did in Vietnam. We learned from you. We learned from you the means, like blowtorches in the armpits, shots in the balls. But for the "toughest ones" -- that is, those who resist these other tortures -- "we have to pop their eyes out with a spoon. You have to film it to believe it, but boy, they sure sing."
Raymond Bonner
Weakness and Deceit
June, 1984
snip
Rufina Amaya, 60, is the sole survivor of the [El Mozote] massacre, in which four of her five children and her husband perished. Her fingers fidget as she recalls darting from a line of women who were about to be shot, and creeping into a bush. She stayed immobile for hours, recognizing her children's voices crying ''Mamita, they're killing us!'' as they were bayoneted.
Although she has never received aid of any kind from the government, Rufina says what she really wants is for the perpetrators to ask her forgiveness. After 19 years, she holds little hope it will happen. ''Justice isn't about vengeance, it's a spiritual recognition,'' she says. ''But God is seeing all these things that they deny.''
Business Week International Edition
A Murdered Village Comes Back to Life
March 5, 2001
On the heals of Abu Ghraib, the torture memos and the confirmation of Gonzales we are putting the man who was intimately involved with the above attrocities in charge of our National Inteligence. We obviously will get no help from our "leaders in Washington. Here is a couple of quotes that Coldblue Steele found.
First two statements from Dem Senators (none / 0)
Joementum
"This is a very significant appointment, and I'm pleased the President has nominated a dedicated public servant to fill the post. I am also heartened by the nomination of National Security Agency Director Michael Hayden to be his principal deputy.
"As a career diplomat for four decades, John Negroponte has loyally served his government in multiple countries around the world. If confirmed, he will be given a chance to put his skills to use to strengthen the nation's national security and to protect the American people from future terrorist attacks at home and abroad.
Carl Levin
"I look forward to discussing with Ambassador Negroponte his plans for the position of Director of National Intelligence during his confirmation process. I am concerned, however, about the message we are sending to Iraq and the rest of the world by removing our Ambassador to Iraq so soon after he took office and at such a critical point in the transition to a democratically-elected Iraqi government."
One of the 59,026,013
by Coldblue Steele on Thu Feb 17th, 2005 at 12:57:43 PDT,
Lieberman may call those skills "progressive," but I call them disgusting. Something must be done.