As Jimmy Dore points out in the latest episode of the Jimmy Dore Show, American war criminals are never prosecuted, but rather commended, given medals, and positions of power and prestige. For compelling evidence of this, witness war-pig-at-the-trough Elliot Abrams being grilled by Minnesota rep. Ilhan Omar on what are by every civilized standard war crimes committed by U.S.-backed South American governments against their own populations. Aside from lying to Congress over the Iran-Contra scandal, Elliott was instrumental in the cover-up of hundreds of massacres, as we will see shortly.
Abrams was, of course, pardoned by George H.W. Bush for his role in lying to Congress about the selling of weapons to Iran in order to fund death squads, euphemistically dubbed ‘Contras’, in Nicaragua during the 1980’s, but let’s look at the far more heinous acts, those that can be considered real war crimes.
These war crimes took place almost entirely in South and Central America, but let’s look at Guatemala, where the most horrific atrocities took place. The Guatemalan Genocide of the early 1980’s is history erased from the history books. I have never heard of it before today, but the facts surrounding it are crucial to understanding not only why Abrams should be sitting in a windowless cell, but to understanding the modus operandi of U.S. foreign policy today. To understand it, we must go to the beginning. In 1954, the CIA overthrew the elected government of President Jacobo Arbenz and installed the military dictatorship of Carlos Castillo Armas. The action was code-named PBSUCCESS, and the CIA armed, trained, and funded 480 Armas-led fighters to carry out the coup. This coup was the first of a string of military coups, up to the 1982 coup that installed Efrain Rio Montt to power. Montt’s rule was a reign of terror, and he was the dictator that committed the worst of what is known as the Guatemalan Genocide, in which he sought to exterminate the indigenous Mayan people of Guatemala, as he saw them as a threat to his power and a haven for left-wing insurgents. Montt’s military wiped out over 600 indigenous villages, with soldiers decapitating and crucifying their victims, and committing wanton acts of infanticide. Abrams at the time was Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights, ironically enough, and concealed and defended Montt’s actions. Abrams thought the threat of Communist control of South America rationalized pro-U.S. rule-by-terror regimes. A self-fulfilling prophecy it seems. The resulting death toll of indigenous Maya stands at over 18,000 for just 1982. Montt was convicted of war crimes charges, finally, in 2013, for the murder of 1,771 Maya Ixil Indians, and sentenced to 80 years in prison.
Another massacre took place at El Mozote in El Salvador in 1981 by the soldiers of the Atlacatl Battalion, which had trained at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and then sent back to El Salvador to perform its function as a death squad of the US-back government. Over 800 civilians were murdered, with children separated from parents and grandparents before being gunned down. The battalion went on to commit several other massacres during its tenure.
There is so much history of U.S. funding of South American military dictators and I am just beginning my education. It’s ugly, horrifying, but necessary in order to break the hypnosis that we have regarding American foreign policy. Those massacres of the 80’s mirror, in many ways, the slow-motion genocide of Yemen by the U.S.-backed Saudi butchers. And there is no shortage of Elliott Abrams’ to cover for that slaughter as well.
Here is the Jimmy Dore segment:
