President Biden Hires Elliott Abrams →

U.S. political & legal systems provide complete impunity for U.S. imperialism

Rights Action recommends these articles by Jeet Heer and Caitlin Johnstone, reminding why it is so hard for majority populations in many countries of the global south to bring about the transformative changes needed in their countries, when the U.S. government (usually supported by Canada, E.U., World Bank and IMF, etc.) is repetitively intervening (covertly or overtly, directly or indirectly, oftentimes violently and destructively) in the internal affairs of other countries, preventing the very changes and transformations necessary.
 
Think local, act global
Think global, act local

Henry Kissinger, Elliott Abrams, and the Rot of American Foreign Policy, By Jeet Heer, July 7, 2023
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/kissinger-elliott-abrams-war-crimes/
 
“As Eric Alterman noted in a 2013 column in The Nation, Elliot Abrams repeatedly and purposely misled Congress about the government’s involvement with the death-squad-riddled Salvadoran military, the Nicaraguan Contra counter-revolutionaries and other Central American mass murderers. He whitewashed their massacres as well as the abuses of the Argentinean junta (who were kidnapping babies at the time and selling them) and the genocidal Guatemalan regime of Gen. Efrían Ríos Montt…. Abrams did all this while casting aspersions on the motives of journalists and human rights workers who sought to tell the truth about these crimes.”
 
“But there is one group of shadowy miscreants that do operate under a code of omertà designed to ensure that almost all misdeeds will be forgiven, forgotten, and shielded from punishment: the American foreign policy establishment. Once you’re an accredited member of the cozy club of Washington policy warlords, you need never worry about having to face the consequences of your actions. […]
 
“Kissinger was recently feted at New York’s Public Library, in an event so private that no guest list was posted. But standing outside the library, reporter Jonathan Guyer got a glimpse of a stellar constellation of the political and economic upper crust, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, former Treasury secretary Larry Summers, former representative Jane Harman, tech billionaire Eric Schmidt.”
 
“USAID administrator Samantha Powers was also there to raise a toast to Kissinger. This is perhaps the best example of elite coziness since, as Guyer notes, in her 2002 book “A Problem From Hell”: America in the Age of Genocide, Powers detailed both Kissinger’s sins of commission (the carpet bombing of Cambodia) and omission (turning a blind eye to the murder of a million Bengalis killed by America’s allies in the Pakistani military).”
 
“In their eagerness to share a birthday cake with the centenarian war criminal, Powers and her ilk conveniently forgot about all the spots on the globe soaked in blood by the wars and coups Kissinger fomented: in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia, Chile, Argentina, and Bangladesh—among other places.”
 
“Although less famous than Kissinger, Elliott Abrams is another prime example of the special licence enjoyed by national security mavens. On Monday, the Biden administration announced that it was appointing Abrams to the United States Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy. This is an astonishing development given Abrams’s sordid history of deception, criminality, and promotion of human rights abuses.”
 

Full article: https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/kissinger-elliott-abrams-war-crimes/

Presidents Keep Hiring Elliott Abrams Because The US Empire Is Just That Evil, By CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, July 4, 2023
https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/presidents-keep-hiring-elliott-abrams
 
“The fact that someone so tyrannical, so corrupt and so unscrupulous keeps getting appointed to positions involved with US foreign policy tells you everything you need to know about the nature of US foreign policy.”
 
“It’s a damning indictment of our civilization that swamp monsters like Elliott Abrams remain esteemed members of society instead of reviled outcasts who can’t safely show their faces in public. They should be driven from every town they try to enter and unable to secure even entry-level jobs working for minimum wage, but instead they’re employed as high-profile pundits, think tankers and political officials providing expertise on some of the most consequential matters in the world.”

Full article: https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/presidents-keep-hiring-elliott-abrams

Rights Action (U.S. & Canada)
Work and struggle in “The Hunger Games” unjust, unequal global order
Since 1995, Rights Action funds land and environment, justice and human rights defense struggles, and community development projects in Guatemala and Honduras, as well as providing emergency relief funds (hurricanes, victims of repression, Covid19, etc.)
 
Rights Action works to hold accountable the U.S. and Canadian governments, multi-national companies, investors and banks (World Bank, etc.) that help cause and profit from exploitation and poverty, repression and human rights violations, environmental harms, corruption and impunity in Honduras and Guatemala. And, Rights Action works to help transform this profoundly unjust and unequal local-to-global economic order.
 
Act / Stir up the pot / Chip away
Keep sending copies of Rights Action information (and that of other solidarity groups/ NGOs) to family and friends, your networks, politicians and media outlets, asking: ‘When will there be binding legal and political accountability for how our governments, companies and investment firms help cause, benefit from and turn a blind eye to corruption and impunity, and to poverty, repression environmental harms in countries like Honduras and Guatemala (and beyond)?’

 
*******
Please share and re-post this information
*******
 
TESTIMONIO
Canadian Mining in the Aftermath of Genocides in Guatemala
Edited by Catherine Nolin (UNBC) and Grahame Russell (Rights Action)
https://www.testimoniothebook.org
https://btlbooks.com/book/testimonio