Missed this until a moment ago: Confirmed: Elliott Abrams's Defense of Mass Murder Was Based on Lies

[Judi Lynn]

The reporters who covered the El Mozote massacre were right all along.

By Eric Alterman
JANUARY 30, 2020

From the moment he won the 1980 presidential election, Ronald Reagan began looking for somewhere to fight a proxy war against the Soviet Union. Together with his advisers, he chose the Central American nation of El Salvador, where a civil war was raging between Marxist guerrillas and a military-led dictatorship.

To remain in power, the junta relied on “death squads” to kill not only its opponents but anyone who might even think of supporting its opponents, including nuns, priests, and children. The government claimed the death squads were independent, but in truth, they were just regular government soldiers, often (but not always) out of uniform. In order to justify US involvement in the war, Reagan had to defend the junta in the media. “We are helping the forces that are supporting human rights in El Salvador,” Reagan lied in a 1981 news conference.

Congress, at the time, was much closer to the concerns of the public than now, and war remained deeply unpopular. Many Americans were not only appalled by the junta’s willingness to murder US-based nuns and churchwomen; they also feared US involvement in another anti-guerrilla war in which the country had no clear national interest. The bumper sticker “El Salvador is Spanish for Vietnam” spoke for these Americans as few slogans manage to do.

Although they had the country behind them, few Democrats were willing to risk taking the blame should El Salvador go communist, as Nicaragua appeared to be doing. To avoid responsibility, they devised a face-saving plan to demand that the Reagan administration undergo a process of “certification” to demonstrate that the Salvadorans were making progress in respecting human rights. In January 1982, just as the Reagan administration was preparing to make its very first certification, the White House found itself faced with reports of a massacre in the village of El Mozote, in the tiny, guerrilla-friendly canton of Morazan.

On the day before the first hearing, January 26, 1982, Raymond Bonner of The New York Times and Alma Guillermoprieto of The Washington Post simultaneously reported on an incident in which hundreds of unarmed civilians had been summarily murdered by uniformed Salvadoran soldiers. (Bonner put the number of victims between 722 and 926.) Neither reporter had seen the massacre take place, and both noted that their guides to the site had been associated with the guerrillas. Yet the journalists saw the corpses firsthand, and photographer Susan Meiselas documented many of them as well.

More:
https://web.archive.org/web/20230324133039/https://www.thenation.com/article/world/elliott-abrams-mozote/

[Alexander Of Assyria]

1. Yet another American atrocity buried deep in the memory hole.

Good thing there weren’t any more after! Right?

Proxy wars in the future with incompetent Russia military isn’t enough to fund a trillion a year Pentagon…China, it’s your turn in the barrel! India isn’t far behind.

The nation needs to get some balls and stop the military and media tails from wagging the dog.

Now…cluster bombs for the current proxy war?? Who is in favor of that??

[Judi Lynn]

16. So deeply buried, as was intended, you're right. Our corporate media jumps into high gear

serving the interests of Presidents like Reagan, real eager beavers, trying to spread the news that the servants of the civil rights progress reactionaries were taking over. As we know, they still haven't forgiven
humanity for trying to evolve.

Thank you for your post.

[Easterncedar]

2. That Abrams has been appointed by Biden to the ACPD is really disturbing

Another American who should be tried at The Hague

[pazzyanne]

8. Agree!!! nt

[Judi Lynn]

17. Little did we know how very much damage was being done at the time, or that it would even last!

That man is absolutely a vicious soulless monster.

Unbelievable news he has been called back to work, isn't it?

[BlueMTexpat]

3. One of the MANY

reasons why I have hated Abrams (almost everyone in the Reagan Admin, for that matter), hate him now and always will.

[Judi Lynn]

18. He has no redeeming qualities of any kind. Evil to the core.

[Rhiannon12866]

4. Thom Hartmann reported on this yesterday, too:

His Death Squads Killed Thousands Yet He Was Just Nominated For New Commission...WTF? - Thom Hartmann
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1017842858

Elliot Abrams should be in prison instead he was nominated for a new bipartisan commission Monday. Abrams' actions have left a trail of devastation and loss. Now, as his name resurfaces in the political sphere, it raises the question: Should someone with such a deeply troubling track record be embraced or rejected by those who value their conscience?

Delve into the shocking details of Abrams' dubious past and the moral dilemma surrounding his potential new role as the public grapples with the question of accountability & the pursuit of justice. - Aired on 07/05/2023.

[Judi Lynn]

19. Thanks for sharing that Thom Hartmann link. He's really appreciated.

I never expected any Democrat would have a thing to do with Abrams.

I'm wondering if the right-wing violent racists can be pacified with this gesture? He's their kind of guy, for certain.

So glad Thom Hartmann commented on this unexpected action.

Thanks, a lot.

[The Jungle 1]

5. Thankfully trump is not nearly as likeable as reagan was.

Middle class America allowed reagan to happen. It was his personality that he sold.
When he shut down the air traffic controllers union we were doomed.
Trickle down has always been voodoo economics.
Orange boy is not nearly as smart.

[90-percent]

12. reagan gambled with air travelers lives.

were the scabs that became instant air traffic experts equally qualified to those they replaced? hypothetical: what would Reagan's legacy be like if the replacement controllers were the root cause of a passenger aircraft mid air collision?

-90% Jimmy

[Judi Lynn]

21. I'd bet they would blame it on the air traffic controllers for daring to strike!

Thank you.

[Judi Lynn]

20. I'm glad you mentioned the strike. Reagan was a malignancy, and Republicans adored that.

Thank you.

[The Jungle 1]

22. Something to keep in mind and remember moving forward.

Reagan and the orange man both were supported by enough middle class Democrats to win.
Reagan convinced these Democrats that welfare queens were driving around in Cadillacs and eating lobster.
He picked this group of people and vilified them.
He also promised to balance the budget, reduce taxes and increase defence spending. It was a lie. He tripled the deficit.
The orange man told us all our problems revolved around undocumented workers. He was going to build a wall and mexico would pay for it. This was a lie.
He picked this group of people and vilified them.
Picking a group of people and vilifying them is an old political game that still works every time. It is a disgusting political game.

The right intends to use undocumented workers again. Just like every republican uses trickle down.
I do trust Biden to counter this political game.

[TheRickles]

6. A very tangential question: the article mentions documentary photographer Susan Meiselas.

I wonder if she's related to (the mother of?) Ben Meiselas and the MeidasTouch crew. No clear info about this on their websites, and it's not a crucial point, but it'd be an interesting family tree if true. And now back to the main story....

[Judi Lynn]

23. I spent some time trying to find more info. and came up with nada, too.

They are both excellent people, for certain.

Glad you mentioned Susan's name, I did see some of her photos I recognized. She has worked her heart out during her career. Those images are so intense, and worth far, far more than a thousand words! They tell so much, so quickly.

It looks as if both of these Meiselases give everything they have to bringing light to the world, now that it's needed so much.

[TheRickles]

29. She's the right age to be his mom, and he's the right political orientation to be her son.

Perhaps a family resemblance?
Susan: https://m.artabsolument.com/en/default/artist/detail/506/Susan-Meiselas.html
Ben: https://muckrack.com/ben-meiselas
I could convince myself either way.

[McKim]

7. I Witnessed the Aftermath1

Writing today to President Biden and my senators and reps. I had the great fortune to travel to Guatemala with the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee on three human rights delegations to Guatemala. We interviewed survivors and visited the Center for Forensic Anthropology in Guatemala City. I saw some of the bones and clothing of those killed. I saw the little coffins lined up to go back to the villages for respectful burials. There were around 200,000 deaths. Eliot Abrams belongs in prison1

[Judi Lynn]

24. Guatemala has absorbed so much abuse for so many decades. It has been tortured relentlessly.

Hearing you saw what you did is important. Have seen images in photographs of the very things you describe, and it looks has if they have suffered wildly, endlessly, at the hands of those in power.

I wondered about the little coffins a long time until I finally learned that their loved ones had been simply thrown into the ground by the government's death squads, and were reclaimed by their loved ones later, a and carried lovingly in the small coffins, as they had become only bones, to be buried with respect, as you said.

He should have been forced to to to prison instead of getting his pass from a Bush. Unforgivable.

Thank you.

[2naSalit]

9. I remember this...

All I can say is

[Judi Lynn]

25. Same here, 2naSalit. Couldn't believe it.

[JT45242]

10. Made worse by denying asylum claims of clergy in order to not contradict the lie

I taught a family of very bright kids with El Salvadoran heritage -- 3 kids all very bright, excelled in Chemistry and Physics with me. . I could not understand why they were not planning on going to college until the eldest was picked up on a traffic stop and arrested and was going to be deported.

The father and the uncle were both Catholic clergy in El Salvador when the kids were very little and fled becuase the death squads told them they would kill them. They came to the US and applied for asylum through the proper channels. The asylum claims were denied because the government said that there were no plausible threats to clergy.

Neddless to say, posed with staying illegally in the US or returning to get murdered the two families stayed in the US. The youngest may have even been born in the US, I was not quite sure since I taught them all in the late 90s and early 2000s.

Had they obeyed the US law and courts, the fathers for certain and likely the whole families would have been murdered by these death squads.

The collateral damage of the Raygun & Bush years is immeasurable.

[Judi Lynn]

26. Thank goodness they found a way to stay, anyway. They were absolutely in real danger.

It doesn't really seem so very long ago that Archbishop Óscar Romero was assassinated while he was giving mass, one week after he had given an impassioned plea to the military to throw down their weapons and refuse orders to murder their fellow countrymen and women.

The US under Reagan and Bush actually did these things that so few US Americans realize. It seems they don't know, and don't care that they don't know.

It's great you did meet some Salvadoran people who were spared, somehow. It couldn't have been easy for them at any point to escape, and leave the only home they had ever known.

[Solly Mack]

11. K&R

You should cross-post this in General Discussion.

Short memories - and especially those who allow themselves to forget - deserve to be tweaked whenever possible.

They can still ignore it, but they should never be allowed to be at ease with their forgetting.

[Judi Lynn]

15. I just cross-posted this in G.D. a moment ago. You're right, so many atrocities are replaced

by new ones, that they all slide into a blur quickly, and in most cases, public knowledge is diluted by our corporate news modification media! As you also know, a lot of actual information gets slammed into classified records and out of reach until someone finally gets access through the Freedom of Information Act, many years later, when it's no longer likely to stir as much controversy. . .

Good example of that is "Operation Northwoods" which wasn't exposed for years until historian James Bamford ferreted it out through a FOIA request and published his book, Body of Secrets in 2001, so long afterward!

Here's the thread in G.D. for the original post, and thank you for your comment:

https://democraticunderground.com/100218073170

[marble falls]

13. We need to face the music. We need to try those responsible and let the chips fall where they may.

[Judi Lynn]

27. What has happened has been hideous. Those who did it shouldn't continue to be rewarded.

We need to be able to awaken from what has been a horrible dream. The perps are all still walking around, happy as clams, living their same lives of privilege if they haven't died of old age yet.

[Blue Owl]

14. K&R

[Judi Lynn]

28. Thank you. 🦉