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Bush Appoints Negroponte

By Jeralyn, Section Other Politics
Posted on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 09:35:47 AM EST
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Eric Alterman devotes today's Altercation column to John Negroponte, Bush's newly announced choice for Intelligence Chief.

Think Progress and Campaign Extra has more.

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    Bush Appoints Negroponte | 26 comments (26 topical)
    Re: Bush Appoints Negroponte (none / 0) (#1)
    by Adept Havelock on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 09:58:16 AM EST
    Would messr. care to try the Sandanista DSquad '82? It's quite good today.

    Re: Bush Appoints Negroponte (none / 0) (#2)
    by wishful on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 10:50:39 AM EST
    What Bush means by "freedom" is "Death Squads". And BTW, democracy is probably overrated anyway.

    Re: Bush Appoints Negroponte (none / 0) (#3)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 10:53:40 AM EST
    ?is there no young fresh taltented repbulicans? W just keeps recycling reagan / bush I incompetents and crooks.

    Re: Bush Appoints Negroponte (none / 0) (#4)
    by desertswine on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 10:56:55 AM EST
    Negroponte - Battalion 316. Lock up your children

    Re: Bush Appoints Negroponte (none / 0) (#5)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 11:12:57 AM EST
    I'm not sold on Negroponte because of his primarily State dept background- I would have preffered DeGreffenreid or someone with a lot more knowledge of the ins and outs of the Intel world. All the stuff about his involvement with the El Salvadoran death squads is a bit overblown, by the way.

    Re: Bush Appoints Negroponte (none / 0) (#6)
    by wishful on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 11:24:33 AM EST
    Gerry, not if you were one of the Death squad victims. Do you remember the situation of the Salvadoran woman who came home from work to find her whole family--mother, sister, children--sitting around the kitchen table with their heads on the plates in front of them? Her baby's head would apparently not stay put, so was secured by a long kitchan knife directly to the table. Maybe you can ask this woman how overblown the death squad stuff is. (I don't have a link. I remember this vividly, as it is impossible to forget. Maybe I can find it.)

    Re: Bush Appoints Negroponte (none / 0) (#7)
    by soccerdad on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 11:31:41 AM EST
    Abrahms, Negroponte. What's next Oliver North and Gordon Liddy. Too bad Colson had a Religious experience. The pond scum is really floating to the top.

    Re: Bush Appoints Negroponte (none / 0) (#8)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 11:32:15 AM EST
    Cool- now let's make Charles Manson secretary of state!

    Re: Bush Appoints Negroponte (none / 0) (#9)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 11:34:05 AM EST
    wishful- Lest your emotions get the best of you, please note I didn't question the existence of the Death Squads (they were very real and horrible), merely the IMHO invalid links being made between them and Negroponte. That was an ugly war- and the FMLN was just as vicious and occasionally creative. BTW, My first overseas post was in Central America towards the end of that conflict. Negroponte and later Ambassador Ed Corr were probably the two most instrumental people we had from State in transitioning El Salvador from a junta based dictatorship to a functioning democracy.

    Re: Bush Appoints Negroponte (none / 0) (#10)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 11:37:42 AM EST
    I am having a BIG problem with this. It's almost funny how it didn't make news. Dean, on 2/11 said to the Demo. Black Caucus: "You think the Republican National Committee could get this many people of color in a single room? Only if they had the hotel staff in here!" Ummm.... did we just elect a RACIST to be head of the DNC???? I think we did.

    Re: Bush Appoints Negroponte (none / 0) (#11)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 11:51:10 AM EST
    It's almost funny how it didn't make news.
    yeah it did and was commented to oblivion. do a search and review all the nasty little morsels. "...if you can't keep up, don't step up..." riddick - theChronicles.

    Re: Bush Appoints Negroponte (none / 0) (#12)
    by DonS on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 11:59:42 AM EST
    Alberto "torture" Gonzales at Justice. John "What Death Squads?" at Intel. Let the games begin . . . er . . . continue.

    Re: Bush Appoints Negroponte (none / 0) (#13)
    by wishful on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 12:03:10 PM EST
    Gerry, no personal offense, but I tend to believe the portrayal in Eric Alterman's linked article, as opposed to your view developed from your personal experience in your first overseas post. I don't suspect you were in a position to have all of the information required to make an objective judgement that you present above, although I am not saying that your opinion was not fucnctional for the purpose you served therein.

    Re: Bush Appoints Negroponte (none / 0) (#14)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 12:11:19 PM EST
    I was an analyst (96B) on TDY from the Army. It WAS my job to know. I can tell you with authority the "spent cartridges" he referred to were not anywhere close to being all NATO rds, there were plenty of spent AK 47 cartridges as well. The Guerillas in that region had the same disregard for the locals as the death squad irregulars. A serious attempt was made to control the Gov't thugs, I cannot speak for the rebels. My point is Negroponte was not some evil wizard sitting around sending the brute squad out to smite villages- frankly, the whole shrimping industry explosion in the Gulf of Fonesca was partially as a result of his focus on development and bettering the lives of that formerly impoverished region of the country.

    Re: Bush Appoints Negroponte (none / 0) (#15)
    by wishful on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 12:29:47 PM EST
    A serious attempt to control Govt thugs...I thought Negroponte denied knowledge of them and their defining activities. And this failed attempt at controlling them in the case that he did indeed know of them: what, were they not given enough training and firearms, etc?

    Re: Bush Appoints Negroponte (none / 0) (#16)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 12:48:09 PM EST
    If anyone knows anything about the region, the Last major conflict prior to the Sandinistas coming to power in the region was between El Salvador and Honduras (the flashpoint was a bad call in a Soccer game, of all things). The Sandinistas quickly began sending arms and equipment to the FMLN in El Salvador and began trying to create an effective guerilla movement in Honduras. Negroponte was instrumental in getting Honduras and El Salvador to put an end to their differences and control the border (if you look at a map, you will see the only land route to El Salvador from Nicaragua was through Honduras). He also was key in keeping the Contras running after the Democrats in Congress cut their legs out from under them. The irregular militias IN Honduras could be pretty brutal, as most ill disciplined formations are. So were those they were fighting. War is ugly. I'm by no means apologizing for them. The conditions for their creation were not invented by Negroponte, their formation was not the idead of Negroponte, and they did not operate at the behest of Negroponte. If anything, we tried to force the Honduran Gov't to take some control and responsibility for them in an attempt to curb their excesses. In El Salvador (which Negroponte had NOTHING to do with their Death Squad phenomena) we pushed for their outright disbandment. We disowned D'Aubisson (who I doubt anyone trusted much anyway) after his links to them became more apparent. Bad things happen in wars. I find it comical how the Left tries to blame the US or its representatives for everything that goes bad in the world. My thanks to Alterman for reminding me how this is a multigenerational game.

    Re: Bush Appoints Negroponte (none / 0) (#17)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 01:11:03 PM EST
    "I thought Negroponte denied knowledge of them and their defining activities." I'm sure he did. Your Gov't shades things all the time from you and the press. Republican and Democrats both. This won't change. As far as Foriegn Policy and operations are concerned, I don't really care. And this failed attempt at controlling them in the case that he did indeed know of them:" Remember, they weren't our creation or under our jurisdiction. That limits your ability to exercise control. If it wasn't for our interventions and diplomacy, I'm convinced it could have been worse. "were they not given enough training and firearms, etc?" We had a fifteen year old kid (my partner thought he was 13 at best) as our Honduran assigned military driver. The guards around the compounds we lived and worked out of were average age of 17 (guesstimate), and had a propensity for shooting at anything that moved- the local monkey population cratered. Training and discipline was not high on the priority list of the Honduran Military, and less so for the irregulars. Again, it wasn't our job, our for that matter our country. We could influence and support- not control.

    Re: Bush Appoints Negroponte (none / 0) (#18)
    by wishful on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 01:20:05 PM EST
    I find it comical how the Left tries to blame the US or its representatives for everything that goes bad in the world. This is a pretty sweeping statement, that tends to cast doubt on your reasoning abilities if you truly believe it. But maybe you were just exaggerating to make some point or other. Again, it wasn't our job, our for that matter our country. We could influence and support- not control. I believe this is the crux of alot of the disagreement between what you label as the right and the left (I don't necessarily buy that parochial definition/structure, but that is unimportant). Honest people can disagree about what "our job" there really was and/or should have been, to say nothing of the less than honest. This basic difference in what our job should be will rear its ugly head again, I fear, when Negroponte (after confirmation) excutes his new "duties".

    Re: Bush Appoints Negroponte (none / 0) (#19)
    by jondee on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 01:21:45 PM EST
    Gerry - Dont give me that"We had nothing to do with it" jive - the School of the Americas was outed years ago,(D'Aubisson was a graduate),for teaching strategies of terrorization of the populace, extreme interrogation ie:torture, and other messy,U.S interest protecting measures that would make Hannibal squirm,but that the Negropontes have nod-nod-wink-winked about for years when theyre perpetrated in Latin America.

    Re: Bush Appoints Negroponte (none / 0) (#20)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 01:54:40 PM EST
    Jondee- I never met or heard of the Torture Chair at the School of Americas. I would submit that basic inhumanity is a common trait that does not requiring schooling to learn. Wishful- " This is a pretty sweeping statement, that tends to cast doubt on your reasoning abilities if you truly believe it. But maybe you were just exaggerating to make some point or other." Your right, it was. This is a scenario I have witnessed all to often, though. I've read to many articles blamng the US or American Officials for everything from Saddam's wars to the Tsunami, I have become a bit numb. It is one thing to suggest we could have done more and point to different paths that could have been taken, but quite another to slam Officials and Administrations for not preparing for every eventuality- an impossible task that would lead to paralysis when attemptted. "Honest people can disagree about what "our job" there really was and/or should have been, to say nothing of the less than honest. " Agreed. Our mission was to stem the flow of arms and equipment from Nicaragua to the insurgents, and to provide support to Honduran and El Salvadoran Militaries. Most of my time there we were focused on holding both sides feet to fire in maintaining the Cease fire in El Salvador before Duarte's election (which was who we were hoping would win all along). D'Aubisson made more of his supposed American ties than there really were.

    Re: Bush Appoints Negroponte (none / 0) (#21)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 02:24:41 PM EST
    ...but quite another to slam Officials and Administrations for not preparing for every eventuality - an impossible task that would lead to paralysis when attempted...
    ?do you see our current anti-terror policies as attempting to prepare for every eventuality? that would be my observation. ?what do you think the resultant paralysis will be?, absent the erosion of civil liberties, extreme paranoia, mistrust and division among the citizenry. :::

    Re: Bush Appoints Negroponte (none / 0) (#22)
    by Che's Lounge on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 04:54:38 PM EST
    Negroponte is a liar. He was fully aware of the Honduran death squads and yet he and the DOS denied it repeatedly to Congress and us. So why should we believe him when he says we're winning the WOT? Zero credibility.

    Re: Bush Appoints Negroponte (none / 0) (#23)
    by DonS on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 05:53:34 PM EST
    Gerry, Thanks for your cold, analytical expertise. You know, this sterile approach to the US involvment in central America makes my blood boil. Blood on the hands is blood on the hands, first or second hand, so to speak.

    Re: Bush Appoints Negroponte (none / 0) (#24)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 10:39:51 PM EST
    But hey, folks, at least Negroponte will be hard on the Christo-fascist terrorists who hate America (I mean, did you hear about that Pope guy criticizing our little turkey shoot in Iraq as being immoral? The nerve of those Christo-fascists!). Remember, the only good nun is a nun dropped from a helicopter 1,000 feet in the air! - Badtux the Sarcastic Pengin

    Re: Bush Appoints Negroponte (none / 0) (#25)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Feb 18, 2005 at 09:09:32 AM EST
    Hardleft- do you see our current anti-terror policies as attempting to prepare for every eventuality? that would be my observation. Mine too- And it is an excercise doomed to failure. Good point about civil liberties. That is the only way to effectively defend against terrorism here at home- Not a step I want to take. DonS- When your blood stops boiling, realize ElSalvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua are all free elected democracies now. Two were military dictatorships and the third was a marxist state. The region is at peace.

    Re: Bush Appoints Negroponte (none / 0) (#27)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Feb 18, 2005 at 02:51:50 PM EST
    Pointless, not coincidence.

    Bush Appoints Negroponte | 26 comments (26 topical)