There's a lesson to be learned from the trial of Guatemala's former dictator Efrian Rios Montt, ‘a man of great personal integrity . . . totally dedicated to democracy’
said Ronald Reagan, surprised upon visiting him in Honduras that
Central America was composed of several countries. But few Americans
will care or will even be aware that at long last he's been found guilty
of genocide and war crimes.
The things that went on in
Guatemala were gruesome, horrifying and heart-breaking but I don't have
the stomach to relate even part of it. You can read about it here
and if you do, if you can tear yourself away from Boston Bomber
stories, School shooting stories' da scores' and Cleveland sex slaves
long enough, perhaps you'll take a further moment to meditate and
perhaps agonize over the part our country, always howling about freedom
as if we invented it, played in yet another sordid and brutal horror.
Yes, Rios Montt is a monster like so many Latin American monsters in Chile, Argentina and elsewhere,
all of whom were supported by the Land of the Free and even placed in
power by violent US assistance. Rios Montt whose squads were
supported and advised by and trained by the Reagan administration, wasn't a Communist
you see and that's what counts and so it didn't matter that he raped,
tortured, brutalized attempted to murder an entire ethnicity because
they were better off dead than Red. better off dead than getting in the
way of the very few and very rich. Red of course means looking for some
hero to improve life from the hopeless, unchanging, grinding, disease
ridden, starvation and poverty Central American Kleptocracy needs in
order to provide a most excellent life for people like Rios Montt and
his generals.
The 86 year old and frail monster has now
been sentenced to 80 years in jail, although he claims he never got his
hands dirty or bloody, as though that were grounds for clemency or
forgiveness.
Who amongst us, the champions of freedom,
has clean hands? Kindly old avuncular Ron is dead, but he's still the
hero who made the sun come up in America. His own Himmler, Ollie North
continues to be admired and listened to and frankly my dear, America
doesn't give a damn about any of the things we did in the name of
protecting American Corporate imperialism from land reform or about how
much innocent blood was soaked into foreign soil to do it.
Go
on worrying about how dangerous it is to live in America, how expensive
to fuel your three SUVs and how high your taxes are. There's a one in
more than a million chance of some psycho shooting you after all and
that Asian, Middle Eastern, central and South American blood isn't on your hands. You're not some bleeding-heart Liberal anyway.
‘a man of great personal integrity . . . totally dedicated to democracy’- a genocidal dictator. Boy these right wingers have a way with words.
ReplyDeletelike covering up a foul smell with windy words. The obsession with communism has turned us evil the way the obsession with sex turned the Church to God's worst nightmare.
ReplyDeleteWhy do such atrocities never tarnish the Republican escutcheon while the most inconsequential things bring down Democrats? For fear of the flag turning red, we've soaked it in blood.
American exceptionalists cast a blind eye on life, death, misery, even genocide, and then move on imperturbable of the human wreckage they leave behind.
ReplyDelete