Who the hell is John Negroponte and why should our troops should be concerned? Let me rephrase that. Who the hell is John Negroponte and why all of us should be concerned.
"One thinks of him as America's representative to the United Nations, sitting dutifully behind Colin L. Powell as the secretary of state testified incorrectly about the threat Iraq posed to the world. One thinks of him standing dutifully next to Mr. Bush as the president promises that Mr. Negroponte will be the one who decides what's important and what's not important for him to know."
"Given his history, it's likelier that Mr. Negroponte, with an excellent grasp of what the president wants to hear, will dutifully decide that what the president wants to hear is what is important for him to hear. He won't promise slam-dunks in quite the way former CIA Director George J. Tenet did. Mr. Negroponte is a quieter, subtler individual. He is a craftsman."
These quotes are from the Baltimore Sun which ran a piece last Sunday in the wake of Negroponte’s ascension to the peak of the new "intelligence" super agency created by the Bush administration.
I particularly enjoy the description "he is a craftsman". It sums up this one time disciple of Henry Kissinger rather well. Kissinger you may recall was the ‘diplomat’ who, during the 1970’s, gave the green light for US involvement in the murderous regimes of Latin America. Kissinger could be described as a practical ideologue. That is, he didn’t let little details like the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians get in the way of his vision for Pax Americana.
In the dying days of the Vietnam war, Kissinger (as indeed many of the top ‘advisers’ in the current White House) were distraught that the "little yellow bastards" were driving them out of their nation. It was at this time their resolve was set to ensure that, no matter what the cost, the US would never be faced with international humiliation again. It was within this political milieu that John Negroponte cut his political and ideological teeth.
By the time Ronnie Raygun was imposed on the US people, Negroponte was ready to hit his stride. Having been schooled in the "craft" of lies, deceit and obsfucation under Kissinger, Negroponte was ready to strike out on his own.
In 1975 George Bush senior was heading up the CIA and was working with Kissinger and others on "Operation Condor", the secret war being waged by the US in South America. Colin Powell, John Poindexter, Richard Armitage and others were all entrenched in the political and military machinery that was being supplied to the dictators in places like Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Chile to "disappear" thousands of ordinary people who resisted or opposed the murderous regimes imposed on them by the US.
Negroponte’s involvement in the horrors inflicted on the people of Argentina and Honduras is not a matter of debate. Many witnesses and documents have been discovered that prove beyond doubt that, while he may not have pulled the trigger, thrust the knife or pushed the still living but bound body from the plane flying over the sea, he was the key US figure involved in sanctioning these atrocities. His other learnt craft was to be able to put enough "plausible deniability" between himself and any activities so as to be able to stand up and say with a straight face, "I didn’t know".
What is most disturbing for our soldiers is that Negroponte spent almost 12 months overseeing the war against Iraq as the US Ambassador there. He was sent in I suggest because unlike his predecessors, Paul Bremmer – a civilian PR hack, and General Jay Garner, he has the stomach to "make the hard decisions". These decisions would have included orders to kill anyone who might be seen to oppose the occupation and to organise "demonstrations" against anyone the US thought was a target. No doubt he also used a trick he found useful in Latin America. This was to organise small groups to infiltrate peaceful demonstrations and in concert with the military and police, "disrupt" the demonstration thus causing a ‘fight’ between police and civilians to break out. The police and military would open up with their guns and batons and justify their activities as putting down a "rebellion". And we may ask, "why do they hate us?"
These are just some of the reasons we should be concerned that Negroponte is now running the most secret spy agency in the world.
As I understand it the CIA and FBI are huge bureaucracies. They have systems in place to ‘protect’ those on the inside and as many as possible on the outside. Now, I’m not defending these agencies but rather am trying to say that within them, as within any paramilitary or military institution there is a sense of honour and loyalty. This honour and loyalty means that systems are put in place that slow down the ability for those who would subvert the "noble" intentions of these agencies for their own aggrandisement. The Iran-Contra affair is a prime example of how a small group tried – quite successfully – to subvert the system and wreak havoc on the civilian population of foreign nations. Negroponte was neck deep in all that. But of course, that is conveniently left out of the current media reporting on his new position. History denied is history forgotten.
He is a craftsman. He, Bush senior, Powell, Armitage and others have worked with focus and stamina to put in place the conditions in which those who will be indoctrinated into their twisted, narcissistic, deadly and dangerous ideology will not have to report to anyone outside their group. Negroponte’s appointment as the first head of the National Intelligence Agency ensures that he and his small group have exclusive and private access to a $US55 billion budget to distribute as they see fit. In one fell swoop the ideologues who wrought unimaginable horror and terror in South America for over two decades, and it is fair to say their legacy continues today, are now able to carry out their plans unhindered by such trivial considerations as "public accountability" or "Senate oversight". They report to no one, are not accountable to anyone and now have the means to impose their will wherever they see fit.
Our troops should be concerned because they are being committed, in ever increasing numbers, to a war that is unwinnable in a place that is not ours by men who care only for their own place in history. We should be concerned because if we thought the police state we are increasingly becoming is oppressive now, I suggest we have seen nothing yet.
Prior to Negroponte going to places like Honduras and Nicaragua the people there though the US was a distant nuisance trying to poke its nose into their affairs. While not overly prosperous nations at the time, they were, if nothing, comfortable in the main. That all changed when the death squads were formed and those who were regarded as untouchables like Archbishop Oscar Romero, gunned down while hosting Holy Communion, were murdered in public. These quiet nations were plunged into poverty and sent back, almost literally, to the dark ages as their civil and human rights were destroyed by those who viewed them as little more than "inconvenient" matters.
While all of this sounds dark and dangerous – which it is – there is hope. We the people.
Venezuela is a perfect example of what can happen when the people unite to overthrow the regimes imposed on them. As a people they decided to resist. They knew the cost would be high, and it was and still is. Nonetheless, they are rebuilding their nation and taking a renewed pride in their country. What shame have we for allowing our leaders to sell us out via Free Trade Agreements and commitments to someone else’s war.
Let’s look beyond the narrow Anglophile nations our leaders blindly follow and look to the margins for those who are demonstrating real leadership and vision. To those who have said "we believe in the dignity and sanctity of all human life". Unless we capture the agenda and force the change that our leaders are so reluctant to embrace, then the real fundamentalist extremists like Negroponte, with all their necrophilic tendencies, will continue their bloody quest to make their mark as men of "history".
However, history belongs to us all and it is what we leave for those who will follow. The choice is ours to make. The question is, do we have the will to back the promise of tomorrow or will we abdicate our place to make way for those whose blood lust will never be sated?