"Of President Ronald Reagan, who directly sponsored the 'anti-communist' campaigns of terrorism and extermination in Central America, Robert Parry wrote that he 'found virtually every anti-communist action justified, no matter how brutal. From his eight years in the White House, there is no historical indication that he was troubled by the bloodbath and even genocide that occurred in Central America during his presidency, while he was shipping hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to the implicated forces.' ... On the basis of the US orchestration of genocide in El Salvador and Nicaragua (c. 100,000 killed), and also considering the 'fundamental political support' ... that his government extended to Guatemala and other atrocious regimes throughout Latin America, there are grounds to regard Reagan as the single worst purveyor of mass atrocity in the western hemisphere during the twentieth century. Very little of this surfaced in the nauseating encomiums to Reagan in the US media following his death in 2004."
- Adam Jones, Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction, 2nd edition (Routledge, 2010), pp. 146-47 (n. 9). See also the excerpts from Robert Parry's article, "War Crimes and Double Standards" (1999).
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With the drunken lurching to Bircher rightwing, Americans are probably least able to acknowledge the genocidal killing enabled by Reagan. Whats even scarier is that if story of Reagan and Central America got traction in the American media today I have a nagging suspicion we would be treated to outright defenses of the mass killing in Guatemala, Salvador and Nicaragua.
ReplyDeleteWhat happens when the double standard is worn with pride?