Published on Portside (https://portside.org/)
Trump's 'Axis of
Evil': Pompeo, Bolton & Abrams
Common
Dreams staff
January
26, 2019
US Secretary of
State Mike Pompeo called on countries to "pick a side" on Venezuela,
urging them to back opposition leader Juan Guaido in a Saturday speech at the
UN Security Council in New York.
"Now, it is
time for every other nation to pick a side. No more delays, no more games.
Either you stand with the forces of freedom, or you're in league with Maduro
and his mayhem," Pompeo told the Security Council.
Russia accused
Washington of plotting a coup attempt and had tried to stop the meeting
requested by the United States. "Venezuela does not represent a threat to
peace and security. If anything does represent a threat to peace, it is the
shameless and aggressive action of the United States and their allies aimed at
the ouster of the legitimately elected president of Venezuela," Russia's UN
ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, told the UN Council.
On Friday,
neoconservative Elliott Abrams was appointed US special envoy for Venezuela.
“Elliott will be a
true asset to our mission to help the Venezuelan people fully restore democracy
and prosperity to their country,” Mr Pompeo said, according to Reuters.
“It’s very nice to
be back. This crisis in Venezuela is deep and difficult and dangerous,” Abrams
said Friday. “And I can’t wait to get to work on it.”
Abrams is known as
the "Assistant Secretary of Dirty Wars," a title he earned
during his stints with the Reagan and George W. Bush administrations:
- In
1993, after a UN truth commission which examined 22,000 atrocities that
occurred during the twelve-year civil war in El Salvador, attributed 85
per cent of the abuses to the Reagan-assisted right-wing military and its
death-squad allies, assistant Secretary of State for Human
Rights Abrams said: “The administration’s record on El Salvador is
one of fabulous achievement.”
- Abrams
organized the illegal, covert financing of Contra rebels in Nicaragua
behind the back of Congress, which had cut off funding.
- Abrams
lied to Congress twice about his role with the Contras. He pleaded guilty
to both counts in 1991 but was pardoned by George HW Bush.
- Abrams,
a decade later, while working as special Middle East adviser to former
president George W Bush, Abrams was an enthusiastic advocate of the
disastrous Iraq invasion.
- Abrams
was in the Bush White House at the time of the abortive coup in 2002
against the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
- Abrams
helped lead the US effort to stage a coup to overturn the results of the
2006 Palestinian elections, complete with murder and torture.
Also on Friday,
a Wall Street Journal report confirmed suspicions that
opposition leader Juan Guaido's move to declare himself "interim
president" of Venezuela this week was highly coordinated with the Trump
White House and Republican lawmakers.
Guaido's move and
U.S. President Donald Trump's rapid endorsement were quickly
decried as a dangerous intervention—or the beginnings of a coup
d'etat—which progressives argued would dramatically worsen the country's
economic and political crisis. As Common Dreams reported, over
70 academics and experts signed an open letter demanding that the U.S.
"cease encouraging violence by pushing for violent, extralegal regime
change."
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"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their
lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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