I heard this on CSPAn radio. She certainly wasn't pulling any punches.
---
Carl Sagan
“Who is more humble? The scientist who looks at the universe with an open mind
and accepts whatever the universe has to teach us, or somebody who says
everything in this book must be considered the literal truth and never mind the
fallibility of all the human beings involved?”
― Carl Sagan
___
On 2/14/2019 3:56 PM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
If you'd heard the clip, it would be apparent how brave she is. She's a
young black immigrant, sounding not highly educated, challenging the white
male establishment and a bipartisan consensus.
Miriam
Venezuela February 13, 2019
Will you support genocide in Venezuela?: Congress member Ilhan Omar
challenges notorious coup-monger Elliott Abrams
US Congress member Ilhan Omar asked Trump’s new Venezuela special envoy
Elliott Abrams if he would oversee genocide and war crimes as he did in
Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua.
By Ben Norton
US Rep. Ilhan Omar boldly challenged infamous Iran-Contra felon Elliott
Abrams in a House of Representatives hearing on the Donald Trump
administration’s policy in Venezuela.
“Would you support an armed faction within Venezuela that engages in war
crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide, if they believe they were
serving US interests, as you did in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua?”
asked Omar, a progressive Democrat representing Minnesota.
In January, President Donald Trump appointed Abrams as his special envoy for
Venezuela. The Trump administration has been leading a right-wing coup
attempt in the oil-rich South American nation, seeking to topple its elected
leftist government.
Abrams is notorious for overseeing an array of atrocities in Central
America. In 2002, under then President George W. Bush, Abrams also supported
a brief military coup in Venezuela.
In the hearing, which took place on February 13, Omar continued grilling
Abrams over his involvement in US crimes in Central America.
Omar said:
In 1991, you pleaded guilty to two counts of withholding information from
Congress regarding your involvement in the Iran-Contra affair, for which you
were later pardoned by President George H. W. Bush.
I fail to understand why members of this committee, or the American people,
should find any testimony that you give today to be truthful.
…
On February 8, 1982, you testified before the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee about US policy in El Salvador. In that hearing, you dismissed as
‘communist propaganda’ a report about the massacre of El Mozote, in which
more than 800 civilians, including children as young as 2 years old, were
brutally murdered by US-trained troops.
During that massacre, some of those troops bragged about raping 12-year-old
girls before they killed them. You later said that the US policy in El
Salvador was a ‘fabulous achievement.’
Yes or no, do you still think so?
Bold new foreign policy voice in Congress
Omar, a freshman in the US Congress, has shown leadership in challenging the
bipartisan foreign policy consensus.
This February, she was smeared as “anti-Semitic” for calling attention to
the influence of the Israel lobby and right-wing Israel-backed groups in
Washington.
Abrams is a longtime ally of the Israel lobby, and was directly involved in
the failed coup attempt against the elected Hamas government of the Gaza
Strip in 2007.
Elliott Abrams’ crimes in Central America
In her comments during the Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, Ilhan Omar
referred to the role Elliott Abrams played in backing the military junta in
Guatemala in the 1980s.
Under the sponsorship of the United States, Guatemalan dictator Efraín Ríos
Montt carried out a campaign of genocide against the local Indigenous
community, in a bloody attempt to crush any shred of communist and socialist
resistance.
Abrams lobbied for the US government to send more and more weapons to Ríos
Montt’s regime. He attacked human rights activists and actively downplayed
US-backed atrocities. Abrams even insisted that the Guatemalan junta
“brought considerable progress” on human rights, progress that needed “to be
rewarded and encouraged.”
Abrams was also deeply implicated in the notorious Iran-Contra scandal, in
which the United States used the money made in secret arms sales to Iran in
order to fund far-right death squads in Nicaragua, known as the Contras.
In the 1980s, Abrams even smuggled weapons to the Contras by hiding them in
supposed “humanitarian aid” shipments.
Activists from the women-led peace group CODEPINK interrupted Abrams’
congressional hearing.
“Don’t listen to this war criminal!” protester Ariel Gold chanted.
“Venezuela needs negotiations, not a coup or military intervention!”
Ben Norton
