The Crimes and Arrogance of Elliott Abrams

Elliot Abrams while being questioned by Rep. Ilan Omar today, in front the House Committee on Foreign Relations, maintained his arrogance, and uppity demeanor, when Omar asked, “I fail to understand why members of this committee or the American people should any testimony that you give today to be truthful.” As Omar continued, Abrams squirmed, protested and whined through most of her time with the war criminal. For many anti-war pundits and progressive politicians, this was a watershed moment, when a neocon war criminal is put to task with no holds bard.

Trump's pick for the new envoy to Venezuela is problematic on so many levels. Elliott Abrams is a convicted criminal. He certainly is the poster boy for everything horrible in America's Foreign policy over the last 30 years. Abrams participation in a number of bloody coups on the South America continent is extensive. In a just world, the man would have been tried by the Hague, and currently serving time in a maximum security prison. However, this is not a just world, so rather than spending time in a cell, he ends up in President Trump's inner circle.

Abrams was involved in the Iran Contra scandal, and found guilty for lying to the US congress. (Later pardoned by president George H.W. Bush) He was also the central architect in the 1981 El Mosote massacre, that US trained El Salvadorian soldiers, who murdered over 800 civilians. The witness testimonies of the massacre are beyond evil, charging that there were extensive raping of young women and even a two year old child. Abrams, when asked at the time, believed the conflict to be a “fabulous achievement”.

Rep. Ilian Omar was certainly unrelenting in her questioning. At one point Abrams gesticulated, uttering,”I'm not going to respond to that kind of personal attack, which is not a question.”

Rep. IIan Omar asks, “Would you support an armed faction within Venezuela that engages in war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide, if you believe they were serving US interests, as you did in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua?” Abrams uncomfortably replied that he refuses to reply to such questioning. The war criminal was obviously way out of his comfort zone...and rightly so.

Finally a Representative of the American people confronting a war criminal in power that has spread so much suffering around the planet for the sake of their corporate masters.

But this begs the question: Why would the Trump Administration hire a known war criminal who, in 2002, attempted a coup in Venezuela and failed miserably? Despite, too, the fact that Abrams is a convicted criminal and known liar as well?

Well, Trump has a habit of hiring criminals, so the answer to this shouldn't be too difficult.

The pattern is of public record.