Missing Pieces in the Puzzle of John Negroponte
The battle for history is never about yesterday;
it is always about today. Who wins today lays
claim to tomorrow.
History doesn't wait for tomorrow to be told. Stories told in the news today lay control to how events will be viewed tomorrow. Take care of today and tomorrow will take care of itself. If that seems simple enough, it is more simple to the those in power who would control what you know and how you know it. No matter who is in power or why, the desire to control information and its flow is irresistable. Methods overt and most coy are used to achieve ultimate goal. One story, one voice. All the same, all the time.
When the party in power controls information from the start, no messy editing of unsavory details is needed later. If you can get somebody else to write your story the way you want it, where your hands are unseen on the pen or keyboard, all the better. You won't need to edit at all. You have won and we all have lost. Let us now turn to John Negroponte. Here are three pieces of his puzzle found in five sentences:
I'm pleased to announce my decision to nominate Ambassador John Negroponte as Director of National Intelligence. . . . John understands America's global intelligence needs because he spent the better part of his life in our foreign service, and is now serving with distinction in the sensitive post of our nation's first Ambassador to a free Iraq. George W. Bush at The White House February 14, 2005
As ambassador to Honduras, Negroponte played a key role in coordinating US covert aid to the Contras who targeted civilians in Nicaragua and shoring up a CIA-backed death squad in Honduras. Democracy Now January 10, 2005
Supporters credit the policy with calming the insurgency, although it left a bitter legacy and stirred anti-American sentiment. London Times January 10, 2005
John Negroponte . . . spent the better part of his life . . . shoring up a CIA-backed death squad in Honduras . . . a bitter legacy.
Three pieces of the puzzle tell different parts of a disturbing story. We hear much of one piece, from The White House, a nicely cleaned version. How do all the pieces fit together? Apparently one piece is enough.
On Thursday, February 17, 2005; 11:54 AM, Daniel Branigin of the Washington Post wrote more than twenty lucid sentences on Negroponte's nomination to be Director of National Intelligence.
Branigin's description of Negroponte's resume is deception by euphemism:
From 1981 to 1985, he (Negroponte) was U.S. ambassador to Honduras, where he helped
carry out the Reagan administration’s efforts, using the Contra rebels,
to oust the Sandinista government in Nicaragua.
Efforts? A most polite salute for most grisly results abroad and an averted Consitutional crisis at home.
No Sentences for John Negropontes
Negroponte's efforts abroad led to the deaths of not just Contras in Nicaraguara but innocents there and in Honduras: civilians, nuns, priests. Illegal efforts to fund these Contras smudged that most righteous image of Ronald Reagan's U.S. presidency as a constitutional crisis loomed. Indictments, convictions, pardons. No sentences for John Negroponte, not from Mister Branigin.
So what? If it is a truism that journalism is the first draft of history, perhaps we need more diligent first drafts.
History is rewritten when a complete history isn't written at all. The first draft of history defines the terms and the scope of the story. Everything afterwards is editing. Editing rarely adds, more often cuts yet more. When the flesh is gone, go to bone. The body politic is poorly served.
So what? What is lost? Nothing is lost if we hold onto ignorance with both hands.
But if we hold this ignorance unknowing, how will we be viewed in a court of world opinion? Who cares about world opinion? We are Americans, if not always right then certainly more right than everyone else. We know better and the rest of the world better know it.
If our chickenhawks pluck other birds' feathers abroad, why should we be ruffled? Should the chickens abroad come home to roost, would we even recognize when birds of prey are in flight? The birds of discontent chirp in many a foreign tree. The quiet plea for peace put aside, the call for help forever unheard, these are how the calls for violence rise.
The most true history admits facts both fair and foul. Ignorance kills with every lost detail. Something more than information is lost if democracy dies the death of of a thousand such small pecks.
For more info: Stop Human Rights Obstructer John Negroponte.
Great description of historical revisionism and how truth is lost down the memory hole. Reminds me of one my favorites lines from Rage Against the Machine:
Who controls the past now controls the future. Who controls the present now controls the past.
I believe they took that from Orwell.
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