Ronald Reagan: Accessory to Genocide

[unhappycamper]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/05/12-2



More than any recent U.S. president, Ronald Reagan has been lavished with honors, including his name attached to Washington’s National Airport. But the conviction of Reagan’s old ally, ex-Guatemalan dictator Rios Montt, for genocide means “Ronnie” must face history’s judgment as an accessory to the crime

Ronald Reagan: Accessory to Genocide
by Robert Parry
Published on Sunday, May 12, 2013 by Consortiumnews.com

The conviction of former Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt on charges of genocide against Mayan villagers in the 1980s has a special meaning for Americans who idolize Ronald Reagan. It means that their hero was an accessory to one of the most grievous crimes that can be committed against humanity.

The courage of the Guatemalan people and the integrity of their legal system to exact some accountability on a still-influential political figure also put U.S. democracy to shame. For decades now, Americans have tolerated human rights crimes by U.S. presidents who face little or no accountability. Usually, the history isn’t even compiled honestly.

~snip~

Yet, while Guatemalans demonstrate the strength to face a dark chapter of their history, the American people remain mostly oblivious to Reagan’s central role in tens of thousands of political murders across Central America in the 1980s, including some 100,000 dead in Guatemala slaughtered by Rios Montt and other military dictators.

Indeed, Ronald Reagan – by aiding, abetting, encouraging and covering up widespread human rights crimes in El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua as well as Guatemala – bears greater responsibility for Central America’s horrors than does Rios Montt in his bloody 17-month rule. Reagan supported Guatemala’s brutal repression both before and after Rios Montt held power, as well as during.

[GeorgeGist]

1. Supreme doofus.

[MisterP]

2. Angola, Mozambique, Cambodia, Iran-Iraq, Israel, side-taking in Lebanon, Chile, Argentina (until 83)

Haiti, Panama (until '89), Guyana (sorta), Paraguay, South Africa, "Zaire," Somalia (sorta), Guinea, Liberia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, South Korea, the Philippines (until '86), Indonesia

[Addison]

3. Read his diary

If you read Reagan's White House diary you'll become convinced that he was a very sincere, kind, caring, and lovable man.

You'll also become convinced that he was uncritically trusting in his aides and advisers, totally lacked intellectual curiosity, and unable to engage in serious self-reflection or personal growth.

A case study in the fact that bad leaders do not have to be bad men.

[indepat]

4. Now, now, Saint Ronnie's worshipers ain't gonna let a little wart of accusation like being an

accessory to genocide slow down, much less sidetrack, the gipper's deification.

[SpearthrowerOwl]

5. It's pretty funny that Reagan gave a pat on the back to this butcher

but as far as I know that's all Rios Montt got from the Reagan administration during his reign of terror. Obviously Reagan was a huge component of terror in the 1980s world, but I think Rios Montt would be the hardest of the entourage to get the American administration on..

Stories like this nevertheless make my head spin when I hear some random (hyper conservative) person throughly exhalting the allegedly laudable Reagan... ...... These kinds of people seriously know almost nothing about anything. What they do know is almost entirely disinformation....

[William769]

6. Let's not forget he's also an Accessory to Genocide right here in the U.S.

How many people here died of AIDS because of his and his administrations inaction to deal with the epidemic.

No matter how things they name after him, he will be remembered as the butcher of the 80's (in more ways than one).