George W. Bush’s choice of John Negroponte to be the first U.S. intelligence czar signals that Washington is heading down the same road that has led to earlier American intelligence failures and controversies—from politicizing analysis to winking at human rights abuses. Although Negroponte’s nomination is expected to sail through the Senate, one question that might be worth asking about his tenure… return to article
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Reader Comments (29)Page 1 of 1 pagesNegroponte is a filthy, lying criminal, just like so many other scumbags in this Administration.
When you elect a man president who spent the first 40 years of his life unemployed and living outside the law, why should we expect that he or any of his loyalists are anything but dishonest criminals?
George W. Bush has been arrested at least five times that we know of, and yet, many Americans think he is lily-white and pure. Dick Cheney is a two-time convicted drunk driver. Some people might say, “So what?”, to which I respond, “How many two-time drunk drivers do you personally, and if you do know any, are they the type of people you want running this country???”
This Administration has gotten a total pass from the media on looking at their past sins. However, even a casual look at their past reveals an irresponsible and criminal mindset. I think progressives should remind the American people every single day of how criminal and fundamentally dishonest these jerks are!
Posted by Stephen Kriz on Mar 3, 2005 at 6:59 PM “Dick Cheney is a two-time convicted drunk driver. Some people might say, “So what?”, to which I respond, “How many two-time drunk drivers do you personally, and if you do know any, are they the type of people you want running this country???” “
Steph…to that I would add…next time someone applies for a job…just put an x in that little box next to “Have you ever been convicted of a crime?”
Posted by Liberal AND Proud on Mar 3, 2005 at 8:42 PM Very disturbing. More evidence that the government has been taken over by a bunch of thieves liars murderers rapist masochist racist drunks and crackheads. Who’s really running the show? These clowns are fronting for somebody or something else, they’re too stupid to be pulling this off on their own. The beast is truly in the house.
Posted by theloneous on Mar 3, 2005 at 9:12 PM Bush couldn’t appoint Nixon or Reagan or North. Well, I guess I’m surprised he didn’t choose that lying scumbag of a Iran-contra perjurer North but Negroponte is the best choice for this bunch of torture-loving, hypocritical, drug trafficking, traitors.
Bush probably had to make this appointment as the last payment on the blow Negroponte got him in the 80’s.
Posted by AmericanInsurgent on Mar 4, 2005 at 2:00 AM I can’t figure out whether it’s Bush or Cheney that is the ANTI-CHRIST, but no matter, the results are the same. Wreck the econmomy, destroy the social programs, the environment, the educational system, even the stability of international relationships. It isn’t a surprise that everyone Bush nominates to high positions is morally defective, these are the only people who would support an agenda as viscious as his. What is a surprise is how many people in this country are unable to see through that “Elmer Gantry” phony cornpone bullshit smirk, and judge him by his deeds. I guess it would help if we still had a press in this country that would actually report those deeds, and connect those dots. If we did, Bush & company would be on trial in the Hague instead of busy dismantling 70 years of social progress.
Posted by Kenneth D. Brown on Mar 4, 2005 at 7:23 AM Duyba should be impeached and thrown out of ofice for not enforcing the laws of the land namely the immigration laws.
Laura should be jailed for Killing a 17 year old in Texas.
Chennney could use another heart attack.
Rummy should leave and send all the citizens of another country in the DOD back to that country.
Posted by Charles Harrison on Mar 4, 2005 at 8:33 AM As the US Ambassador to the United Nations, John Negroponte made speeches uttering the appalling phrase “Final Solution to the Palestinian Problem” which portrays his, as well as the Bush team’s fondness for ethnic cleansing.
Posted by americanintifada on Mar 4, 2005 at 8:44 AM Boy, ya gotta love Bush’s National Security Quintet… Rumsfeld, “Stress position” Gonzales, PATRIOT Actor “Death Mask Mike” Chertoff, Porter “Wet Work” Goss, and Negroponte ‘The Vulture’.
Were I religious my mantra would be ‘God help you Americans - and the rest of us’
Posted by Dr. Gottlieb on Mar 4, 2005 at 1:58 PM The appointment of John Negroponte is an insult to what little dignity the USA still has. For that matter, the fact that Bush is in the White House is even more insulting. In reading everyone’s blog, the thought that occurs to me is…okay, then, let’s do something about it.
Blogging is a great tools to spread the news and gain consensus, but it takes more than that. We need to start turning out in person—to every b.s. Social Security meeting that Bush is now doing in 60 cities. There should be a mass crowd at each site!
Go online and find like-minded individuals in your area. Go to meetup.org and also the DNC site can help you find others in your area.
We will get nothing done if we don’t band together, formulate practical strategies and then TAKE IT TO THE STREETS! I am.
Posted by Margaret on Mar 4, 2005 at 6:08 PM if anyone still doesn’t get what is happening in the US, go to your library and pick up a copy of Leo Strauss’s “Natural Right and History”. Skip the crap and go directly to chapter IV. Keep in mind reading this that many people in this administration are Straussian sympathizer or even student of Strauss himself (Paul Wolfowitz and Abe “groupthink” Schulsky). Everything’s there black on white. After reading this, there won’t be anything this administration can do that will surprise you.
Is Bush the “Gentleman” Strauss advised for… go find for yourself
Posted by Olivier Boudreau on Mar 4, 2005 at 7:04 PM Rather than all the invective against the Bush-Cheny-Rumsfeld gang, let us not forget that a very large numbr of our fellow Americans support them. That to me is the scariest thing of all.
Posted by jo baldwin on Mar 4, 2005 at 7:24 PM For the life of me, I cannot understand why the press is not reporting what Negroponte allowed to be conducted from the American Embassy in Honduras - the Operation Pegasus assassination squad that the CIA’s Frank Camper was allowed to create under Tom Posey’s Civilian Military Assistance Program to train ‘death squads’ out of the Embassy, and Oliver North got President Reagan to give the green light to in November 1984 by suspending the Executive Order against assassinations.
Once the Memphis Commercial Appeal started reporting on what its death squads were doing, the Honduran President was not only obliged to deport the 12-man killing squad but also Negroponte soon followed because of his violation of diplomatic protocol.
This is the export of American state-terrorism big time, and now Negroponte is in charge of the whole system.
Posted by Trowbridge H. Ford on Mar 4, 2005 at 7:41 PM Olivier and Jo,
What’s that quote about “bad things happen when good men do nothing”? We can all feel scared by what’s happening, we can all have the “head” knowledge of Mr. Strauss’ theories, but until we get involved to physically “push” change, it will not happen. I appreciate your knowledge and open-eyed perception, but get together with physical groups of people who will make their voices heard on tv, radio, internet, etc. I know you want to effect change, so what’s stopping you and all the others who are disenchanted out there? Fear. But as FDR said, we have nothing to fear but fear itself.
Posted by Margaret on Mar 4, 2005 at 7:42 PM “Duyba should be impeached and thrown out of ofice for not enforcing the laws of the land namely the immigration laws. “
I shudder to think of the U.S. with DC at the helm. Watch for you wish for.
Best to throw them all out.
Posted by Sven on Mar 4, 2005 at 9:09 PM I do not see any incongruity with this selection by Bush. Bush and Negropnte are very much alike. I would be surprised if Bush picked somebody who was humane, honest, and really interested in ‘spreading demoracy’. Our government has neen in bed with all kinds of fascists, despots, torrturres, some of them we have trained ourselves. We have imported ‘ex’ Hitler’s specialists in torturre to train our guys in this ‘science’.
One of my Latin American friends from school said that CIA stands for “Cancer Inside America” and anybody coming from the CIA is most definitely against democracy and freedom.
It would take volumes of pages to list all the killings caused by our foreign policy. CIA is nothing by a tool that executes the policies of our presidents. I do not blame CIA as much as I place the blame on the presidents. If our presidents really wanted to stop these death squads and the abuses by the CIA, they could do it by the stroke of a pen. The fact is, they hide behind the secrecy and acquisance of the Congress and the media. In 1965, there was a civil war instigated by the CIA in Indonesia, our ambasador was supplying the names of people to be killed to the junta, and about 1,000,000 died as a result of this coup. There was not e single word in the press in the US as this was happening.
No, I expected Bush to appoint some butcher for this job, as he did.
Posted by Bob Kornic on Mar 5, 2005 at 12:35 AM What scares me is that it all looks like a consolidation of our toughest hawks. Like something really bad happened and they’re trying to find out who knows what. I’m not referring specifically to 9/11.
The press has been spoon-feeding stories concerning all sorts of secret-stuff, always have both in and out of war. But never will we get an answer as to why. We should not expect an explanation as citizens(National Security), but when you see SO MUCH obfuscation it makes you wonder why.
Posted by shubert on Mar 5, 2005 at 8:40 AM The sad thing even more then this administrations lack of ethics, morals, or humanity, and/or Negroponte’s obvious deficiencies, to me is the Democratic Parties total ineptitute to stir things up enough to point this stuff out to its dwindling constituency. It is very frightening.
Posted by Jim Chieco on Mar 5, 2005 at 2:19 PM Protect the status quo of empire at all cost. Bu$iness as usual. Nothing to see here. Go back to your homes. Turn on Faux news. Take a brand new anti-depressant. Chill out. ‘God’ bless Negroponte, the CIA jackals and Battalion 316. Nice choice for a national intelligence czar. I laughed.
Posted by Bastard on Mar 6, 2005 at 5:06 AM Kakistocracy:government by the worst citizens;syn.Bush Administration.
Posted by wwoods on Mar 7, 2005 at 6:15 PM ” - while slanting intelligence reports to please his superiors in Washington.”
” - history of forwarding inaccurate intelligence to Washington and leaving out information that would have upset the upper echelon of the Reagan-Bush administration.”
Such inferences lead us away from the obvious consistencies, among them,
a. who posted him to the Amb job
b. why did they choose him
c. what instructions did they gave him
d. what reports did he submit “officially”
e. what info did he likely report without recordA plausible conclusion is that he was picked as the already best qualified candidate for that Honduras assignment by former CIA director, incumbent VP, future president, and father to the incumbent nominating authority. When one is part of the inside team, pleasing someone above is not a consideration; ask LtCol North.
And Batt 316 is only the tip of an insidious iceberg which remains afloat today; ask Joseph Otero http://www.davesweb.cnchost.com/nwsltr72.html
There are strands of web which defy clarity of purpose; ask Gannon/Guckert/Gosch/G—-
with official military and intelligence activities in 188 of 192 nations of the world, world wide web has meant alot more than just the internet for decades
Watch out how and where you may be led by these revelations.
Why is it that the media, blogs, and myriad special interest groups protesting anything going on in government only direct their criticism to and call for investigation and action by the Democratic House and Senate when most of the issues are so onerous that all members of our Congress who are truly representing us and not themselves should be called upon to take action?
Further consider the details of every presidency since Kennedy and who ran and who won and why/how, the questions become more unsettling with every “election.” Where did Perot come from to enable Clinton to emerge? Where did Kerry come from to contend yet not to win the 2004 election? We all know where the incumbent came from, but it the how that will fascinate scholars for as long as the earth remains habitable.
Posted by Oliver on Mar 7, 2005 at 11:29 PM The way the USA is headed under its present administration is very frightening. Anyone that just sits back and says “there is nothing I can do about all of this”, is abrogating their responsibility to the human race. Obviously, they do not have children, who face a very uncertain and dangerous future, basically devised by evil men. Unfortunately, Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, and other dangerous power obsessed fanatics, are not anomalies of history, their like is very much present today. However, they wear pinstrip suits, have been educated at Yale or Oxford, and look for all the world like respectable people. It’s all a big front to confuse and mislead the general public, as to their true nature and intentions. Such is the case with people such as Negroponte and his ilk.
Posted by NM on Mar 19, 2005 at 11:39 AM Public acknowledgement of the criminal role of Negroponte in the Reagan administration will get public attention in Oregon on April 28. That is the anniversary of the assassination of a young man from Oregon, Ben Linder, in Nicaragua on orders approved by Negroponte in 1986 when he was Reagan’s point man for Central America out of Honduras. Linder, 27, was helping build a hydroelectric plant to give peasants electricity. In his memory, the University of Oregon has dedicated the Ben Linder auditorium in its Student Union. A detailed linking of Linder’s death with Negroponte is available for any who contact me at: gberes@uoregon.edu
Posted by george beres on Mar 24, 2005 at 4:38 AM Something is very WRONG, when George Bush cannot seem to find any decent man amongst his friends to appoint to any position.
The fate of our Nation depends on its leadership, and Bush has been unarguably, the WORST thing that has ever happened to our Country.
God Bless America, and set it free from the hands of the New Fascist Regime of Neo-CONS
Posted by LIONEL AKORDINOBI on Apr 25, 2005 at 9:58 AM It just goes to show how hypocritical the Bush administration is to be talking about spreading democracy. I don’t know of any meaningful definition of democreacy that includes the murder of all political opposition as was practiced in central America in the eighties. The only freedom they are really interestd in promoting is the freedom to exploit.
Posted by Louis Rue on May 19, 2005 at 2:50 PM I am scared to death, not of terrorist, but of the Bush administration and the Republicans. What they are doing and getting away with is incomprehensible. The American people are being BRAIN WASHED by our GOVERNMENT.
Posted by sallym on Jun 9, 2005 at 3:20 PM Negroponte’s hands are dripping with Salvador Blood from the old Honduran Ambassador days. He supported the death squads. Roberto D’Abuisson the death squad kingpin of the country was his man! No wonder Bush likes him!
Posted by steve on Jun 11, 2005 at 2:38 PM I agree completely with the last two comments and that’s exactly what I was referring to. The greatest danger we face is the further development of the national security state. If it continues to grow in scope and represiveness it will just be a matter of time before it is on the level of the old Soviet Union, or perhaps I should say Nazi Germany since it would be much more similar politically to the latter of these two states. The founders must be rolling their graves.
Posted by Louis Rue on Jun 14, 2005 at 7:34 PM Page 1 of 1 pages -
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