James North
MONDOWEISS
But you won’t learn about this risk in today’s New York Times. It appears that Timesreporters David Sanger and Michael Crowley are secretly moonlighting for Brian Hook, the outgoing U.S. Iran diplomat. Their article only mentions Abrams once, and goes on to whitewash Hook’s career and give a distorted view of U.S. policy toward Iran.
Let’s turn to Eric Alterman for a recent, thorough look at Elliott Abrams and his criminal dishonesty about U.S.-sponsored crimes in Central America in the 1980s. Alterman provides facts to substantiate his view that Abrams was a “cheerleader for murderous dictators,” and adds that the new Iran envoy’s
career was literally built on the defense of mass murder and genocide and his willingness to lie on behalf of those who carried it out and smear the reputations of anyone who sought to try and stop or expose it.
As a consequence of the Iran-Contra affair, in 1991 Abrams did plead guilty of lying to Congress, but President George H. W. Bush promptly pardoned him. Some people haven’t forgotten: here you can see Rep. Ilhan Omar during a Congressional hearing vivisecting Abrams about his crimes in Central America.
Let’s turn to the Mideast. Abrams is a lifelong pro-Israel ideologue who has said that all Jews must “stand apart” from the country they live in except Israel. As part of the George W. Bush administration, he enthusiastically supported the disastrous U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.
You learn nothing about Abrams’s dark history from today’s New York Times report. Instead, the article inexplicably dwells on the outgoing Brian Hook, who granted the paper an interview. (The Washington Post report wryly noted that, “Hook could not be reached for comment.) The Times praises Hook as a “smooth debater,” and implies that he had been genuinely trying for diplomacy with Iran — instead of the truth, which is that the U.S. imposed crippling sanctions, and Israel (and probably America as well) have carried out a string of sabotage attacks inside Iran that are intended to provoke conflict.
(By contrast to the suck-piece in the Times, Daniel Drezner, in the Washington Post, last year wrote an article entitled “The political cowardice of Brian Hook,” showing how the now-ex Iran envoy held on to his position by kowtowing to Trump hacks.)
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— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) April 9, 2020
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