Greenwald: Clinton, Stalwart Friend of World’s Worst Despots, Attacks Sanders on Latin America

https://theintercept.com/2016/03/10/hillary-clinton-stalwart-friend-of-worlds-worst-despots-attacks-sanders-latin-american-activism/

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Vehement opposition to Reagan’s covert wars in Central America, as well as to the sadistic and senseless embargo of Cuba, were once standard liberal positions. As my colleague Jeremy Scahill, observing the reaction of Clinton supporters during the debate, put it in a series of tweets: “The U.S. sponsored deaths squads that massacred countless central and Latin Americans, murdered nuns and priests, assassinated an Archbishop. I bet commie Sanders was even against Reagan’s humanitarian mining of Nicaraguan waters & supported subsequent war crimes judgment vs. U.S. Have any of these Hillarybots heard of the Contra death squads? Or is it just that whatever Hillary says must be defended at all costs? The Hillarybots attacking Sanders over Nicaragua should be ashamed of themselves.”

Let’s pretend for the sake of argument that the horror expressed by Clinton and her supporters over Sanders’ 1980s positions on Latin America was all driven by some sort of authentic outrage over praising tyrants and human rights abusers rather than a cynical, craven tactic to undermine Sanders using long-standing right-wing, red-baiting smears. Is Hillary Clinton a credible voice for condemning support for despots and human rights abusers? To answer that, let’s review much more recent evidence than the 1980s:

Egyptian despot Hosni Mubarak:

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Syrian President Bashar al-Assad:

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The Saudi regime:

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The right-wing coup government in Honduras

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Gulf tyrannies

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War criminal and dictator-supporter Henry Kissinger:

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It seems that, overnight, Clinton and her supporters have decided that Sanders’ opposition to Reagan-era wars against Latin American governments and rebel groups — a common liberal position at the time — is actually terribly wrong and something worthy of demonization rather than admiration, because those governments and groups abused human rights. Whatever else one might say about this mimicking of right-wing agitprop, Hillary Clinton for years has been one of the world’s most stalwart friends of some of the world’s worst despots and war criminals, making her and her campaign a very odd vessel for demonizing others for their links to and admiration of human-rights abusers.