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1. I wouldn't say "piss off" but I have doubts. The evidence of accountability was that Abrams was asked a pointed question on a panel. Hardly sufficient redress for lying to congress, covering up massacres & praising genocidal leaders.
2. "in the early 1980s, Abrams played a vital and constructive role in ensuring that the State Department’s human rights bureau was treated seriously by the rest of the State Department." As if instrumentalization of human rights is not, in fact, the problem!
3. To unpack that a little: one of Abrams' main historical legacies is that he showed that rhetoric of "human rights" could be a potent tool of American foreign policy, building a bridge from 1970s Democrats (Jackson, Moynihan, Carter) to Reagan/Bush.
4. Within the American foreign policy elite, this intrumentalized version human rights is regarded as a good thing (hence the bipartisan praise of Abrams from NatSec bigwigs). Those of us on the outside have some questions.
5. Instrumentalized human rights (i.e. human rights in the service of American hegemony) has always been open to the charge of hypocrisy (see Abrams role in denying El Mozote massacre) but beyond that has underpinned disastrous interventions (2nd Iraq war).
6. Beyond Abrams himself, there's the larger problem of elite impunity of which he's only one emblem. No one in American foreign policy elite ever pays for anything they do or is held accountable in any meaningful way: McNamara, Kissinger, Cheney etc.
7. This is Abrams/Reagan human rights policy in a nutshell: praising the architect of a genocide for his "personal integrity" and giving him the arms to carry out his killings.
8. Elite impunity: McNamara knew the Vietnam war was unwinnable but pushed for it and lied about it. 50,000 Americans & millions of Vietnamese died. His punishment? He was made the head of the World Bank.
9. Elite impunity: Kissinger pushed for a coup that destroyed Chilean democracy, continued Vietnam War despite knowing it was lost (to achieve face-saving "peace with honor" facade). His punishment? He's a celebrated elder statesman & Hillary Clinton's friend.
10. Good thread documenting my claim that Abrams offered an instrumentalized and cynical version of human rights:
11. Here we see Elliott Abrams covering up the murder of Archbishop Oscar Romero as late as 1993.
12. In the 1980s, the Argentine Junta systematically kidnapped Jewish kids (many orphaned in the dirty war) & raised them as Christian: an anti-Semitic crime. Elliott Abrams's response was a private rebuke & public support for the regime. cbsnews.com/news/ex-diplom…
