Saturday, December 23, 2006
New 23rd
Efrain Rios Montt and Oscar Humberto Mejia Victores slaughtered tens of thousands when they controlled Guatemala in the 1980s. Now they face trial in Spain on charges of genocide. The Guatemalan government probably won’t extradite them, just as the Chilean government was merciful towards Augusto Pinochet, as the Argentine government was merciful towards the former generals of that junta after they left power in 1983, as the Brazilian…you get the idea. Moderate “democratic” governments have shown no desire to punish former leaders of their own country, even when they were guilty of genocide. The stench of corruption still hangs over Argentina, El Salvador, Chile, Brazil, and certainly Guatemala.
Saparmurat Niyazov was my favorite dictator. He ruled Turkmenistan with an iron fist, making himself “President for Life” in 1999 and building a cult of personality around himself that not only included pictures of himself everywhere but also included a 200 foot tall monument topped with a 60 foot golden statue of himself that always rotated to face the sun. He renamed a month of the year after himself. He got grown men to call him “The Great Leader.” He died last week at the age of 66. RIP, you delusional, psychotic bastard.
What’s special, though, is how his little energy-rich nation was treated by the other great nations of the world. They loved the crazy bastard. They needed his country’s energy. They didn’t really care about democracy in Turkmenistan, for God’s sake. Why bother. It’sTurkmenistan. After he died Russia, the EU, and the United States all basically said “We don’t really care if a democracy replaces a tyrant in Turkmenistan. We just want you Neanderthals to keep the natural gas flowing.” You see, they’re a little skittish that all those energy contracts they negotiated with the dead man might be “renegotiated.” And I can tell you, as a citizen of a nation that has tossed dozens of governments that were uncooperative, there is nothing big business detests more than renegotiating a profitable contract with some piss ant, uppity democracy that just took over from one of our puppet dictators, or, as President Roosevelt said of Somoza of Nicaragua, one of “our bastards.”
The marines involved in Haditha have been charged with murder, officially, as Rep. Murtha predicted. Of course, warbloggers and fascist lunatics like Sean Hannity roasted Murtha for daring to actually say that the circumstances around Haditha looked suspicious. As usual, Blue Texan at Glenn Greenwald’s site has the post to read on the subject.
Why is it hard to find advertisers for Air America when its ratings are huge?
# posted by BitterHarvest @ 12:16 PM 
