{"id":398977,"date":"2019-03-11T13:17:02","date_gmt":"2019-03-11T12:17:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/the-violence-elliott-abrams-supported-is-unspeakable\/"},"modified":"2019-03-11T13:17:02","modified_gmt":"2019-03-11T12:17:02","slug":"the-violence-elliott-abrams-supported-is-unspeakable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/the-violence-elliott-abrams-supported-is-unspeakable\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;The Violence Elliott Abrams Supported Is Unspeakable&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<figure class=\"featured-media wp-caption\" itemprop=\"image\" itemscope=\"\" itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/ImageObject\"><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"783\" src=\"https:\/\/truthout.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/2019_0310-elliot-abrams-1200x783.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt=\"Special Rep. For Venezuela Elliott Abrams Holds Press Briefing At State Department\" itemprop=\"url\" srcset=\"https:\/\/truthout.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/2019_0310-elliot-abrams-1200x783.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/truthout.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/2019_0310-elliot-abrams-200x131.jpg 200w, https:\/\/truthout.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/2019_0310-elliot-abrams-400x261.jpg 400w, https:\/\/truthout.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/2019_0310-elliot-abrams-800x522.jpg 800w, https:\/\/truthout.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/2019_0310-elliot-abrams.jpg 2400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\"\/><\/noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"783\" src=\"https:\/\/truthout.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Truthout-Default-Image-1200x900.png\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image to4-lazy-load\" alt=\"Special Rep. For Venezuela Elliott Abrams Holds Press Briefing At State Department\" itemprop=\"url\" srcset=\"\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" data-src=\"https:\/\/truthout.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/2019_0310-elliot-abrams-1200x783.jpg\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/truthout.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/2019_0310-elliot-abrams-1200x783.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/truthout.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/2019_0310-elliot-abrams-200x131.jpg 200w, https:\/\/truthout.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/2019_0310-elliot-abrams-400x261.jpg 400w, https:\/\/truthout.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/2019_0310-elliot-abrams-800x522.jpg 800w, https:\/\/truthout.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/2019_0310-elliot-abrams.jpg 2400w\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\" itemprop=\"caption\">Special Representative for Venezuela Elliott Abrams briefs the media on the current situation in the country, in the briefing room at the Department of State, on March 8, 2019, in Washington, D.C. <\/figcaption><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-credit\" itemprop=\"author\" itemscope=\"\" itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/Person\"><span itemprop=\"name\">Mark Wilson \/ Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>Janine Jackson: Difficult as it is to believe, there are many people for whom Elliott Abrams\u2019 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/administration-taps-elliott-abrams-as-envoy-for-venezuela-11548461920\">appointment<\/a> as Donald Trump\u2019s special envoy to Venezuela is their first introduction to the man a recent <em>Washington Post<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/nation\/2019\/02\/14\/someone-is-not-being-honest-elliott-abrams-trumps-venezuela-envoy-trailed-by-mistrust\/?utm_term=.8f274033ac90\">headline described<\/a> as \u201ctrailed by mistrust.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Abrams\u2019 public record in Latin America and elsewhere, as an official under Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, ought to be central in any reporting on his current Venezuelan adventure. But it only really got on media\u2019s front burner when Abrams\u2019 was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=InGCmxCjaWE\">confronted<\/a> with it by Rep. Ilhan Omar in a House Foreign Affairs Committee meeting, an <a href=\"http:\/\/time.com\/5529418\/ilhan-omar-elliott-abrams-el-salvador\/\">exchange<\/a> then subsumed in media\u2019s \u201cHot Controversy of the Day\u201d framework.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Joining us now today to talk about some of Elliott Abrams\u2019 keenly relevant and not-that-old history, is Jon Schwarz. Contributor to many outlets, he now writes for the Intercept. He joins us now by phone from Brooklyn. Welcome to CounterSpin, Jon Schwarz.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><b>Jon Schwarz:<\/b><span> <\/span>Thank you so much for having me on to talk about this. It\u2019s an extremely grim story, but also extremely important.<\/p>\n<p><strong>After the exchange with Representative Omar, Elliott Abrams sent a message to the Washington Post that described his role in the Reagan administration, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/world\/2019\/02\/15\/massacre-trumps-envoy-venezuela-wants-us-forget\/?utm_source=reddit.com&amp;utm_term=.ee1b88fd9122\">saying<\/a>, \u201cIt\u2019s a remarkable record of support for Latin democracy, of which Representative Omar is obviously unaware and in which she is uninterested.\u201d And he added, \u201cThat was clear from her conduct, which constituted attacking rather than questioning a witness.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"truth-content\" id=\"truth-1899219130\">\n<div class=\"banner_wrapper\" style=\"\">\n<div id=\"banner-247292\" class=\"banner subscribe-banner  banner-247292 bottom vert custom-banners-theme-default_style\" style=\"\"><a class=\"custom_banners_big_link\" href=\"#\"\/><\/p>\n<div class=\"banner_caption\" style=\"\">\n<div class=\"banner_caption_inner\">\n<div class=\"banner_caption_text\" style=\"\">\n<p><strong>The stories you care about, right at your fingertips<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Get Truthout&#8217;s daily edition delivered to your inbox.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong>The idea that Omar was speaking from <i>ignorance\u2014<\/i>set aside her purported incivility as the conduct with which we should be concerned\u2014but the idea that she was factually wrong, that&#8230;<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/truthout.org\/audio\/the-violence-elliott-abrams-supported-is-unspeakable\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Special Representative for Venezuela Elliott Abrams briefs the media on the current situation in the country, in the briefing room at the Department of State, on March 8, 2019, in Washington, D.C. Mark Wilson \/ Getty Images Janine Jackson: Difficult as it is to believe, there are many people for whom Elliott Abrams\u2019 appointment as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":398978,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-398977","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=398977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/398978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}