# Should a man with Negroponte's past be National Intelligence Director? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 18, 2005, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-man-with-negropontes-past-be-national-intelligence-director/290798 "2005-02-18T21:51:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2005, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-man-with-negropontes-past-be-national-intelligence-director/290798/1 "2005-02-18T21:51:36Z")
Bush has nominated John Dimitri Negroponte, currently U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, to be the first National Intelligence Director – the newly created head-or-at-least-overseer of all American intelligence agencies. Negroponte solemnly/smugly announced that this is the greatest challenge he has accepted in 40 years of government service. Let’s look a little closer at those 40 years of government service. From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John\_Negroponte:](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Negroponte:) > [@](#): > > **Ambassador to Honduras** > > From 1981 to 1985 Negroponte was the U.S. ambassador to Honduras. During his tenure, he oversaw the growth of military aid to Honduras from $4 million to $77.4 million a year. At the time, Honduras was ruled by an elected but heavily militarily-influenced government. According to The New York Times, Negroponte was allegedly involved in “carrying out the covert strategy of the Reagan administration to crush the Sandinistas government in Nicaragua.” Critics say that during his ambassadorship, human rights violations in Honduras became systematic. > > Negroponte supervised the construction of the El Aguacate air base where Nicaraguan Contras were trained by the U.S., and which some critics say was used as a secret detention and torture center during the 1980s. In August 2001, excavations at the base discovered 185 corpses, including two Americans, who are thought to have been killed and buried at the site. > > Records also show that a special intelligence unit (commonly referred to as a “death squad”) of the Honduran armed forces, Battalion 3-16, trained by the CIA and the Argentine military, kidnapped, tortured and killed hundreds of people, including U.S. missionaries. Critics charge that Negroponte knew about these human rights violations and yet continued to collaborate with the Honduran military while lying to Congress. > > In May 1982, a nun, Sister Laetitia Bordes, who had worked for ten years in El Salvador, went on a fact-finding delegation to Honduras to investigate the whereabouts of thirty Salvadoran nuns and women of faith who fled to Honduras in 1981 after Archbishop Óscar Romero’s assassination. Negroponte claimed the embassy knew nothing. However, in a 1996 interview with the Baltimore Sun, Negroponte’s predecessor, Jack Binns, said that a group of Salvadorans, among whom were the women Bordes had been looking for, were captured on April 22, 1981, and savagely tortured by the DNI, the Honduran Secret Police, and then later thrown out of helicopters alive. It is unclear when or how Mr. Binns received this information and when it was known at the embassy. > > In early 1984, two American mercenaries, Thomas Posey and Dana Parker, contacted Negroponte, stating they wanted to supply arms to the Contras after the U.S. Congress had banned further military aid. Documents show that Negroponte brought the two together with a contact in the Honduran armed forces. The operation was exposed nine months later, at which point the Reagan administration denied any U.S. involvement, despite Negroponte’s introductions of some of the individuals. Other documents allegedly detailed a plan of Negroponte and then-Vice President George H. W. Bush to funnel Contra aid money through the Honduran government. > > During his tenure as U.S. ambassador to Honduras, Binns, who was appointed by President Jimmy Carter, made numerous complaints about human rights abuses by the Honduran military and claimed he fully briefed Negroponte on the situation before leaving the post. When the Reagan administration came to power, Binns was replaced by Negroponte, who has consistently denied having knowledge of any wrongdoing. Later, the Honduras Commission on Human Rights accused Negroponte himself of human rights violations. > > Speaking of Negroponte and other senior U.S. officials, an ex-Honduran congressman, Efrain Diaz, told the Baltimore Sun, which in 1995 published an extensive investigation of U.S. activities in Honduras: > > “Their attitude was one of tolerance and silence. They needed Honduras to loan its territory more than they were concerned about innocent people being killed.” > The Sun’s investigation found that the CIA and U.S. embassy knew of numerous abuses but continued to support Battalion 3-16 and ensured that the embassy’s annual human rights report did not contain the full story. > > The question of what John Negroponte knew about human rights abuses in Honduras will probably never be answered definitively, but there is a large body circumstantial evidence supporting the view that Negroponte was aware that serious violations of human rights were carried out by the Honduran government, with the support of the CIA, if perhaps not with its direct approval. Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, on 14 September 2001, as reported in the Congressional Record ([http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2001\_cr/s091401.html](http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2001_cr/s091401.html)), aired his suspicions on the occasion of Negroponte’s nomination to the position of UN ambassador: > > “Based upon the Committee’s review of State Department and CIA documents, it would seem that Ambassador Negroponte knew far more about government perpetuated human rights abuses than he chose to share with the committee in 1989 or in Embassy contributions at the time to annual State Department Human Rights reports.” > Among other evidence, Dodd cited a cable sent by Negroponte in 1985 that made it clear that Negroponte was aware of the threat of “future human rights abuses” by “secret operating cells” left over by General Alvarez after his deposition in 1984. > > **Appointment to the UN** > > When President Bush announced Negroponte’s appointment to the UN shortly after coming to office, it was met with scattered protest. Some critics asserted that the administration intentionally arranged the deportation from the United States of several former Honduran death squad members who could have provided damaging testimony against Negroponte in his Senate confirmation hearings. > > One of the deportees was General Luis Alonso Discua, founder of Battalion 3-16. In the preceding month, Washington had revoked the visa of Discua who was Honduras’ Deputy Ambassador to the UN. Subsequently, Discua asserted to a left-wing website his portrayal of U.S. support of Battalion 3-16. [1] ([http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0325-03.htm](http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0325-03.htm)) From David Corn’s column in _The Nation,_ [http://www.thenation.com/capitalgames/index.mhtml?bid=3&pid=2203](http://www.thenation.com/capitalgames/index.mhtml?bid=3&pid=2203), 5/10/04: > [@](#): > > Like dirty money, tainted reputations can be laundered, as the Administration fervently hopes in the case of John Negroponte. Now UN ambassador, Negroponte has been chosen by George W. Bush to be the first ambassador to post-Saddam Iraq. When Bush selected Negroponte to be his UN representative in 2001, Negroponte was one of several Iran/contra figures being resurrected by the Bush crowd. As Honduras ambassador in the early 1980s, Negroponte, a career diplomat, participated in a secret and possibly illegal quid pro quo in which the Reagan Administration bribed the Honduran government with economic and military assistance to support the contras fighting the socialist Sandinistas of Nicaragua. Perhaps more significant, while Negroponte served in Honduras, he denied or downplayed serious human rights abuses by government security forces. This past threatened his confirmation as UN ambassador. But 9/11 rescued Negroponte. At the time of the attack, his nomination was pending, and the Senate moved quickly to approve him. > > \ > > These days Negroponte’s tenure in Honduras is old news. The Washington Post’s front-page story on his nomination did not mention his stint there. Senate staffers say that his record in Honduras won’t be a focus of the confirmation hearings. But his tour of duty there is worth scrutiny, for it raises questions about his credibility and his ability to handle tough situations and inconvenient truths. While he was in Honduras and for years afterward, Negroponte refused to acknowledge the human rights abuses. In a 1982 letter to The Economist he said it was “simply untrue to state that death squads have made their appearance in Honduras.” The next year he maintained, “There is no indication that the infrequent human rights violations that do occur are part of deliberate government policy.” And during his 2001 confirmation he stated, “I do not believe then, nor do I believe now, that these abuses were part of a deliberate government policy. To this day, I do not believe that death squads were operating in Honduras.” How then does he account for a 1997 CIA Inspector General investigation that concluded, “The Honduran military committed hundreds of human rights abuses since 1980, many of which were politically motivated and officially sanctioned” and linked to “death squad activities”? > > Not only has Negroponte declined to acknowledge the obvious; when he was ambassador, the State Department rigged its Honduras human rights reports to Congress. As a 1995 Baltimore Sun series noted, “A comparison of the annual human rights reports prepared while Negroponte was ambassador with the facts as they were then known shows that Congress was deliberately misled.” The Sun reported, “Time and again…Negroponte was confronted with evidence that a Honduran army intelligence unit, trained by the CIA, was stalking, kidnapping, torturing and killing suspected subversives.” But this didn’t make it into State Department reports. Had Honduras been found to be engaging in systematic abuses, it could have lost its US aid–thwarting the Reagan Administration’s use of Honduras to support the contras. Do we really want this heartless, dishonest and amoral man running our national intelligence agencies? ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2005, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-man-with-negropontes-past-be-national-intelligence-director/290798/2 "2005-02-18T22:01:48Z")
He’d fit right in with the Attorney General who finds new ways to justify torture, and the Secretary of State who publically lies about aircraft hijacking warnings before 9/11. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2005, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-man-with-negropontes-past-be-national-intelligence-director/290798/3 "2005-02-19T02:35:39Z")
> [@rjung](#): > > He’d fit right in with the Attorney General who finds new ways to justify torture, and the Secretary of State who publically lies about aircraft hijacking warnings before 9/11. Point taken, but still: Each presidential appointee comes before the Senate for confirmation separately. Is there no chance this particularly odious confirmation might be blocked? OK, maybe Negroponte is not “particularly odious” compared to Gonzalez or Rice, but remember, we’re talking about the **first** National Intelligence Director. He or she will set the tone for the office so long as it lasts – “institutional memory,” you know. If Negroponte gets the job, then unprincipled realpolitik will become (or, less charitably, remain) the default norm for all intelligence-gathering operations of the federal government. Can’t we do better? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2005, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-man-with-negropontes-past-be-national-intelligence-director/290798/4 "2005-02-19T03:27:18Z")
If Negroponte is confirmed, a lot of Central American countries we’ve worked hard to get on our side won’t like it. From the _Seattle Post-Intelligencer,_ [http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/aplatin\_story.asp?category=1102&slug=Negroponte%20Central%20America:](http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/aplatin_story.asp?category=1102&slug=Negroponte%20Central%20America:) > [@](#): > > MEXICO CITY – Central American politicians and human rights activists issued stinging criticism Thursday of John Negroponte, nominated to become America’s first intelligence director, citing the career diplomat’s active backing for the Contra rebels and support for a government involved in human rights abuses. > > \ > > “What an outrage!” said Bertha Oliva, the coordinator of the Committee for Relatives of the Disappeared in Honduras, an independent group representing civilians believed to have vanished while in government custody. “The United States has invented a position to reward someone who was a dangerous person.” > > In Nicaragua, Tomas Borge, former interior minister for the Sandinista regime and a current leader of the Sandinista opposition party, said Negroponte “is the most efficient and ideal representative for the Bush administration’s primitive international security policy.” > > “He is faithful to Bush’s excessive and ultra-right policy in Iraq and other parts of the world,” he said. > > \ > > “It was obvious that he knew what was happening,” said Leo Valladeres, a law professor in Honduras who wrote the report. “They used outlaw methods to kill … and it is absolutely impossible to believe that a diplomatic mission such as that of the United States was unaware of the situation faced by Honduras and Central America.” > > In neighboring Guatemala, a U.S.-supported government that was engaged in battle with left-wing rebels trained paramilitary squads that were found later to have committed large-scale civilian massacres. > > In El Salvador, U.S.-trained army squads hunted down leftist rebels in offensives fraught with human rights abuses. > > Peter Kornbluh, a senior analyst at the National Security Archives in Washington, said declassified documents on the Iran-Contra scandal also showed that Negroponte was involved in seeking more guns for the Contras - “the role that normally would be reserved for the (CIA) station chief.” > > Kornbluh also said the documents he cited showed that Negroponte helped clear the way for a secret agreement under which the United States would provide more CIA money to Honduran army generals and additional military and economic aid to the country. In exchange, he said, Honduras agreed to allow the Contras to continue operating on Honduran soil. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2005, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-man-with-negropontes-past-be-national-intelligence-director/290798/5 "2005-02-19T04:28:12Z")
To this day Negroponte denies that atrocities in Central America were committed and if they were, he didn’t know anything about it. His constant denials, even though he himself was charged with human rights violations by the Honduras Commission on Human Rights, earned him the nickname “ostrich ambassador”. “But that is in the past” as many right-wingers retort, wanting to send all the dead down the memory hole and fell good about the current leaders that they elected. Ok, So what about calling this guy an incompetent based on what it is happening today? Can he explain to how the occupation authority of the USA lost 9 billion dollars? Can he explain what the heck Bernard Kerik did that made him leave Iraq suddenly? Is the Ostrich striking again? And is this the best Bush can find? I said it before: in a time of war, counting on an ideologue for intelligence is to set us up for more disasters in the future. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2005, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-man-with-negropontes-past-be-national-intelligence-director/290798/6 "2005-02-19T04:52:04Z")
Oh, no. Leftists are against President Bush’s choice of an appointed official. This is truly a shock. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2005, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-man-with-negropontes-past-be-national-intelligence-director/290798/7 "2005-02-19T05:01:30Z")
It is more shocking to see that no evidence will even make you wonder why the heck we should trust the administration with the security of the Nation. Now more than ever, we should demand better from this administration. “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” – Wendell Phillips ---
**Author:** ![CynicalGabe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@CynicalGabe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CynicalGabe)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2005, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-man-with-negropontes-past-be-national-intelligence-director/290798/8 "2005-02-19T06:35:24Z")
Short answer: NO ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2005, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-man-with-negropontes-past-be-national-intelligence-director/290798/9 "2005-02-19T06:48:55Z")
> [@](#): > > Oh, no. > > Leftists are against President Bush’s choice of an appointed official. > > This is truly a shock. That’s clever Bricker. BrainGlutton and GIGObuster offer an extensive outline of why they think Negroponte might be a poor choice for a job. And your response is to off-handedly chuckle at the wacky liberals. Should we assume then that Negroponte’s record can’t actually be defended? ---
**Author:** ![EsotericEnigma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e274bd/32.png) [@EsotericEnigma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EsotericEnigma)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2005, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-man-with-negropontes-past-be-national-intelligence-director/290798/10 "2005-02-19T07:05:49Z")
> [@Little Nemo](#): > > That’s clever Bricker. BrainGlutton and GIGObuster offer an extensive outline of why they think Negroponte might be a poor choice for a job. And your response is to off-handedly chuckle at the wacky liberals. Should we assume then that Negroponte’s record can’t actually be defended? Last I checked, it was BrainGlutton making the assertion, not Bricker. Therefore it should be BrainGlutton that offers the burden of proof about Negroponte’s character, not Bricker. So far all I’ve seen from him in this thread are a criminal charge for which he was never convicted, and “a large body of circumstancial evidence” presented by his political enemies in the same fashion that John Kerry’s record in Vietnam was revealed by HIS political enemies during the election. It was utter bullshit when it happened in the election, and it’s bullshit now. I think a better question would be whether the establishment of a Director of Intelligence is legitimate at all. ---
**Author:** ![Malodorous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e47774/32.png) [@Malodorous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malodorous)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2005, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-man-with-negropontes-past-be-national-intelligence-director/290798/11 "2005-02-19T07:46:19Z")
> [@EsotericEnigma](#): > > Last I checked, it was BrainGlutton making the assertion, not Bricker. Therefore it should be BrainGlutton that offers the burden of proof about Negroponte’s character, not Bricker. **BrainGlutton** posted a lot of material to support his point though. **Bricker** basically responded with a roll-eyes, which is neither interesting, informative or even entertaining. > [@](#): > > So far all I’ve seen from him in this thread are a criminal charge for which he was never convicted, and “a large body of circumstancial evidence” presented by his political enemies in the same fashion that John Kerry’s record in Vietnam was revealed by HIS political enemies during the election. It was utter bullshit when it happened in the election, and it’s bullshit now. Maybe, but even if Negroponte didn’t know about the abuses of the Hondoran gov’t, I would say that **BrainGlutton’s** links show that he _should_ have known. Do we really want a guy that neglected to stay informed on the actions of the gov’t he was supposed to be keeping tabs on to be in charge of all intellegence gathering operations for the U.S. Also, even if Negroponte is as an excellent gatherer of intellegence and quite innocent of the things he’s accused of, the fact is that he’s widely preceived as being involved in some of the intellegence communities worse abuses. Given the distrust that the world and the U.S. populace already has of the CIA, NSA, etc. can we really not find someone in the vast federal gov’t who is both qualified to be chief spymaster and not closely linked, rightly or wrongly, with the worst past abuses of the intelligence community. > [@](#): > > I think a better question would be whether the establishment of a Director of Intelligence is legitimate at all. I would imagine that has already been discussed in several other threads. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2005, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-man-with-negropontes-past-be-national-intelligence-director/290798/12 "2005-02-19T08:04:00Z")
> [@EsotericEnigma](#): > > So far all I’ve seen from him in this thread are a criminal charge for which he was never convicted, and “a large body of circumstancial evidence” presented by his political enemies in the same fashion that John Kerry’s record in Vietnam was revealed by HIS political enemies during the election. It was utter bullshit when it happened in the election, and it’s bullshit now. I called bullshit on the swifters too, and to be fair, I also called bullshit on the Bush service papers case. What the Truth commisions of Hondura and El Salvador found was no bullshit. [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3449870/](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3449870/) > [@](#): > > Back in January 1982, the Reagan administration was desperate to cover-up evidence of a horrific massacre undertaken by U.S. supported military forces in El Salvador, in the village of El Mozote in the province of Morazan, whom the U.S. was funding and training. > The massacre was reported in The New York Times and The Washington Post by Raymond Bonner, and Alma Guillermoprieto, respectively, along with Susan Meiselas. > As the reports appeared on the eve of Congressional hearings on funding for the Salvadoran killers, administration officials, like Elliott Abrams, sought to discredit the reports with McCarthyite accusations, and were supported by their allies in the conservative punditocracy—which, was just a fraction of its current size and scope. > They succeeded and the funding went through, in part due to the cooperation of then-Ambassador to Honduras, John Negroponte. The gruesome details of the massacre were later excavated, journalistically, by reporter Mark Danner. What follows is drawn from When Presidents Lie: > > > [@](#): > > > > Bonner, Guillermoprieto, and Susan Meiselas returned and presented their evidence to readers, State Department officials received a confidential cable from U.S. ambassador to Honduras John Negroponte reporting on a visit by a U.S. embassy official and a House Foreign Affairs Committee staff member to a Colomoncagua refugee camp, where many of the survivors of Morazan had fled. The cable described the refugees’ account of “a military sweep in Morazan December 7 to 17 which they claim resulted in large numbers of civilian casualties and physical destruction, leading to their exodus.” > > Negroponte, himself noted that the “names of villages cited coincide with New York Times article of January 28 same subject.” He noted that the refugees’ “decision to flee at this time when in the past they had remained during the sweeps . . . lends credibility to reportedly greater magnitude and intensity of . . . military operations in Northern Morazan.” The State Department, however, decided to keep this information secret. By the time of the second certification report—which appeared six months later, in July 1982—the massacre reports were ancient history. Enders now bragged of “many fewer allegations of massacres during this reporting than last,” a trend he attributed to the fact that “many earlier reports proved to be fabricated or exaggerated.” Like its predecessor, the second certification resulted in a noisy hearing, but a solid majority backed the Reagan administration’s aid to the regime. This time military aid was more than doubled, from $35 million to $82 million, and economic aid increased to more than twice that amount. In 1993, Enders finally admitted to a reporter, “I now know that the materials that we and the embassy passed on to Congress were wrong.” > > It took a decade’s passing and the Salvadorans themselves to determine, definitively, what took place in El Mozote. In the fall of 1992, investigators for the postwar Salvadoran Truth Commission spent more than thirty-five days digging through the burial sites filled with decomposed bodies, bones, skulls, and bullet cartridges. They identified more than five hundred human remains in El Mozote and its surrounding villages. Of the 143 human remains discovered in the sacristy of the Mozote church, 136 were judged to be children or adolescents, of whom the average age was six. Of the remaining seven adults, six were women, one in the third trimester of pregnancy. When all the forensics had been uncovered, the commission revealed at least twentyfour people had participated in the shooting and that every cartridge but one had come from a U.S.-manufactured and -supplied M-16 rifle. Of these, “had discernible head-stamps, identifying the ammunition as having been manufactured for the United States Government at Lake City, Missouri.” > > No one has ever been officially charged or tried for any crimes associated with the actions taken in El Mozote, which were deemed by Danner to be “the largest massacre in modern Latin American history.” [Negroponte never said a thing in public.] And before you complain that is not a good cite, consider that I can say that it conforms to what I learded from that period and it also conforms to the truth comissions of El Salvador and Honduras. > [@](#): > > I think a better question would be whether the establishment of a Director of Intelligence is legitimate at all. I do think that Bush already knows where Negroponte is coming from, Bush is indeed telling everyone the contempt he has for this new office. ---
**Author:** ![Well](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/df788c/32.png) [@Well](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Well)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2005, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-man-with-negropontes-past-be-national-intelligence-director/290798/13 "2005-02-19T08:17:11Z")
I just don’t know. If he is as horrible as you make him out to be, and you people just being nobody’s\* in a message board, how on earth can the Senate even come close to confirming him? I reserve my judgement. Most of this will come out during confirmation, if he makes it that far. He did get a 95 to 3 vote for his current position. All i see is “critics claim” such-and-such. Of course the bush-hater-ites (did I just make that term up?) want to take it as solemn truth and beat any bushista over the head with it. Just as the Bush supporters did the same to Kerry every chance they got. I’m sure you can understand why credibility is so tenuous in political debates even here. \*no offense intended ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2005, 8:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-man-with-negropontes-past-be-national-intelligence-director/290798/14 "2005-02-19T08:51:34Z")
> [@Well](#): > > I just don’t know. If he is as horrible as you make him out to be, and you people just being nobody’s\* in a message board, how on earth can the Senate even come close to confirming him? Well, **Well** ( :)) you realize this applies to you too, no? In any case, IMO the senate confirms guys like this because they are as lazy as the so-called liberal media. They never do a good job in cases like this, (having only one media outlet showing how untrustworthy one guy is is as good as saying it never happened) however, the truth commissions did happen and are independent of me or any poster on this message board. It is sad but true that guys like Bernard Kerik (IMO even his confirmation was assured) can be approved by the Senate for this or any administration as long as only a few media outlets remain on the case. > [@](#): > > \*no offense intended [The Tick] ‘None comprehended’ [/The Tick] ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2005, 8:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-man-with-negropontes-past-be-national-intelligence-director/290798/15 "2005-02-19T08:58:17Z")
> [@](#): > > Oh, no. > > Leftists are against President Bush’s choice of an appointed official. > > This is truly a shock. Oh no, Bricker has nothing substantive to add to the thread other than a driveby. I really SHOULD be a sincere shock… ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2005, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-man-with-negropontes-past-be-national-intelligence-director/290798/16 "2005-02-19T15:58:57Z")
> [@Apos](#): > > Oh no, Bricker has nothing substantive to add to the thread other than a driveby. I really SHOULD be a sincere shock… No, it’s just that **Bricker** has run out of energy. How often must I point out what should be obvious flaws to a neutral observer? > [@](#): > > From 1981 to 1985 Negroponte was the U.S. ambassador to Honduras. During his tenure, he oversaw the growth of military aid to Honduras from $4 million to $77.4 million a year. At the time, Honduras was ruled by an elected but heavily militarily-influenced government. According to The New York Times, Negroponte was allegedly involved in “carrying out the covert strategy of the Reagan administration to crush the Sandinistas government in Nicaragua.” Critics say that during his ambassadorship, human rights violations in Honduras became systematic. No ambassador decides the amount of aid delivered to the country he’s assigned to. That decision comes from Congress. No ambassador decides US foreign policy. That decision comes from the State Department and the President. An ambassador’s job is to execute the policy. Assuming Mr. Negroponte was involved in carrying out President Reagan’s policy of “crushing the Sandinista government,” that was a proper role, not in the least illegal. Human rights in Honduras my have suffered during this time, but they did not suffer because Mr. Negroponte abused anyone, or because Mr. Negroponte did anything illegal. Now, I’ve quoted a paragraph and refuted the accusing innuendo it contains. I’m not going to do the same for the remaining paragraphs, especially because the OP lifted them from other sources and didn’t spend the effort that I would typing my own material. It’s easier to post a general dismissal and trust that the reader can readily identify the flaws in the original attack. However, if someone wants to post a substantive and specific accusation of wrongdoing against the man, I’ll respond. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2005, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-man-with-negropontes-past-be-national-intelligence-director/290798/17 "2005-02-19T16:31:49Z")
**Bricker** automatically jumps to the defense of any and all Bush appointees and actions, no matter how odious. Let’s examine the depths to which you have to debase yourself to do so this time, shall we? > [@Bricker](#): > > An ambassador’s job is to execute the policy…Human rights in Honduras my have suffered during this time No “may have” about it. You know it’s true as well as the rest of us, so kindly cut the crap. Human rights abuses in Honduras, and elsewhere in Latin America, did suffer because of Reagan Administration policies and actions. A member of an administration who cannot accommodate himself to its policies and actions resigns. Compare that to Negroponte’s actions. > [@](#): > > Now, I’ve quoted a paragraph and refuted the accusing innuendo it contains. Only in your dreams, and for that matter only in your dream that legal rules apply in the court of public opinion. Once again it is necessary to remind you that we’re discussing politics, not law. > [@](#): > > However, if someone wants to post a substantive and specific accusation of wrongdoing against the man, I’ll respond. Since we are discussing propriety rather than legality, politics rather than law, “dignity and honor” rather than pettifogging technicalities, and the “substantive and specific accusations” of impropriety, political inadequacy, and indignity dishonor were right in the OP, perhaps you can get yourself on topic and show us what your automatic defense of those charges might be. Is this really the best Bush can do? Is he really the most appropriate and effective appointee he could come up with? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2005, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-man-with-negropontes-past-be-national-intelligence-director/290798/18 "2005-02-19T16:51:46Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > No “may have” about it. You know it’s true as well as the rest of us, so kindly cut the crap. Human rights abuses in Honduras, and elsewhere in Latin America, did suffer because of Reagan Administration policies and actions. A member of an administration who cannot accommodate himself to its policies and actions resigns. Compare that to Negroponte’s actions. This is an excellent example of why I dismissed the OP as leftist babyish whining. Of course you believe that Reagan’s foreign policy in Latin America was a dismal failure, and that the only moral course for a Reagan appointee was to resign. That’s not a view I share, and it’s not a view that history credits. (I grant that YOUR view of history is different than mine; I’d say, however, that objective measures seem to trend towards my side - by ‘objective measures,’ I mean that standard hated by leftists of your stripe: popular approval.) > [@](#): > > Only in your dreams, and for that matter only in your dream that legal rules apply in the court of public opinion. Once again it is necessary to remind you that we’re discussing politics, not law. I’m happy to discuss political realities. Mr. Negroponte will be overwhelmingly confirmed. Period. Ha. Ha. Ha. ---
**Author:** ![drmark2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a87d85/32.png) [@drmark2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drmark2000)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2005, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-man-with-negropontes-past-be-national-intelligence-director/290798/19 "2005-02-19T17:20:00Z")
Should a man of any man’s past be allowed to be anything? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2005, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-man-with-negropontes-past-be-national-intelligence-director/290798/20 "2005-02-19T20:37:11Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I’m happy to discuss political realities. Mr. Negroponte will be overwhelmingly confirmed. Period. Ha. Ha. Ha. And I already mentioned why people like this get confirmed, and it requires people who never demand better of his elected officials. Negroponte is a blind follower of policies that also included sticking the head in the sand, that may be appropriate\* for the places he was managing the policy. (Honduras and Iraq) But ostrich behavior is something that is not needed now for this new position. His eventual confirmation only shows to me political reality as usual, but as Bernard Kerik showed (forget it: he was dismissed not just for the nanny) some people can make a difference and at least make the bastards sweat, and also to make sure that everybody knows what kind of people we are allowing to be approved for positions that should be important. \*If appropriate dealing with the Sandinistas from Nicaragua also meant not making a public peep of massacring Salvadorians or dumping nuns out to sea from helicopters. But typically they confused targets like they continue to do so. (lets attack Iraq since we missed Bin Laden) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-man-with-negropontes-past-be-national-intelligence-director/290798.md?page=2)