Skip to main content

Will you support genocide in Venezuela? Congress member Ilhan Omar challenges notorious coup-monger Elliott Abrams

US Congress member Ilhan Omar asked Trump’s new Venezuela special envoy Elliott Abrams if he would oversee genocide and war crimes as he did in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua.

by Ben Norton

US Rep. Ilhan Omar boldly challenged infamous Iran-Contra felon Elliott Abrams in a House of Representatives hearing on the Donald Trump administration’s policy in Venezuela.

“Would you support an armed faction within Venezuela that engages in war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide, if they believe they were serving US interests, as you did in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua?” asked Omar, a progressive Democrat representing Minnesota.


In January, President Donald Trump appointed Abrams as his special envoy for Venezuela. The Trump administration has been leading a right-wing coup attempt in the oil-rich South American nation, seeking to topple its elected leftist government.

Abrams is notorious for overseeing an array of atrocities in Central America. In 2002, under then President George W. Bush, Abrams also supported a brief military coup in Venezuela.

In the hearing, which took place on February 13, Omar continued grilling Abrams over his involvement in US crimes in Central America.

Omar said:

In 1991, you pleaded guilty to two counts of withholding information from Congress regarding your involvement in the Iran-Contra affair, for which you were later pardoned by President George H. W. Bush.

I fail to understand why members of this committee, or the American people, should find any testimony that you give today to be truthful.

...

On February 8, 1982, you testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about US policy in El Salvador. In that hearing, you dismissed as ‘communist propaganda’ a report about the massacre of El Mozote, in which more than 800 civilians, including children as young as 2 years old, were brutally murdered by US-trained troops.

During that massacre, some of those troops bragged about raping 12-year-old girls before they killed them. You later said that the US policy in El Salvador was a ‘fabulous achievement.’

Yes or no, do you still think so?

Bold new foreign policy voice in Congress

Omar, a freshman in the US Congress, has shown leadership in challenging the bipartisan foreign policy consensus.

This February, she was smeared as “anti-Semitic” for calling attention to the influence of the Israel lobby and right-wing Israel-backed groups in Washington.

Abrams is a longtime ally of the Israel lobby, and was directly involved in the failed coup attempt against the elected Hamas government of the Gaza Strip in 2007.

Elliott Abrams’ crimes in Central America

In her comments during the Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, Ilhan Omar referred to the role Elliott Abrams played in backing the military junta in Guatemala in the 1980s.

Under the sponsorship of the United States, Guatemalan dictator Efraín Ríos Montt carried out a campaign of genocide against the local Indigenous community, in a bloody attempt to crush any shred of communist and socialist resistance.

Abrams lobbied for the US government to send more and more weapons to Ríos Montt’s regime. He attacked human rights activists and actively downplayed US-backed atrocities. Abrams even insisted that the Guatemalan junta “brought considerable progress” on human rights, progress that needed “to be rewarded and encouraged.”

Abrams was also deeply implicated in the notorious Iran-Contra scandal, in which the United States used the money made in secret arms sales to Iran in order to fund far-right death squads in Nicaragua, known as the Contras.

In the 1980s, Abrams even smuggled weapons to the Contras by hiding them in supposed “humanitarian aid” shipments.


Activists from the women-led peace group CODEPINK interrupted Abrams’ congressional hearing.

“Don’t listen to this war criminal!” protester Ariel Gold chanted. “Venezuela needs negotiations, not a coup or military intervention!”


Source, links:


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Capitalism & Genocide - Yanis Varoufakis Speech at the Gaza Tribunal, 23rd October 2025, Istanbul

Yanis Varoufakis   On 23rd October, Yanis Varoufakis testified in front of the Jury of Conscience in the context of the Gaza Tribunal. His speech focused on the economic forces underpinning the genocide of the Palestinian people. In particular, he spoke on the manner in which capitalist dynamics have historically fuelled the white settler colonial project and, more recently, how the accumulation of a new form of capital - which he calls cloud capital - has accelerated, deepened and amplified the economic forces powering and propelling the machinery of genocide. 
Post a Comment
Read more

Iranian Seyed M. Marandi: What REALLY happened in Iran & why U.S. wants to destroy the country

Li Jingjing 李菁菁   Track records of Western interventions tell us we need to be skeptical and cautious whenever some Western politicians and pundits claim they want to liberate people in another country and bring them democracy. Seyed Mohammad Marandi is a professor at the University of Tehran in Iran. In this episode, he told Li Jingjing what happened during the protests in Iran and how Western sanctions hurt the lives of ordinary Iranians.
Post a Comment
Read more

Iran’s Missiles will DESTROY US Bases & Israel if Trump Attacks

Danny Haiphong   Iran is ready for war, and its hypersonic ballistic missile system could destroy Israel & US military presence forever says Scott Ritter who joined the show to break down the consequences of Trump's march to war with Iran. The former UN Weapons Inspector does a deep dive into Iran's readiness and why it should terrify Trump & Israel together. 
Post a Comment
Read more

Israel & CIA Behind Iran Protests To Get U.S. To Attack!

The Jimmy Dore Show    As protests in Iran have heated up, western media has actively exaggerated and selectively framed the violence by using casualty figures from U.S.- and Israel-funded NGOs — all in order to build public support for another regime-change war. Former CIA officer John Kiriakou and guest Scott Ritter claim protests were infiltrated by foreign intelligence networks and that Israel and the U.S. are using “human rights” narratives similarly to the way they were used in Iraq and Syria.   Dore and Ritter contend that Iran’s government responded to armed unrest rather than peaceful protest, while mainstream outlets ignore attacks on police and public infrastructure. They warn that propaganda, sanctions, and media coordination are laying the groundwork for a wider U.S.–Israel conflict with Iran. 
Post a Comment
Read more

US & Israel support protests in Iran: Trump calls for regime change

Geopolitical Economy Report   The US government is openly backing the protests in Iran. An Israeli media outlet admitted foreign powers are arming Iranian rioters with weapons to try to overthrow the government. Ben Norton explains the geopolitical context and why the USA has sought regime change ever since the 1979 Iranian Revolution.   
Post a Comment
Read more

Iran's Next Strike OBLITERATES US Navy & Israel, War Has BEGUN

Danny Haiphong   Prof. Mohammad Marandi joins the show to react to Iran's vow to strike a devastating blow to the heart of Tel Aviv and US Navy as imminent US war approaches. Trump has moved military assets to the region and now Iran has responded by moving its missiles and drones in strike position. Watch until the end for an in-depth analysis of a war that's already begun, and is about to change everything with one fatal move by the US empire.
Post a Comment
Read more

Ο βασικός λόγος που ο Τραμπ διστάζει να χτυπήσει το Ιράν

"Μικρά και ασήμαντα" από τον Πίκο Απίκο Ο βασικός λόγος που δεν έγινε η επίθεση στο Ιράν, είναι το γεγονός ότι πρόσφατα, το Ιράν αποχώρησε από το δορυφορικό σύστημα GPS που είναι Αμερικανικό και εντάχθηκε στο Κινεζικό BeiDou. Που σημαίνει ότι οι Αμερικανοί δεν έχουν τη δυνατότητα να σαμποτάρουν τους Ιρανικούς πυραύλους.  Έτσι εξηγείται και το μεγάλο ποσοστό ευστοχίας των Ιρανικών πυραύλων στην τελευταία σύγκρουση με το Ισραήλ, μέσα στο Ισραηλινό έδαφος. Αλλά και το γεγονός ότι πριν λίγες μέρες, οι ίδιοι οι Ισραηλινοί ζήτησαν τη διαμεσολάβηση της Ρωσίας, προκειμένου να αποκλιμακωθεί η ένταση με το Ιράν, αφού Ισραηλινές εφημερίδες και αξιωματούχοι είχαν παραδεχθεί ανοιχτά την παρουσία πρακτόρων της Μοσάντ σε Ιρανικό έδαφος και τον κομβικό τους ρόλο στις πρόσφατες εξεγέρσεις. Οι Αμερικανοί επομένως γνωρίζουν ότι αυτή τη στιγμή οι Ιρανοί έχουν τη δυνατότητα να χτυπήσουν Αμερικανικές βάσεις (όπως απείλησαν ότι θα κάνουν αν ο Τραμπ κάνει πράξη τις απειλές του), χωρίς να μπορούν να ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Billionaires are social distancing in super yachts as tens of millions lose jobs

Everyday, it becomes clearer: the COVID-19 pandemic is hitting poor, working, and marginalized communities the hardest. Millions of workers – especially low-wage retail, food service, hospitality, and care workers – have faced the terrible choice daily between going to work and risking their health, or staying home and risking their paychecks. Many other workers don’t even have that choice, with around 30 million people in the US filing for unemployment in the past six weeks. But billionaires don’t face these same problems. As tens of millions have lost their jobs over the past two months, billionaire wealth soared by a whopping $282 billion between March 18 and April 10, according to a new study from the Institute for Policy Studies.  And while finding enough space to wait out the pandemic is something many struggle with, billionaires have been escaping to their second (or third, or fourth) homes to ride it out in luxury – all while they position themselves to ...
Post a Comment
Read more

A response to misinformation on Nicaragua: it was a coup, not a ‘massacre’

There is so much misinformation in mainstream corporate media about recent events in Nicaragua that it is a pity that Mary Ellsberg’s article for Pulse has added to it with a seemingly leftish critique. Ellsberg claims that recent articles, including from this website, often “ paint a picture of the crisis in Nicaragua that is dangerously misleading. ” Unfortunately, her own article does just that. It looks at the situation entirely from the perspective of those opposing Daniel Ortega’s government while whitewashing their malevolent behavior and downplaying the levels of US support they have relied on. Her piece is an incomplete depiction of what is happening on the ground, ignoring many salient facts that have come to light and which have been outdated by recent events. The following is a brief response to Ellsberg’s main points from someone who lives in Nicaragua and has observed the situation directly and intimately: https://grayzoneproject.com/2018/08/15/a-res...
Post a Comment
Read more

The real reason Trump hesitates to strike Iran

globinfo freexchange   Recent statements by the Iranian leadership concerning the ability of Iran to hit US military bases, should not be taken lightly. It is not just the missile capability and - in some cases - even superiority of Iran in the broader region. That alone, would not be enough for Washington to take Tehran's threats seriously.    It has to do also with a strategic move by Iran in the geopolitical battlefield that changes the balance decisively in the war field too. As Pakistan Today reported back in July 2025:   In two recent wars that nearly tipped the world into a full-scale global conflict— one between Pakistan and India, and the other between Iran and Israel— a new determinant of military dominance emerged. In both cases, countries under pressure, Pakistan and Iran, not only stood their ground but struck deep into enemy territory with astonishing precision and devastating impact.  ... in a 12-day war with Israel, Iran destroyed numerous h...
Post a Comment
Read more