Bush's nominates a new Intelligence Czar with a history in Central America

President Bush recently nominated John Negroponte to be the new National Intelligence Director. This is a new position, put in place as a response to a request by the 9/11 Investigating Position. John Negroponte has a long political history as an ambassador. He has been Ambassador to both the United Nations and recently to Iraq. Negroponte has also been an ambassador in Latin America, in Honduras (1981-1985), and Mexico (1989-1993) according to his political profile on an MSNBC website (1). I took the time to look up Negroponte's reputation as an ambassador in Central America.

It seems Negroponte has a dark past with regards to human rights. Being nominated as the new Intelligence Czar has brought a lot of heat from Human Rights activists. It seems Negroponte has a bad reputation for Human rights, especially while he was the Ambassador to Honduras, where he allegedly supported death squads and ignored military torture in his dealings with the anti-Sandinista rebels (2).The Reagan administration was very adamant in overthrowing the Marxist Sandinistas in Nicaragua, with bases of operation in Honduras, in order to stop the spread of communism in Central America. This kind of past is unacceptable for someone nominated to such an important position, as well as a position with such a possibility for tragedy with regards to torture and human rights. Whether dealing with the third world or first world, torture and death squads are horrible ways of trying to accomplish an overthrow or any other political means.

I completely disagree with this nomination. Someone who has such a dark past with regards to human rights has no business being in such a position. No matter what the politics involved with Negroponte's nomination are, he should not be appointed to National Intelligence Director. With someone like Negroponte in charge, there is no telling what the possibilities for gathering intelligence and surveillance could be in the future. The Patriot Act caused a great deal of controversy because of the liberties it granted authorities in regards to surveillance and impinging on privacy rights. Having someone like Negroponte in such a position only increases the possibility of the standards of privacy going down. If he was willing to allow torture and death squads in Central America, he may be willing to allow illegal operations in order to gather intelligence on or to stop terrorists. I realize that we are far away from a 1984 type government, but having someone like Negroponte at the helm of intelligence cannot help the chances of us keeping all of our civil liberties intact. Whether dealing with terrorists, those who affiliate with terrorists, or those who are just some how loosely associated with terrorists without their knowledge, I do not find justice in allowing the authorities to infringe on the constitution in order to bring terrorists or any other criminals to justice. Whether or not appointing John Negroponte to be the National Intelligence Director will lead to us losing some of our civil liberties is certainly up for discussion, but the possibility of the poor treatment of prisoners, human rights abuses or civil rights abuse should be enough to keep someone from such a position.

(1) First Link

(2) Second Link