version

Well-known member
Three weeks after Reagan’s victory, on November 27th, Thanksgiving Day in Washington, heavily armed men stormed the archbishop’s legal aid office at San Jose High School, where the political leaders of the revolution were meeting. The head of the Democratic Revolutionary Front was Enrique Alvarez, a member of one of the country’s wealthy coffee-growing families, who saw the need for change in his country. Alvarez’s mutilated, bullet-ridden corpse, as well as those of four other political leftists, were found on a popular road, a clear message for others.

[...]

Reflecting how dramatically the policy in El Salvador was about to shift, Reagan’s principal foreign policy advisor Jeanne Kirkpatrick reacted to murders thusly: “I must say that I found myself thinking that it’s a reminder that people who live by the sword die by the sword.”

The Salvadoran military now believed it could kill with impunity, and immunity. On December 2, 1980, four American churchwomen—Roman Catholic nuns Maura Clarke, Ita Ford and Dorothy Kazel, and a lay missionary, Jean Donovan—were seized at the San Salvador International Airport, taken to a remote spot, raped, shot in the back of the head and buried in a shallow grave. Photojournalist Susan Meiselas captured an iconic image of an anguished White at the dusty gravesite as the partially clad bodies were being pulled from the earth with ropes. White knew immediately that the military was responsible. “The bastards won’t get away with this,” he mumbled. But they almost did, with help from the Reagan Administration.

“The nuns were not just nuns,” Kirkpatrick said in response to this killing. “They were political activists. We ought to be a little more clear about this than we actually are,” she told a reporter for the Tampa Tribune. “They were political activists on behalf of the Frente [one of the leftist guerrilla organizations], and somebody who is using violence to oppose the Frente killed these nuns.” Asked if she thought the government had been involved, she said, “The answer is unequivocal. No, I don’t think the government was responsible.”

Kirkpatrick later denied making the statement. The reporter produced the tape.
 

version

Well-known member
I've just read the following five articles and while she seems impressive in some respects, I stand by my initial assessment that she sounds like a real piece of work.

I get what she's saying about not being able to just waltz in and install democracies overnight, but this idea that an autocrat who favours America and fights Marxists/communists is therefore a "moderate autocrat" strikes me as completely fucked. She sounds like exactly the kind of person Boyle and Stone have Woods rant about in the film when he says they don't give a shit who they support or what they do as long as they're opposing "commies"/Moscow.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
You mostly manage to form opinions about things without reading anything about them, so clearly you are a special case.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
I think with version though it’s more of a case of Pynchonitis: a manic desire to collect and store as much information and data as possible for deployment when needed, a broad but shallow ultra-erudition.
 

version

Well-known member
Excellent, you now have your opinion of a woman you first learned about at 9pm this evening categorised and filed away for future reference. Next!
I didn't say I wouldn't read any further. I'm still reading stuff now and you're welcome to recommend some more articles and whatnot. I also don't buy that you're somehow above forming opinions on things as you encounter and learn about them. I don't think there's anyone who is.
 

version

Well-known member
I think with version though it’s more of a case of Pynchonitis: a manic desire to collect and store as much information and data as possible for deployment when needed, a broad but shallow ultra-erudition.
This might apply to me, but I don't think it does Pynchon.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
If you wanted to know what my opinion was then I helpfully posted something that I wrote on the subject, which was critical of her ‘Dictatorships and Double Standards’ thesis. But apart from that, yeah, I’m really into murdering Salvadorian nuns.
 

version

Well-known member
Yours was the first of the five articles I read. I linked to it again in my post when I listed them all.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
I saw that. I couldn’t see much evidence that you’d absorbed what you read, though. You seem to think I want to kill Salvadorian nuns.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
I think there could be three things happening here:

1. You’ve just learned who Jeanne Kirkpatrick is and you want to demonstrate both your new knowledge and your moral rectitude so that we can all admire it.
2. You are perplexed that I named my blog after this character and would like to know why I did so.
3. You are appalled because you’ve just realised that I dig the mass murder of nuns.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
If it’s 1, then well done. If it’s 2 or 3, then why don’t you just come out and say it?
 
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