Doing Evil to Do Good in Latin America
Why the spat between Elliot Abrams and Ilhan Omar over Reagan’s policies matters today.
The collateral damage at El Mozote.
Photographer: Marvin Recinos/AFP/Getty Images
Can one ethically do evil in the service of a greater good? The rough treatment of the State Department envoy for Venezuela, Elliott Abrams, by Representative Ilhan Omar last week raised this classic moral question. In a hearing on U.S. policy toward Venezuela, Omar questioned Abrams’s credibility on grounds that he misled Congress about U.S. policy in Central America during the 1980s. She also accused him of supporting and even celebrating the murderous counterinsurgency carried out in El Salvador during this period.
It is hard to take Omar’s “questioning” of Abrams seriously, given her sometimes tendentious reading of history and the fact that she was clearly performing for an audience rather than sincerely seeking to elicit information. She called Abrams “Mr. Adams” and repeatedly cut him off while he tried to answer her questions. Yet the imbroglio raised some worthwhile issues regarding what happened in Central America during the 1980s and the role of illiberal policies in sustaining the liberal international order.