So there's hope for Bush and Cheney yet!

Our dear pal is down there, escorting witnesses to the court, and I could not be prouder. Red menace my ass. Do some research, kids; extermination of a native people cause they aren't the color you like is not "a little carried away".

@3: Did you really just call murdering human beings (which you're not denying was done) the equivalent of "breaking [some] furniture"?

Let's all think about that for a minute.

@ 5, Ken may be trying to be ironic. It's possible that he's just being incredibly stupid, since slaughtering indigenous people by the hundreds of thousands has never proven an effective tactic. But it's possible that he's just trying to be ironic.

Ken, they don't get it.

Folks, understand that "Ken Mehlman" is more than a screen name. What you are reading here is true irony. Google the name. Watch the Bertolucci film clip, and recall what some history teacher tried to implant in your retarded little heads: "1900" is a film about the rise of fascism in Italy. For a pack of people who talk so freaking much about irony, you don't know the real thing.

@8: Thanks for explaining, Ballard Pimp.

Ríos Montt has powerful enemies in Guatemala, and more than a few seem happy to throw him under the bus. One is Otto Pérez Molina, the newly elected President. Pérez Molina was a young officer when Ríos Montt staged his 1982 coup. When Pérez Molina and others resisted orders to move out of the capital, Ríos Montt briefly jailed them on grounds of corruption. But lurking behind the trial is the far bigger question of Pérez Molina’s own involvement in the Ixil genocide. Pérez Molina was a Major in the Guatemalan Special Forces during the height of the violence, and apparently operated in the Ixil region under the name Tito Arias. Before the trial was suspended, an ex-soldier testified, via a video link from a location that, for his own safety, was undisclosed, that during the height of the violence Otto Pérez Molina ordered soldiers to burn and loot villages and to execute people as they tried to flee into the mountains. The soldier’s testimony elicited astonished gasps from the courtroom.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/co…

@3, 6. Well done.

I was in Guatemala in 2003 when Rios-Montt ran for president - totally illegally under the country's constitution (which banned members of genocidal regimes from running) but still state sanctioned and completely terrifying. Ten years later he has moved from Presidential candidate to war criminal - wonderful progress for Guatemala and for humanity.

Meanwhile, in Guatemala, as we speak (slog?) it's all polarized. Not everyone agrees or is proud of this, but the debate is about if it was technically 'genocide' or not. There is no doubt about the suffering and unnecessary blood shedding that did happen.

I really hope Ken is being ironic there.

@ Herz,
All right. So, Rios-Montt is convicted of genocide. Fine, let him rot in prison. However, the cheap shot at Reagan was unnecessary. Reagan like a lot of US Presidents must shake hands heck, even compliment "devils":

https://www.google.com/search?q=obama+%2…

Recall we, the USA had diplomatic relations with Nazi Germany even when the Nuremberg Laws were enacted.
No, FDR never met let alone complimented Hitler. But, we had to deal with that monster.

President Harry Truman actually met and from understanding, complimented Joseph Stalin (!) a dictator equally as vicious as Hitler.

The list is long.

Look, I cut my Presidents slack. Even Obama. Consider the debacle in Libya:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/11/us/pol…

None of us on SLOG have a clue as to the diplomatic nuances and intricate US policy over Presidential Administrations regardless of party. Note Obama has had 2 Republicans as Sec. of Defense. I believe there's the President and the Presidency with the latter far, far larger.

In a perfect world, America would/should always "side with the good guy". It doesn't work that way. The Great Game alas, continues.

@ 14, Reagan went way out of his way to compliment these monsters. I think that's the difference. His actor's instinct was to make everything more dramatic. The Contras were "freedom fighters;" the USSR was an "evil empire." Both bullshit, but he was trying to rally popular support for the Cold War. Other presidents did essentially the same thing, but I bet Reagan's list is as long as all the others combined.

In short, it's not a cheap shot at all.

@15 Disagree Matt. Diplomatically.

It's a wager that you'd lose. For the record, no American President has ever been indicted for "crimes against humanity". Simply hasn't happened. Nor will it. I never said Reagan didn't say what he said. It's a question of degree. But, Obama must "press the flesh" too. Hence, the photo. It was a cheap shot.

@ 16, I don't mean the count of bad men with whom others "pressed the flesh" (you're absolutely right there), I mean the ones praised in speeches and press conferences, using language once reserved for the Founding Fathers and Medal of Honor recipients. That's Reagan's special crime.

Saying the opposite of the thing you mean to make a point was lame when Swift did it and is maddeningly useless in the internet age

@17--I think that many of us recall when Reagan described Osama ben-Laden as "the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers..."

Probably more villanous was Jeanne Kirkpatrick who wrote the lines for Reagan to read. I recall reading an essay she wrote about the differences betwee "authoritarian" murders and "totalitarian" muders. She approved of the former.

@3 Stalin said the exact same thing you just did.

@lark outside Reagan endorsing and praising a man who was the conductor of genocide within his own country- Reagan is also a man who sold weapons illegally in the Iran/Contra scandal. The guy was a terrible person, and an awful president. The only reason republicans cling to him was because he is the most current Republican President who was successful enough to win a second term who also still doesn't have the stench of his own failure and disgusting policies fresh in people's minds (ala Bush Jr.)

@21,
Disagree completely.

First of all, I certainly don't admire Reagan as much the idol worship that is of Obama by the Democrats who IMHO has accomplished little. Reagan served and arguably (we're arguing right?) for the better. Reagan was human, American and so is Obama. Both were/are elected Presidents.

Reagan a "terrible man" is a bit of stretch. Clearly, there's a great political chasm between us. However, I recommend leaving the term "terrible" to the likes of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Rios-Montt & Bokassa among many others.

22: Fine, then Reagan isn't a terrible man. He just sure liked to surround himself with them.