Reagan Redux: El Salvador Strategy in Iraq

[Zlatko Waterman]

Dear All:


I've pasted in the link here rather than the whole article because I want to share my favorite picture of John Negroponte-- a favorite bete noire of the left-- the picture somehow epitomizes the whole presence of the US in the "Third World."


(link)



http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6802629/site/newsweek/


The other picture-- of the nuns by the grave in 1980, is also eloquent.

A small factoid picked up this weekend:

Number of US combat deaths in Vietnam per month in 1965:

38

Number of US combat deaths in Iraq per month in 2004-5:

70

Quagmire? No similarity to Vietnam?



Zlatko

[shamatha1]

I had seen this. I can't believe the idea of collective guilt and punishment. Wasn't that the thinking behind killing 3,000 innocent Americans on September 11, and the continuing efforts to do so? That while most of us may not be actively supporting some hideous US policies, we are/were complicit by not actively opposing them? It's the cassic George W Bush 'You're either with us, or against' equation.' Most of us would just like to live our lives in peace.

The most chilling part is this:

The insurgents, he said, "are mostly in the Sunni areas where the population there, almost 200,000, is sympathetic to them." He said most Iraqi people do not actively support the insurgents or provide them with material or logistical help, but at the same time they won’t turn them in.

followed by this:

"The Sunni population is paying no price for the support it is giving to the terrorists," he said. "From their point of view, it is cost-free. We have to change that equation."

So. We acknowledge that most of the population doesn't actively provide support. But, after disbanding the entire army and police force, we somehow expect them to police themselves. Against people who are depressingly successful at killing highly armed, well-trained US soldiers.

Of course, I'm sure we'll provide protection for any whistleblowers and their families, since the insurgents would likely adopt the same 'Salvador' tactic.

Because freedom is on the march, the Iraqi people are no longer under a brutal dictator who uses terror and kills indiscriminately, and anyone who says otherwise can just move their unpatriotic asses to Canada before I string 'em up from a tree.

Praise Jesus I live in a country with good Christian values and a President who agrees with me.

[Zlatko Waterman]

For those ( like shamatha?) who are interested in variations-- a day later this article comes from Newsweek online-- slight variations, but interesting ones:


(paste)


El Salvador-style 'death squads' to be deployed by US against Iraq militants


From Roland Watson in Washington




John Negroponte was in Honduras when American money was used to train Contras to fight Nicaragua's Sandinista regime. (AL-RAYA/AP)

THE Pentagon is considering forming hit squads of Kurdish and Shia fighters to target leaders of the Iraqi insurgency in a strategic shift borrowed from the American struggle against left-wing guerrillas in Central America 20 years ago.
Under the so-called “El Salvador option”, Iraqi and American forces would be sent to kill or kidnap insurgency leaders, even in Syria, where some are thought to shelter.

The plans are reported in this week’s Newsweek magazine as part of Pentagon efforts to get US forces in Iraq on to the front foot against an enemy that is apparently getting the better of them.


Iyad Allawi, the interim Iraqi Prime Minister, was said to be one of the most vigorous supporters of the plan.

The Pentagon declined to comment, but one insider told Newsweek: “What everyone agrees is that we can’t just go on as we are. We have to find a way to take the offensive against the insurgents. Right now, we are playing defence. And we are losing.”

Hit squads would be controversial and would probably be kept secret.

The experience of the so-called “death squads” in Central America remains raw for many even now and helped to sully the image of the United States in the region.

Then, the Reagan Administration funded and trained teams of nationalist forces to neutralise Salvadorean rebel leaders and sympathisers. Supporters credit the policy with calming the insurgency, although it left a bitter legacy and stirred anti-American sentiment.

John Negroponte, the US Ambassador in Baghdad, had a front-row seat at the time as Ambassador to Honduras from 1981-85.

Death squads were a brutal feature of Latin American politics of the time. In Argentina in the 1970s and Guatemala in the 1980s, soldiers wore uniform by day but used unmarked cars by night to kidnap and kill those hostile to the regime or their suspected sympathisers.

In the early 1980s President Reagan’s Administration funded and helped to train Nicaraguan contras based in Honduras with the aim of ousting Nicaragua’s Sandinista regime. The Contras were equipped using money from illegal American arms sales to Iran, a scandal that could have toppled Mr Reagan.

It was in El Salvador that the United States trained small units of local forces specifically to target rebels.

The thrust of the Pentagon proposal in Iraq, according to Newsweek, is to follow that model and direct US special forces teams to advise, support and train Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Shia militiamen to target leaders of the Sunni insurgency.

It is unclear whether the main aim of the missions would be to assassinate the rebels or kidnap them and take them away for interrogation. Any mission in Syria would probably be undertaken by US Special Forces.

Nor is it clear who would take responsibility for such a programme — the Pentagon or the Central Intelligence Agency. Such covert operations have traditionally been run by the CIA at arm’s length from the administration in power, giving US officials the ability to deny knowledge of it.

The Pentagon refused to be drawn on the issue yesterday. “We don’t discuss specific future operations or specific tactics,” a spokeswoman said.

This week Gary Luck, a retired four-star general, will arrive in Iraq to review American policy in the country, looking particularly at the recruitment and training of Iraqi forces. The key to Washington’s exit strategy is the ability of Iraqi forces to take over security roles. The general has been asked by Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, to deliver an “ open-ended” review of how US aims can better be met.

His visit comes after two weeks of increased violence in Iraq in which scores of Iraqis and more than a dozen Americans have been killed in the run-up to the country’s elections.

[Dave The Dov]

Since the beginnings of the Cold war right up to now. When has there ever been a time in which this country has not sent in the CIA to take care of "it's" business.
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Planet Eclipse Ego

[Zlatko Waterman]

The same goes for "American Interests", a favorite White House/Pentagon term, Mr. Dov. You are certainly correct.

What is NOT an "American Interest", according to the Pentagon?

According to DUB the SECUNDUS, "American Interests" lie as far out as the planet Mars:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/lib ... h40161.htm



--Z

[Dave The Dov]

Amazing how this goverment of the people by the people and for the people has forgotten about the people!!!!
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