ugh
January 9, 2005 2:38 AM   Subscribe

The Salvador Option. As a retired four star general conducts an open ended review (to be fair the DoD paints this as"just not accurate") of the military's entire Iraq policy, serious consideration is being given to this legacy of the Reagan administration (see John Negropante, ambassador to Iraq) in an effort to put the insurgents on the offensive. Involving cross border "snatch and grab" operations and possibly assassination teams it's a policy that was and is to this day controversial. The controversial part? The 70,000 or more left dead in the wake of a campaign of terror led by death squads. This gross human rights violation eventually led to the formation of an international truth commission.
posted by rocket_skates (64 comments total)
 
Not surprising since many of the same criminals from the Reagan era are working for the Bush administration. I wonder if it is over-optimistic on the Pentagon's (or MSNBC's) part to think that they will be able to train both Kurds and Shiites to do their dirty work. I can see the Kurds being down, but the Shiites?

If there is justice in this world Negropante will die a horrible death in Iraq.
posted by sic at 6:18 AM on January 9, 2005


Linguistic drift alert: describing 70,000 deaths inflicted by death squads -- mostly of civilian political dissidents -- as a "gross human rights violation" is, in my opinion, grossly euphemistic. The correct term is "mass murder".

If CIA/special forces assassination squads are deployed in Iraq, it will not be the first time that the US government has directly deployed death squads against guerillas operating in an occupied territory during a civil war.

And it didn't work last time, either.
posted by cstross at 6:36 AM on January 9, 2005


...the Pentagon is intensively debating an option that dates back to a still-secret strategy in the Reagan administration’s...

Explain to me how this is still secret if Newsweek is referring to it in this report.
posted by spicynuts at 6:50 AM on January 9, 2005


Yes, in the same breath the article refers to the Iran-Contra scandal, which most definitely involved exposing Reagan's death squads in Nicaragua.
posted by sic at 8:12 AM on January 9, 2005


Well, gee, escalating tensions with Syria couldn't possibly backfire, could it? Especially since Iraq is so capable of defending its own borders against a potential Syrian attack.
posted by Ptrin at 8:18 AM on January 9, 2005


I thought we were getting away from this enemy of my enemy nonsense.
posted by TetrisKid at 9:32 AM on January 9, 2005


Am I the only one that has a problem with the horrible bias in this article? Wasn't the Iran Contra scandal about the Sandinista's in Nicaragua, not El Salvador? And while I'm not condoning the US support of murderers - certainly the leftist juntas in Central America were themselves guilty of genocide on a much larger scale than the thugs the US backed. Somehow being supported by Castro makes you more morally pure than the US...

I don't mean to comment one way or another on the Iraq policy as I don't know enough based on this asstastic article, but I'm tired or everyone refelexively acting like the US were the bad guys in Central America in 80s. While undoubtedly a lot of sausage was made in the cold war, that assumption is highly debatable.
posted by Heminator at 9:43 AM on January 9, 2005


After the Bay of Pigs, a lot of people thought that it was only a matter of time until Marxism held sway over most of Latin America. Instead, it was beaten back almost everywhere it raised it head.

I hope that "death squads" aren't the answer, of course, but surely it makes sense to look at the film of our winning games to see what kind of plays can score.
posted by MattD at 10:00 AM on January 9, 2005


And while I'm not condoning the US support of murderers - certainly the leftist juntas in Central America were themselves guilty of genocide on a much larger scale than the thugs the US backed.

First: This is in no way certain.

Second: It doesn't matter what bad things the other kids do.
posted by Space Coyote at 10:11 AM on January 9, 2005


Sports metaphores are fun because in sports people don't get killed.
posted by Space Coyote at 10:12 AM on January 9, 2005


Heminator, the Sandinistas were the target of major US-backed black-ops and propaganda. They were FAR less brutal than what you hear, and had FAR more support among virtually everyone who wasn't connected to the Reagan-backed (read: CIA head Bush-backed) Negroponte-led death squads and extra-national interests.

They represented the country-based majority of the population, and pursued fairly gentle socialist goals, which were countered with some of the fiercest para-military operations the US could muster under cover of darkness (i.e. the '80's).

If you do a little non-US-based research, you may realize that the Sandinistas were true freedom fighters, and the US-backed Contras were the ones killing nuns, schoolchildren, and popular political figures in the countryside for years. Oh, and blaming on the Sandinistas whenever they could, just to confuse the issue.

Really, it's worth checking up on.

Or you could just listen to the Clash's "Sandinista" and be done with it.

(P.S. How do I know these things, you ask? I lived through the '80's, was politcially active then, had many friends from Nicaragua and Central America who gave first-hand accounts of black-clothed men raiding villages and executing the political organizers, and was privileged enough to go to a high school where Bush stashed one of his Central American CIA officers in a witness relocation program. Seriously.)
posted by Aquaman at 10:29 AM on January 9, 2005


The pattern and history of these kinds of efforts is clear. Empowering one group of thugs to dismantle another is not a good idea (a bearded Islamic terrorist comes to mind).
posted by willns at 10:40 AM on January 9, 2005


but I'm tired or everyone refelexively acting like the US were the bad guys in Central America in 80s. While undoubtedly a lot of sausage was made in the cold war, that assumption is highly debatable.

Care to back up your US weren't the bad guys in the 80's Central America with any kind of data. I mean the "US were bad guys in Central America" crowd can point to say:

1. The funding of the Contras to spread mayhem in the Sandanista run Nicaragua. Including death squads. This is hardly debatable, people in Reagan's government went to jail for this stuff as a result of Iran-Contra. By the way, the "thugs" of the popular Sandanista revolution in the 1970s overthrew the brutal Somoza family that had held power in Nicaragua since the 1920s.

2. Guatemala: granted the CIA overthrew the last Guatamalen reform government in the 1950s, not the 1980s, but it was also active throughout the 60s and 70s and of course, during Reagan's 80s ensuring that no popular movement would hurt business by bringing hope to the Guatamalen peasants.


3. Then there was Reagan's image-boosting invasion of Grenada. Nothing like manufactured TV wars to boost your "good buy" image back home.

4. Oh and the installation of the brutal drug-trafficker, Manuel Noriega as "President" of Panama during the 1980s.

There's much more, but I leave that to you and to google to investigate. Here start with this link to the CIA's involvement in drug trafficking (there's a nice section on Central America).
posted by sic at 10:49 AM on January 9, 2005


I was hoping we were doing this already. Both in Iraq and Syria.
posted by ParisParamus at 10:56 AM on January 9, 2005



I was hoping we were doing this already. Both in Iraq and Syria.


Why don't you enlist and help out?
posted by Space Coyote at 10:57 AM on January 9, 2005


Somehow being supported by Castro makes you more morally pure than the US...

The US cannot decry human rights abuses as a pretext for invading and/or supporting military action which then abuses human rights. Simply because others engage in it is not reason for the US to be absolved, especially if the US is going to take other nations to task for their abuses. As a practical matter it is better for the US not to participate in intercene military conflicts which do not directly involve it, i.e., it's far better to let other nations fight their own civil wars, as our attempts to intervene are fraught with failure and littered with countless bodies.
posted by krinklyfig at 11:29 AM on January 9, 2005


krinklyfig - So the US did the right thing by not getting involved in the Rwandan genocides? Can you say that with a straight face to the widows?
posted by thedevildancedlightly at 11:34 AM on January 9, 2005


krinklyfig - So the US did the right thing by not getting involved in the Rwandan genocides? Can you say that with a straight face to the widows?

Oh, cut the "prove the validity of your moral compass to me" crap. I'm not interested in proving anything to you.

So, do you favor intervention in all cases like this? If so, we're going to be very busy. Congo needs us. So does N. Korea.

FWIW, I am a non-interventionist in the same vein as most of the Founders. As John Quincy Adams said on July 4, 1821,


Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be.

But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.

She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.

She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.

She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example.

She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom.

The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force....

She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit....

[America's] glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of the mind. She has a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is, Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice.

posted by krinklyfig at 11:49 AM on January 9, 2005


Am I the only one that has a problem with the horrible bias in this article? Wasn't the Iran Contra scandal about the Sandinista's in Nicaragua, not El Salvador?
Yes, I think you are since you're taking the reference out of context. The Salvador option was a stepping point for the Iran Contra debacle.

certainly the leftist juntas in Central America were themselves guilty of genocide on a much larger scale than the thugs the US backed
Give me your numbers, please.

After the Bay of Pigs, a lot of people thought that it was only a matter of time until Marxism held sway over most of Latin America. Instead, it was beaten back almost everywhere it raised it head.
How this was achieved is debatable. Many argue it was the dollar, not the gun boat diplomacy that achieved this. The same domino theory was used to justify the Vietnam conflict, people "thought that it was only a matter of time until Marxism held sway over most of" Asia and look how that turned out...

While undoubtedly a lot of sausage was made in the cold war, that assumption is highly debatable
So let's hear some actual debate and not your poorly worded, reflexive opinion. Please don't pollute this thread anymore.

This is supposed to be a discussion people, not an opinion poll. Oh and ignore PP please, not worthy of response. Food metaphors are fun too because nobody gets hungry.

posted by rocket_skates at 11:50 AM on January 9, 2005


damn italics
posted by rocket_skates at 11:52 AM on January 9, 2005


Hooray for "Organizing your hipster PDA" getting 8 more comments than "US Gov. debating use of death squads a la Central America in the 80's."
*sigh* :-(

(no offense to Captaintripps, I'll be using this method from now on and buying Getting Things Done)
posted by rocket_skates at 11:58 AM on January 9, 2005


And while I'm not condoning the US support of murderers - certainly the leftist juntas in Central America were themselves guilty of genocide on a much larger scale than the thugs the US backed.

Apart from the Sandinistas, whose record for extrajudicial killings in comparison to that of the Contras is microscopic indeed, the facts are otherwise for the other country in the region to have had a leftist junta:

Guatemala, at peace since 1996, witnessed publication of the most comprehensive study yet of the massive human rights violations that accompanied its thirty-year armed struggle. The March 1999 report of the U.N.-sponsored truth commission found state forces and paramilitary groups responsible for 93 percent of the human rights violations it documented. Eighty-three percent of the victims of arbitrary execution or disappearance were Mayans, leading to the conclusion that the state was responsible for acts of genocide.

Human Rights Watch: Human Rights and Democracy in Latin America and the Caribbean, June 1999

Although Arbenz and his top aides were able to flee the country, after the CIA installed Castillo Armas in power, hundreds of Guatemalans were rounded up and killed. Between 1954 and 1990, human rights groups estimate, the repressive operatives of successive military regimes murdered more than 100,000 civilians.

CIA and Assassinations: The Guatemala 1954 Documents

Perhaps, as people have noted above, you could link to some documentation to support your assertion.
posted by y2karl at 12:01 PM on January 9, 2005


It has been a few years since I read anthropologists David Stolls books on Guatemala, but I recall that he painted a far more subtle picture of the conflict there, and a rural peasantry caught in-between death squads from both sides--though the government death squads were more effective, which is why they won.
posted by LarryC at 12:13 PM on January 9, 2005


Sic -- I can gladly point to legions of things that suggest that US involvement in Central America wasn't nearly as awful it's made out to be.

The Black Book of Communism Attributes 150,000 deaths to communist governments. Assuming that's a reasonable estimate (the "Black Book" is well regarded and it's "non U.S. based research" as if that somehow makes it more objective) than that likely exceeds the toll of the death squads and other US backed forces.

And remember, that despite being elected democratically, much of the conflict came about because these Maxist governments weren't ruling democratically. The reason these communist governments in Central America were in a constant state of turmoil was because they were constantly trying to expropriate huge amounts of private property by force.

And it wasn't all rich bourgeios exploitative land owners either - the Moskito and other Indians were killed by the thousands in Nicaragua because they were determined to hold on to their land and language. The Sandinista government laid siege to them for most of the 80s.

These kind of actions by a government tends to piss people off and encourages things like "death squads." However wrong the actions of groups like the Contras might have been, the idea that these governments were just ruling peacefully and were persecuted on a whim doesn't carry much water.

Further I'm willing to entertain the idea that the US supported forces in the region that were not on the up and up and have my government take the consequences. But others must own up, too. Throughout the 80s there was quite a white wash and PR job in the region from the leftist intelligentsia and their still is. I had "I, Rigoberta Menchu" on no less than three syllabi in college - it has of course now been completely discredited. According to David Stoll the anthropologist who exposed the fraud, "Stoll points out, tellingly, that Menchu's book is not simply inaccurate; it is specifically adapted to suit the purposes of the guerilla insurgency with which she had become associated, by enlisting the support of indigenous Mayan Guatemalans. His own field work revealed that the enthusiasm of the Mayans for the Marxist guerillas was no more than tepid."

US involvement in Central America is complex issue and I'm afraid that much of the antagonism directed toward the US is based not upon legitimate criticisms but rather because their are/were a lot of closet sympathizers who were determined to influence the public debate toward supporting the Sandinistas allegedly "gentle" Socialist reforms. This is just as ridiculous as Reagan insisting that the Contras were "freedom fighters."
posted by Heminator at 12:13 PM on January 9, 2005


I want to add,The right wing death squads were trained at the School of the Americas Fort Benning Georgia,FWIW
posted by hortense at 12:18 PM on January 9, 2005


FWIW, the Sandinista "Security Police" were trained by the Stasi.
posted by Heminator at 12:26 PM on January 9, 2005


Attributes 150,000 deaths to communist governments
I'm assuming you mean in Latin America. That being the case, Castillo Armas' forces were 50,000 shy of that number in Guatemala alone.

And it wasn't all rich bourgeoisie exploitative land owners either
I don't think anyone made the case that it was. Killing is killing.

These kind of actions by a government tends to piss people off and encourages things like "death squads."
Um, again, read the links for background info. The El Salvadorian option was in response to a peaceful, grass roots populist movement which culminated in the assassination of Jesuit priests and nuns(who no doubt had been busy killing Indians).

Throughout the 80s there was quite a white wash and PR job in the region from the leftist intelligentsia and their still is. I had "I, Rigoberta Menchu" on no less than three syllabi in college - it has of course now been completely discredited.
And we know how those crafty Latin American leftists blow the US government out of the water when it comes to PR efforts. While I appreciate your efforts, you provided two rather obscure and inaccessible(since i'm not at a library) anecdotes which don't leave us with much.
posted by rocket_skates at 12:35 PM on January 9, 2005


The contras ,aka 'freedom fighters'were the former dictator's
secret police. who were trained to be insurgents by former nazi war criminals,working for the cia.according to John Kerry's
self funded senate committee
posted by hortense at 12:36 PM on January 9, 2005


And we should be taking pages out of Stasi playbooks because.....? Heminator, thank you for supplying yet another link that bolsters the position that the US legacy in Latin America was brutal and wrong headed.
posted by rocket_skates at 12:41 PM on January 9, 2005


"What to do about the deepening quagmire of Iraq? The Pentagon’s latest approach is being called "the Salvador option"—and the fact that it is being discussed at all is a measure of just how worried Donald Rumsfeld really is. "What everyone agrees is that we can’t just go on as we are," one senior military officer told NEWSWEEK. "We have to find a way to take the offensive against the insurgents. Right now, we are playing defense. And we are losing." Last November’s operation in Fallujah, most analysts agree, succeeded less in breaking "the back" of the insurgency—as Marine Gen. John Sattler optimistically declared at the time—than in spreading it out.

Comedy gold.

And, gee? The chickenhawks are now telling us we may need to establish and equip spanking new "death squads", in a country that our right-wing friends assured us would pelt we "liberators" with flowers...when they weren't stirring up some fresh falafel to accompany our joyous dismantling of all those weapons of mass destruction?

Who'd a thunk it?

But we know the drill: armed-insurgent- terrorist-civilian-killing-bad-guys must be hunted down like vermin (and damn the costs)....unless they happen to be OUR armed-insurgent terrorists-civilian-killing-bad-guys, in which case they are "freedom fighters", or "Our Brave Soldiers", and really swell fellows.

We know the drill. One senses a certain pattern in thinking here:

The United States should get out of the United Nations, and our highest national priority is enforcing U.N. resolutions against Iraq.

Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when Bush's daddy made war on him, a good guy when Cheney did business with him and a bad guy when Bush needed a "we can't find Bin Laden" diversion.

A good way to fight terrorism is to belittle our long-time allies, then demand their cooperation and money.


And so on. Ad infinitum. Quagmire. Lies. The weak poor and young fighting and dying for the powerful old and rich. The "El Salvador" option. "Vietnamization". "Hearts and minds". The usual stinking chickenshit from the usual stinking flock.
posted by fold_and_mutilate at 12:42 PM on January 9, 2005


self funded senate committee
uh....
posted by rocket_skates at 12:44 PM on January 9, 2005


btw, said senate committe led to several felony convictions of White House and DoD officials.
posted by rocket_skates at 12:48 PM on January 9, 2005


yes Kerry's senate staff carried out investigations that the senate would not fund concerning Iran -contra
posted by hortense at 12:53 PM on January 9, 2005


I certainly have my opinions on the history of U.S. intervention in Central America, but it might be more useful to look at our recent history with the folks involved in the Middle East. Let's face it, our recent choices of who to support in that region (see Osama bin Laden and Sadam Hussein) hasn't exactly yielded stellar results for us in the long term.

I'm particularly worried about the stated choices of who we are going to be arming and training. Namely, Shiite militia and Kurdish Peshmurga fighters. The Shiite's are the majority Islamic sect in Iraq and with a likely abstention from voting by many Sunni groups, there is no doubt that the Shiite's will command significant power in the new government. Why then train these hit squads outside the official "army" that will be in place? It seems certain to further inflame ethnic/religious tension put in place by minority Sunni rule for so many years. Seems perfectly set up to bring about another round of Hutu/Tutsi style ethnic/religious violence to me.

And then there is the issue of the Kurds. The Kurds currently occupy a somewhat autonomous region in the north of Iraq. The Peshmurga fighters are particularly nationalistic, the Kurds being one of the worlds largest ethnic groups without a real homeland of their own. So it seems that we are proposing to arm and train a group that will almost certainly want to seceed from any government that Iraq puts in place. Fomenting a civil war before we even set up a real government?

And what if the Kurds do secede and try to establish a country of their own? That is an immediate problem for their neighbor Turkey. The Kurdish problem was one of the sticking points for Turkey in its support of the U.S. in the war in Iraq. Turkey is currently a secular government and one of the very few allies we have in that region. It faces significant tension internally with a fair number of groups that would prefer a more Islamic form of government. We are essentially proposing to arm and train people that will almost certainly embolden the Kurdish people of Turkey and want to bring about the merging of the Kurds of Turkey with the Kurds of Iraq. That would risk destabalizing the only secular government in the region and the only allie we really have there.

Even without the historical perspective of what went wrong in the Central America, how can this possibly be considered a good idea?
posted by afflatus at 12:55 PM on January 9, 2005


Actually it was done by independent counsel and a bipartisan House/Senate committed.
posted by rocket_skates at 12:57 PM on January 9, 2005


*comittee
posted by rocket_skates at 12:57 PM on January 9, 2005


hortense- links?
posted by rocket_skates at 12:58 PM on January 9, 2005


hortense- ah, yes. He got the ball rolling, I mistakenly interpreted your statement as implying that he somehow simplemindedly brought the rascals to justice.
posted by rocket_skates at 1:02 PM on January 9, 2005


god damn spell check and my lack off attention!
*singlehandedly(anyone know why this isn't in the MeFi dictionary?)
posted by rocket_skates at 1:04 PM on January 9, 2005


Nice response, Heminator. Seriously, well put.

The whole era was a damn sorry affair; my main regret is that nobody seems to remember that it was all the same people who are f'ing things up now.

grrrrr....
posted by Aquaman at 1:27 PM on January 9, 2005


This book, published by French scholars in 1987, documents the death tolls attributable to communist regimes in different countries. The book is obviously premised on the thought that the fact that these were communist regimes is explanatory: clearly, one could produce similar books like "The Black Book of White Men" or or "The Black Book of Short Dictators" or "The Black Book of Blondes," listing the atrocities committed by regimes with the designated characteristics. But the undertaking would seem peculiar, since there is no reason to think that the highlighted attributes are explanatory.

The Black Book of Communism doesn't actually argue that allegiance to communism is explanatory; it takes it for granted. Someone writing The Black Book of Capitalism, in turn, might start counting corpses attributable to 19th-century European imperialism, Pinochet, Suhatro, Marcos, Somoza, etc. (Should we add Hitler, who on some accounts owes much to the support of the capitalist class, and whose rise to power was, uncontroversially, facilitated by the worldwide capitalist crisis of the late 1920s and 1930s?)


The Black Book of Communism

And consider this Zmag review, more specifically, the first sentence regarding one of the Black Book's authors.

As for the claim that all Communist states are essentially the same, Courtois exempts “Cuba and the Nicaragua of the Sandinistas” from some of his worst charges. But what of a country like Vietnam? Did the Vietnamese Communists ever engage in the execution of their political opponents? Yes, so Vietnamese communism is far from utopia, even if the predicted post-war massacres used to justify the American war effort never actually materialized.

Former U.S. presidential candidate, Senator John McCain recently displayed a profoundly one-sided view of Vietnam: The north Vietnamese who imprisoned and allegedly tortured him are brutal “gooks,” whom he cannot forgive. But the lives ruined or snuffed out by the bombs his plane dropped before being shot down don’t seem to register with him at all.

This book frequently seems similarly one-sided. In concentrating solely on the misdeeds of the current Vietnamese government, those of France and the U.S., and the Saigon governments it supported are necessarily ignored, as is the fact that, as one foreign aid program manager recently put it, “Vietnam is one of the best performers at poverty reduction in the developing world.”...

The story of how the dream of a few has turned into a nightmare for the many certainly deserves to be told. But The Black Book of Communism might best be read in conjunction with another volume currently in the works in Germany—The Black Book of Capitalism.


The Black Book Of Communism
posted by y2karl at 1:28 PM on January 9, 2005


Oh and for anyone interested in archbishop Oscar Romero, I recommend this.
posted by rocket_skates at 1:33 PM on January 9, 2005


Damn y2karl, after seeing you (ever) meticulous posts, I'm embarrassed by my earlier slipshod contribution. I had a suspicion that the Black Book of Communism wasn't as objective as the poster insinuated, but I didn't have time to investigate. Thanks for the effort.
posted by sic at 1:56 PM on January 9, 2005


A. GENERAL OVERVIEW OF CASES AND PATTERNS OF VIOLENCE

The Commission on the Truth registered more than 22,000 complaints of serious acts of violence that occurred in El Salvador between January 1980 and July 1991. 126/ Over 7,000 were received directly at the Commissions offices in various locations. The remainder were received through governmental and non-governmental institutions. 127/

Over 60 per cent of all complaints concerned extrajudicial executions, over 25 per cent concerned enforced disappearances, and over 20 per cent included complaints of torture.

Those giving testimony attributed almost 85 per cent of cases to agents of the State, paramilitary groups allied to them, and the death squads.

Armed forces personnel were accused in almost 60 per cent of complaints, members of the security forces in approximately 25 per cent, members of military escorts and civil defence units in approximately 20 per cent, and members of the death squads in more than 10 per cent of cases. The complaints registered accused FMLN in approximately 5 per cent of cases.


Report of the UN Truth Commission on El Salvador
posted by y2karl at 2:12 PM on January 9, 2005


Let's get things straight:

Supposedly we ousted Saddam because, among other things, he tortured and raped the innocent and he used hit squads to murder anyone suspected of organizing action against his government.

Our army has tortured and raped the innocent people of Iraq (and probably continues to do so, being much more careful to delete those pictures from the digital camera) and is planning hit squads to murder anyone suspected of organizing action against our government.

This begs the question: Is Saddam planning the occupation for us, from his cell? Should we just put Saddam back in charge? It seems like we're just changing the faces, but the policies when we pull out of Iraq will be mostly the same as when we arrived.
posted by mullingitover at 2:17 PM on January 9, 2005


Between the years of 1978 and 1985, the peak years of mass execution and State repression, some 42,171 persons were killed in El Salvador, a number which at the time constituted nearly 1% of the Salvadoran population. The total number of those killed during the entire length of the conflict has been estimated at 75,000 persons, the vast majority of whom were killed by State security forces. An additional one million persons fled the country as refugees, or became internally displaced.

Human Rights in El Salvador - An Introduction
posted by y2karl at 2:19 PM on January 9, 2005


First of all, this whole thing stinks to high heaven. I mean, not only the article, which proports to compare apples and oranges, central America and the middle east, but the entire premise: the assumption that the US hasn't been doing these type of activities in Iraq since the war ended!.

You've heard of SOCOM, the Special Operations COMmand? Well, right now, this modern version of the Vietnam-era "Phoenix Program" of counter-terrorism, etc. has been in full swing since just after 9-11. They assassinate, kidnap, create propaganda, torture and basically murder the enemy who try to hide in the civilian population. And they train the indigenous forces to do the same.

Saddam's secret police have been regenerated. The Kurdish Pesh Merga (a paramilitary militia wearing traditional, not Iraqi army, uniforms) are used to violently supress trouble in Sunni areas. Shiite death squads are given tacit approval, if not overt support. Example after example.

But comparisons with central America are just bizarre, like comparing World War I and the Granada invasion.

Syria and Iran are actively trying to disrupt Iraq, so if activities like what the General proposes take place, they won't be in Iraq. Baathists who are running the show from Damascus will *continue* to have their cars bombed. Mullahs in Iran will start to die mysteriously and not so mysteriously.

The US has probably 60,000 or so SOCOM all over the world, and they are killing and capturing bad boys like there is no tomorrow. Top of the line spies, killers and their support. And they have already trained, and are working beside, natives who will continue on with their work, be it in Iraq, Afghanistan, or elsewhere.
posted by kablam at 7:41 PM on January 9, 2005


Kablam: What you speak of is a gross violation of American and International Law. Do you approve of such actions? Do you think the american populace would approve of such actions? Should those responsible for such actions be brought to justice? Who is responsible?

I take it you assume such things are necessary, and moral. I hope I am incorrect. However, if this were brought to light, George Bush himself would be no better than Pinochet, albeit perhaps slightly less effective in his evil ways, better PR, and the wisdom to kill other people and not his own. (But in a certain sense does it really matter what passport a dead man holds? He's still dead.)

I honestly hope this is not the case, but history seems to prove otherwise on a regular basis.

(I am on the verge of tears at the moment, reflecting on the fact that one of the few powerful people to stand up against such activities in the vietnam war, as well as the cold war has just lost in an election to the self same people responsible for 2 decades of this bullshit. Negroponte as the ambassador to Iraq indeed.)
posted by Freen at 9:11 PM on January 9, 2005


Y2Karl, uhh no offense, trying to get an accurate appraisal of the validity of a book that attempts to sum up the toll of Communism out of Zmag... I mean COME ON. Honest has never been a trait associated with Chomsky's scholarly work or any of the turnspits that publish his magazines, especially when it comes to issues like Communism.

The Black Book of Communism is hardly above criticism, but it is a serious work that was largely well-recieved and shouldn't be dissmissed so cavalierly.
posted by Heminator at 9:32 PM on January 9, 2005


Chomsky's real job is language, MIT I belive.His hobby and pastime is US foreign policy criticisim.exactly what has he said that you think is dishonest? I think he has done a credible
job of hilighting the administrations criminal policies in
central america and Iraq .ironically Negrepointe's brother founded the media studies at MIT.
posted by hortense at 10:10 PM on January 9, 2005


The Black Book of Communism is hardly above criticism, but it is a serious work that was largely well-recieved and shouldn't be dissmissed so cavalierly.

Largely well received by the National Review and assorted right wing think tanks, from the evidence.
posted by y2karl at 11:28 PM on January 9, 2005


Not that I disagree with the thrust of the book but, again,

As for the claim that all Communist states are essentially the same, Courtois exempts “Cuba and the Nicaragua of the Sandinistas” from some of his worst charges.

The Black Book of Communism was cited as support for--certainly the leftist juntas in Central America were themselves guilty of genocide on a much larger scale than the thugs the US backed--yet Courtois, a principal author of the Black Book, exempts them from his worst charges.

And the human rights links provided above all agree--the right wing militaries, militias and death squads of El Salvador and Guatemala were by an order of magnitude the larger killing machines in their respective countries. No leftist junta committed genocide on a far larger scale than the thugs the US backed, no matter how many bad things one can say about Rigoberta Menchu. The thugs were the genocidal champs by far--the record is clear on that..
posted by y2karl at 11:51 PM on January 9, 2005


which proports to compare apples and oranges, Central America and the middle east
The policy itself being the "U.S. government funding or supporting of 'nationalist'(insert ethnic/religious) forces that include so-called death squads directed to hunt down and kill rebel leaders and sympathizers", how does the whole apples and oranges thing come in? Yes, the setting, means of implementation and characters involved this go round are different. Same product though, just a shiny new wrapper. Could you please elaborate on how this is such an outrageous comparison, especially seeing as so many key administrative players from the US side in the formation of Central American intervention policy are back for the sequel in the middle east? I think, judging by your past contributions, you've merely invested heavily in Red vs. Blue politics and happen to come down on this the way you do because of the side you've chosen to root for.

And they train the indigenous forces to do the same.
Major fucking problem here, they don't have checks via ethics review committees, combing over by counsel or debate about the morality and legality of an action. This is kind of the whole point.

Saddam's secret police have been regenerated. The Kurdish Pesh Merga (a paramilitary militia wearing traditional, not Iraqi army, uniforms) are used to violently suppress trouble in Sunni areas. Shiite death squads are given tacit approval, if not overt support. Example after example.
Again, where are the guidelines, the standards, who decides what's ok and what's not? Are we just giving them money, guns and training and saying here go at it? If so, is the possibility of an ethnic civil war erupting now greater because of these actions, perhaps one that could have been avoided? Is that the best possible policy?

But comparisons with central America are just bizarre, like comparing World War I and the Granada invasion.
Ok, I'll give you that one just because you say so. Not because you've carefully laid out why you think so and supported this claim with any kind of link or data at all.

Syria and Iran are actively trying to disrupt Iraq, so if activities like what the General proposes take place, they won't be in Iraq. Baathists who are running the show from Damascus will *continue* to have their cars bombed. Mullahs in Iran will start to die mysteriously and not so mysteriously.
First, no general was quoted in the article in regards to the proposal to implement a Salvador Option like plan, so I'm not sure where this came from. As far as them not being in Iraq, how would us sending Peshmerga fighters into Syria do anything to quell violence in Fallujah or Sadr city?

The US has probably 60,000 or so SOCOM all over the world, and they are killing and capturing bad boys like there is no tomorrow. Top of the line spies, killers and their support. And they have already trained, and are working beside, natives who will continue on with their work, be it in Iraq, Afghanistan, or elsewhere.
Ok, drop the Soldier of Fortune magazine and step away from the your stack of signed Tom Clancy books. 60,000? We've got 150,000 troops in Iraq, 40% being reservists running tour stints that are breaking the regular and reservist ranks and you're saying we've got 60k SOCOM spread around the globe?

I think a lot of people are suffering from supporting the war itself over the reason initially given for the war(er, 3rd or 4th reason given for the war): humanitarian intervention.
posted by rocket_skates at 1:16 AM on January 10, 2005


This may answer a lot of questions about part of the intelligence-gathering side of SOCOM operations in the Iraq/Syria/Iran/Jordan/Saudi Arabia/Afghanistan/Pakistan area of operations.

More information about SOCOM.

The reason that such techniques are used is because both that they work, and that those they are used on are utterly ruthless. I've no sympathy for a Baathist who sips tea in Damascus after ordering an attack on a school bus full of children in Bagdad, using funds kicked back by corrupt UN officials.
posted by kablam at 7:37 AM on January 10, 2005


I've no sympathy for a Baathist who sips tea in Damascus after ordering an attack on a school bus full of children in Bagdad, using funds kicked back by corrupt UN officials.

Hmmm, sorry just a bit too hyberbolic to be taken seriously. If you replace "school bus full of children" with "US ARMY military convoy" the sentence will have a semblance of rational discourse. I mean, are you certain that there are baathists maniacs in Syria who are hellbent in murdering all the children in Baghdad? Must make it tough to find time to fight the military force occupying their brother arab country.

And the UN comment is just pathetic.
posted by sic at 9:37 AM on January 10, 2005


Ok, drop the Soldier of Fortune magazine and step away from the your stack of signed Tom Clancy books.

Word.
posted by y2karl at 9:44 AM on January 10, 2005


Unlike Central America where a lot of the victims were poor, unarmed and of minority status the proposed use of Shiite and Kurdish paramilitaries would be going up against a populous and well-armed ethnic group. As others have stated this amounts to a civil war, not a low simmering climate of fear caused by paramilitaries striking at (supposedly) targets chosen by the US administration. A more apt comparison would be the conflicts in the '90s Balkans, not '80s Central America.

Additionally, such action would essentially strip the War on Terrorism of all moral justification and expose it for what it is - a war on non-state actors with the potential to affect massive infrastructure disruption. Make no mistake, the proposed Salvador option is about defeating the Iraqi insurgency, not about defeating global terrorist networks.

Using terror to fight terrorists seems to be the mantra from the DoD. However, they admit that they must target the civilian population since that is where the support for the insurgency lies. It may be well and good to paint the idea as special forces and paramilitaries doing "snatch and grab" operation against insurgent cells, but the real goal is to strip the insurgency of their support from the general population.

While I cannot predict the consequences of such an action I don't believe they would engender many people to the American view in a positive light. At best it would force compliance through the threat of physical and military force which in the long run is self-defeating and little different from the previous Iraqi regime.
posted by infowar at 10:04 AM on January 10, 2005


that unfunny John Bircher's joke of the Black Book of Communism, the shameful revisionist crap about what have been proven to be murderous (tens of thousands of innocent people, like so many WTC's all in a row) old US policies in Latin America, considering Indochina and Vietnam strategies as good ideas to get out of the Iraq disaster -- this thread would be extremely funny if these news didn't have real-life consequences. I mean, an appalling amount of -- again -- brown people's blood is going to be shed, in the name of, ahem, "democracy", pretty soon.

I humbly suggest that our resident admirers of people like Pinochet* keep that kind of talk to MetaFilter. arguing those finer points in real-life Central or South America would provoke just a tiny bit of real-life outrage. or a more-than-tiny bit, who knows

*certainly no commie, good old Augusto, the nice mustachioed Conservative gentleman whose henchmen's dogs raped women prisoners. just to give their masters a little fun show in those long prison night shifts.
ah, "democracy".
posted by matteo at 1:04 PM on January 10, 2005


Pinochet: The charge sheet

Jose Marcelino Gonzalez Malpu was allegedly:

* Forced to watch the simulated shooting of his mother
* Subjected to electric shocks

Pedro Hugo Arellano Carvajal was allegedly:

* Pushed out of a helicopter with ropes attached to his trousers
* Dragged through thorns
* Subjected to electric shocks
* Forced to play Russian roulette

Miguel Woodward was allegedly:

* Subjected to electric shocks
* Beaten with a hammer to break his arms
* Beaten and left to die

Other alleged acts of torture cited in the charges include:

* Burning with a flamethrower
* Forcing a victim to eat the flesh of dead prisoners
* Driving over a victim's legs with a machine
* Using a dog to sexually abuse women
* Employing a man with visible syphilitic sores to rape women


In the case of one family, the charges allege that the father was forced to sexually abuse his son, while the son was forced to sexually abuse his younger brother.

posted by matteo at 1:09 PM on January 10, 2005


(this is of course just a tiny bit of evidence from what happened in non-commie Chile.
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other lily-livered organization's websites can offer info on other nations of the non-commie persuasion)

oh, and I have of course withheld the really graphic accounts of what happened during many of MattD's (*barfs*) "winning games"
posted by matteo at 1:13 PM on January 10, 2005


...using funds kicked back by corrupt UN officials.

Paul A. Volcker says a report of his investigation into the scandal-tainted oil-for-food program in Iraq will clarify the roles of Secretary General Kofi Annan and the program's former director, Benon V. Sevan, but will not produce any "smoking gun."...

"I hate to make a sweeping statement, but we get better cooperation from many other countries than we do from the United States," he said...

He said the Sevan case was easier because there was a paper trail. "You got a lot of documents that suggest strongly that Iraq thought he was the ultimate beneficiary," he said, "but the oil doesn't go to Sevan directly, it goes to somebody else, and that somebody else presumably makes a good margin, but who in the end made the money? Sevan vigorously disputes that he was involved and says he never saw anything of the money."

"My job is to find out whether he did, and there really is a lot of circumstantial evidence, no doubt about it," Mr. Volcker said. "There's enough smoke there that we know there was some monkey business, but will we have the smoking gun by the end of January? I doubt it."

He said he had received good help from State Department people in Iraq, from the Iraqi government and from other governments there, particularly Australia. "But when it comes to the State Department here," he said, "they tell you the Congress is after them so they don't want to give us anything that they don't give to Congress first."

When he pursued information that the Justice Department was also after, he said, "they'll say, 'It's relevant to a criminal case; we can't tell you anything.' Worse, they'll sometimes say, 'No, it's classified.' "

He said news media estimates of illicit oil-for-food profits of $10 billion and $20 billion were "grossly exaggerated." His own investigation, he said, was turning up a number close to the $1.7 billion that Charles A. Duelfer, the top American inspector for Iraq, arrived at.

Far larger amounts, he said, came from smuggling, much of which was tolerated by the United States. "In two cases, Jordan and Turkey, the United States government officially recognized it was going on," he said, "because they gave waivers allowing the violations of oil sanctions because of the countries' friendship and importance to the U.S."


No 'Smoking Gun' in the Inquiry Into Iraq's Prewar Oil Sales
posted by y2karl at 6:25 PM on January 10, 2005




Yes, Matteo this thread would be hilarious if it didn't resort to name calling. I'm no John Bircher, The Black Book of Communism was written by a bunch of French(!) scholars. Yet not one of you is willing to examine it closely, the closest anyone has come to engaging it citing a review in a magazine run by Noam "The Khmer Rouge were the good guys" Chomsky.

Bottom line is that communist governments were responsible for 100,000,000 deaths this century (take in those zeros for a second). You had governments on both sides committing attrocities in Central America throughout the 80s. Why is it surprising the US would pick to support the side that wasn't communist? Certainly it is regrettable to support anyone who resorts to such measures, but considering the long term consequences of living under a communist regime... what would you prefer? That they do nothing and we end up with dozens of little Cubas scattered throughout Central America where they continue to dragoon poets and homosexuals into jails? Certainly we could have handled it better, I agree. But I sincerely doubt US chose the foreign policy it did hardly because we don't mind the killing of "brown people."

As for dragging Pinochet into this the relevance is so tangential I don't know what to say. Simply citing as list of his crimes seems inconsequential as one could easily pick a communist government at random and easily find similar horrifying abuses.
posted by Heminator at 11:55 AM on January 13, 2005


heminator, you fallacious logic ceases to amaze. you're being a shill and pushing an agenda. 'nuff said.
posted by rocket_skates at 9:20 AM on January 16, 2005


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