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 | | From: | James A. Chamblee | | Subject: | Death squads invite murder in our name | | Date: | Sun, 23 Jan 2005 14:15:48 GMT |
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 | http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
Death squads invite murder in our name
by Joe Conason
The New York Observer
01.12.05 -- Our faltering effort to crush the Iraqi
insurgency is now taking a turn that recalls the worst
episodes in American foreign policy. In recent weeks, the
C.I.A. and the F.B.I. have disgorged further proof of the
routine use of torture to extract information from
prisoners. Now Pentagon planners are reportedly mulling a
"Salvadoran option" -- the bureaucratic euphemism for death
squads -- to put down the rebellion in Iraq.
Evidently this scheme is the latest brainstorm of the
"liberators" intent on bringing democracy, freedom and the
rule of law to the oppressed peoples of the Middle East. The
brilliant idea of assassinating recalcitrant Iraqis seems to
have originated among the same Pentagon bureaucrats who
crusaded for the Iraq invasion and promoted abusive
interrogation techniques in the war against terrorism.
According to Newsweek, Defense Department officials
frustrated by increasing violence and chaos in Iraq are
considering the brutal methods used during past
confrontations with guerrilla fighters in Central America
and Southeast Asia. Those methods included providing U.S.
intelligence and logistical support for paramilitary forces
that were "directed to hunt down and kill rebel leaders and
sympathizers." The way this works -- or at least is supposed
to work -- is that the names of those alleged leaders and
sympathizers are derived from torturing alleged terrorists.
Then the death squads go out by night to execute those
identified as enemies.
While this sounds like political madness, the theory behind
such atrocities is quite simple: Guerrilla warriors can
thrive only when the civilian population supports or
tolerates them. Depriving the guerrillas of such support
means convincing civilians to turn away from them. But since
nearly two years of incompetent occupation rule has failed
to win the hearts and minds of most Iraqis, the next step is
apparently to persuade them by inflicting pain. That
attitude is evident in Newsweek's quote from a military
source who endorses the "Salvadoran" plan.
"The Sunni population is paying no price for the support it
is giving to the terrorists," said that source. "From their
point of view, it is cost-free. We have to change that
equation."
Anyone who is wondering what his chilling remark might
portend can glance back through the archives of the
conflicts in El Salvador and Guatemala. This historical
exercise is not recommended for the sensitive or squeamish.
Billed as "counterterrorism," the actions of military and
paramilitary forces involved terrorist assaults of appalling
ferocity on unarmed civilians.
Much of what Central America's fascist killers perpetrated
in our name during the dirty conflicts of the Cold War
remains hidden in secret files, although much of what they
did has been revealed during the past few decades. Women and
children weren't spared; neither were nuns and priests,
lawyers and labor organizers, human-rights activists and
journalists. All were prey to the bloody whims of the
death-squad leaders, who often carried out personal grudges
against "terrorists" or "Communists."
Ironically, the uniformed criminals who carried out the
Salvadoran option were not so different in character and
behavior from those currently identified as the enemy. The
mass graves filled with the victims of Saddam Hussein are no
different from the mass graves at El Mozote, filled with the
victims of the right-wing death squads. The gruesome
beheadings performed by Islamist killers in Iraq are no
different from the beheadings of peasants in El Salvador and
Guatemala (except that the death squads lacked videotape and
Web sites, and decapitated dozens more people).
The Newsweek report by John Barry and Michael Hirsh confirms
a sense of foreboding that history is being repeated. They
learned of a Pentagon proposal that "would send [U.S. Army]
Special Forces teams to advise, support and possibly train
Iraqi squads, most likely hand-picked Kurdish Peshmerga
fighters and Shiite militiamen, to target Sunni insurgents
and their sympathizers." Decades ago, that is exactly how
the Salvadoran death squads began, when Special Forces and
C.I.A. personnel were sent to train paramilitary forces there.
Why would our leaders again risk condoning such brutality?
They are increasingly fearful that we are losing to the
Iraqi insurgents, despite the razing of Falluja. And they
believe that assassinations and mass killings "saved"
Central America, even if the cost was tens or even hundreds
of thousands of innocent lives. They don't seem to remember
how poorly the same horrific methods worked in Vietnam,
where the C.I.A.'s Phoenix program of death squads and
assassinations only strengthened the Communist guerrillas.
Two days after the Newsweek story broke, Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld denied at a Pentagon press briefing that he
and his aides were considering the use of "Salvadoran"
techniques in Iraq. To the naove, his words may sound
reassuring. To anyone who has listened to him and others
deny that the Bush administration has condoned torture, Mr.
Rumsfeld's denial serves as unhappy confirmation. Nobody
except a few grunts has been held accountable for torture.
So why not death squads?
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=18369
--
Dan Clore
Now available: _The Unspeakable and Others_
http://www.wildsidepress.com/index2.htm
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1587154838/thedanclorenecro
Lord Werdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
"It's a political statement -- or, rather, an
*anti*-political statement. The symbol for *anarchy*!"
-- Batman, explaining the circle-A graffiti, in
_Detective Comics_ #608
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