Death Squads in Iraq

[TrumpsHair]

This comes from Newsweek:

"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.
Now, NEWSWEEK has learned, the Pentagon is intensively debating an option that dates back to a still-secret strategy in the Reagan administration's battle against the leftist guerrilla insurgency in El Salvador in the early 1980s. Then, faced with a losing war against Salvadoran rebels, the U.S. government funded or supported "nationalist" forces that allegedly included so-called death squads directed to hunt down and kill rebel leaders and sympathizers.

Eventually the insurgency was quelled, and many U.S. conservatives consider the policy to have been a success--despite the deaths of innocent civilians and the subsequent Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal. (Among the current administration officials who dealt with Central America back then is John Negroponte, who is today the U.S. ambassador to Iraq. Under Reagan, he was ambassador to Honduras.)
Following that model, one Pentagon proposal would send 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, even across the border into Syria, according to military insiders familiar with the discussions. It remains unclear, however, whether this would be a policy of assassination or so-called "snatch" operations, in which the targets are sent to secret facilities for interrogation. The current thinking is that while U.S. Special Forces would lead operations in, say, Syria, activities inside Iraq itself would be carried out by Iraqi paramilitaries, officials tell NEWSWEEK."

All I can say is, "wow..."

[Mr. Dipity]

All I can say is, "wow..."

All I can say is I spent the afternoon thinking things couldn't get worse.

And, my grandma's house is about 400 hundred miles from the Iraq border. Syria is a tiny country - when they say 'across the Syrian border' they pretty much mean in Syria proper. You can't go very far without reaching the other end.

American troops firing on 'refugees' hot footing it into the outskirts of Damascus would be an Archduke Ferdinand moment. Especially if they use their customary level of restraint and respect for the sanctity of life.

[Ivon]

American troops firing on 'refugees' hot footing it into the outskirts of Damascus would be an Archduke Ferdinand moment. Especially if they use their customary level of restraint and respect for the sanctity of life.

Very well may be...

Empires rise and empires fall like ocean tides. History has proven that it just takes a seemingly unimportant catalyst to set off a worldwide catastrophe. For want of a nail the kingdom was lost.

Please be cognizant, however, that it's not just U.S. military forces that show disrepsect for the sanctity of human life. To show disregard for human life is wrong, no matter who is pulling the trigger and there's a lot of military forces out there pulling the trigger. It just so happens to be that the U.S. is the current dominant world power, and thus it's presence is very easy to spot. And for lack of better words, it sucks.

It sucks to be a U.S. citizen and see things like this take place when what you'd really like to see is our government rise above sick violence (like 911) and set a different kind of example. But I'm just some songwriter who listened to too much Lennon when I was a kid. What do I know?

[Ivon]

Oh yeah...here's an offshoot.

I live in the Olympia, WA. area where one can hear a lot of military activity from Ft. Lewis. The other day I was at a client's house shooting the poo on the porch while the distinct sound of heavy artillery explosions and machine gun fire reverberated in the calm breeze of a wintery afternoon within his private lakefront community...Whilst some lady was walking her $800 yorkie down the street like nothing was happening. I kind of got lost in the whole moment. It was too surreal. I thought...man, those men are practicing with those machines to go kill people.

It happens in this area often. You ever see a military bomber jet fly over your head just above the treeline? You ever see 20 military jets fly over your head just above the treeline? The ground shakes. They're huge and intidimating. I can't imagine what it must be like to have to see that kind of thing and then run for cover because they're actually in the process of bombing your "private waterfront community".

Surreal for me...but for some people, the threat of artillery explosions, machine guns and bomber jets are real.

[EasyGo]

Wow indeed.

Obviously the government is willing and able to do some shady stuff in the name of 'spreading liberty and freedom.'

I looked at the actual Newsweek web article, and it's got a delightful pic with the caption 'Nuns pray over the bodies of four American sisters killed by the military in El Salvador in 1980.'

Fun stuff indeed.

Wasn't the US Military supposed to be greeted as 'liberators' or something?

[ottokbre]

Oh yeah...here's an offshoot.

I live in the Olympia, WA. area where one can hear a lot of military activity from Ft. Lewis. The other day I was at a client's house shooting the poo on the porch while the distinct sound of heavy artillery explosions and machine gun fire reverberated in the calm breeze of a wintery afternoon within his private lakefront community...Whilst some lady was walking her $800 yorkie down the street like nothing was happening. I kind of got lost in the whole moment. It was too surreal.

I grew up between Ft. Lewis and McChord. I know it all too well.

As soon as Negroponte got the job last year, it was time to assume the worst.

[high tek]

what you'd really like to see is our government rise above sick violence (like 911) and set a different kind of example.

this wil never happen.

i dont know about you, but there ARE some (alot) of people out there that are very oposed to bush and new world order, but yet somehow think that bush/shadow government ACTUALLY BELIEVE THEY ARE DOING THE RIGHT THING.

this is joke at best.
the illuminati know exactly what theyre doing, and have been planing this for years, and im sure are happy with the way things are going.

[ataraxia]

it's awesome when the goverment gives thier jobs to others and expects everything to go smoothly. Al-queida was a good example of that so was sadam. and what was it, that one african country. they call it salvador, i call it the frankenstein monster.