‘The Salvador Option’

[seemslikeadream]

The Pentagon may put Special-Forces-led assassination or kidnapping teams in Iraq

By Michael Hirsh and John Barry
Newsweek
Updated: 5:33 p.m. ET Jan. 8, 2005Jan. 8 - 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.
more
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6802629/site/newsweek/

[GRLMGC]

1. Great

Let's screw up the country even more. That should go over well.

My family had to leave El Salvador because of evil policies like that. :mad:

[AlbizuX]

38. The Freepers are having an orgy about this

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1317119/posts?page=1

[MaryH]

47. Kind of a violent bunch, aren't they.

If they want to go over and join in the fun I don't understand why they don't just go and sign up.

I always felt like the way to get Osama was just to send the KKK after him. All those burning crosses would probably give him a heart attack right on the spot.

[kysrsoze]

62. One of those FP fucks wants to call "insurgents" "fascist terrorists"

How wrong he/she/it really is. That label belongs elsewhere.

[DELUSIONAL]

2. ah huh -- do you see Ambassador Negropointe's hand in this?

Just exactly what we said would happen if that war criminal was sent to Iraq as Ambassador is probably happening -- they are just getting around to floating the "idea" now.

He's there and fucking damned Dems voted for the bastard.

[leftchick]

39. Here he is with his mercenary guards...

Ambassador to Iraq John Negroponte, center, was ambassador to Honduras during the Reagan years

[saigon68]

44. He is a Murderer and Hoodlum

There is a place in Hell for this turd. Its almost like one roots for his "Down Fall". Maybe some day he will be in a prison.

[bemildred]

46. "Thug", "Gangster", "Warlord", and "Terrorist".

It would indeed be excellent were he to spend some time in the gulag.

[FlemingsGhost]

3. Negroponte.

'nuff said.

[two gun sid]

4. As a vet who served in Central America in the 80's

This is the most ignorant idea I've heard out of the Pentagon in awhile. The death squads and the contras were not a success. They were a total failure as I remember it. We did nothing more than support a criminal enterprise.

Fuck, this shit pisses me off so much I can't even type.

[Sal Minella]

5. Mr. Sid -- was Archbishop Romero on the Bad Guy List?

Or are you at liberty to say?

[two gun sid]

8. I was just an enlisted puke

I had no knowledge of any actual targets and I hope I didn't imply that I did. The operation I was on was classified but, what information I have wouldn't fit in a tea cup.
What I do know is the people we were supporting were no more than a gang of thugs and thieves. They were never a fighting force. They were never popularly supported.
I was in El Salvador in '84 or '85, I can't remember. I do know there was an election going on and I think D'Aubisson was still the head of ARENA. Romero was killed several years before.
Most of my work was with the contras.
Sorry, I know there are a lot questions about the Archbishop death. I still think about my time in Central America and the suffering of the people caused by our wrongheaded policies.

[Sal Minella]

16. I never did figure out why you guys were sent there......

We were protecting American business/corporate interests, I assume? From the commies? I remember reading someplace there were hundreds of American corporations doing business in Nicaragua. But I never knew that much about El Salvador. Never even had the heart to read Joan Didion's book "Salvador."

As I remember El Salvador had a democratically elected leader but he wasn't right-wing enough to suit our leaders -- sort of like Allende.

[two gun sid]

21. I think it was because of Ronald Reagan's

crazy belief Texas was in danger of being attacked by Sandinista Air Force. Some shit like that. Ultimately, we were making the world safe for crony capitalism. I think that senile fuck Reagan actually believed all that commie bullshit. Negroponte knew the real reason. Any place he goes the death squads follow. I'm gonna call my US rep and Senators. This is so fucked up

[calimary]

22. 1 (800) 839 - 5276 - TOLL FREE to Capitol Hill Switchboard.

If I may be of service - this is FREE - and you can ask to be transfered to ANYBODY'S office in the House and/or Senate. You can even use it to call other people's reps and Senators.

[kysrsoze]

63. Hats off to you for telling about what really happened down there

Did your cohorts feel the same way? From the videos I've seen and the articles I've read, US soldiers in Iraq are having some serious second thoughts about what we're doing there.

[DrBB]

6. I know, I know! Let's just leave Saddam in power and skip the war!

Oh, wait a minute...

Still, we coulda saved a couple-three hundred billion and a lot of GI lives if we'd taken the easy way to get to this stage. To wit: leaving Iraq the fuck alone.

[Strelnikov_]

42. That Is What It Comes To, Isn't It. We Have Come Full Circle

Saddam(repression)->
Eliminate WMD->
Eliminate Terraists->
Establish Democracy->
Allawi(repression)

[Bono71]

55. No kidding. What a clust-f. n/t

[Minstrel Boy]

7. That's some bad deja voodoo

Where the Death Squad Lives Bruce Cockburn

Goons in blackface creeping in the road --
Farm family waiting for the night to explode --
Working the land in an age of terror
You come to see the moon as the bad news bearer
Down where the death squad lives

They cut down people like they cut down trees --
Chop off its head so it will stay on its knees --
The forest shrinks but the earth remains
Slash and burn and it grows again
Down where the death squad lives.

I've got friends trying to batter the system down
Fighting the past till the future comes round.
It'll never be a perfect world till God declares it that way
But that don't mean there's nothing we can do or say
Down where the death squad lives

Like some kind of never-ending Easter passion,
From every agony a hero's fashioned.
Around every evil there gathers love --
Bombs aren't the only things that fall from above
Down where the dead squad lives
down where the dead squad lives

Sometimes I feel like there's a padlock on my soul.
If you opened up my heart you'd find a big black hole
But when the feeling comes through, it comes through strong --
If you think there's no difference between right and wrong
Just go down where the death squad lives

This world can be better than it is today
You can say I'm a dreamer but that's okay
Without the could-be and the might-have-been
All you've got left is your fragile skin
And that ain't worth much down where the death squad lives

[Rose Siding]

9. It's really weird to actually see this in print on msnbc

I'm afraid they must feel there won't be enough vigorous opposition to the Plan to make any difference :cry:

[depakid]

10. The trouble that most American "strategists" have

stems from one simple word.

"Insurgents."

This word is so inherently deceptive that it promotes a mindframe entirely at odds with reality.

The vast majority of Iraqi's fighting are residents- and they fight just as many of us would if another country invaded us. In Iraq's case, they have multiple alliances on many levels that go back hundreds and even thousands of years.

Calling them insurgents both:

1. Mischaracterizes the nature of the conflict- and hence, prevents a reasoned approach to its resolution; and

2. Causes what's referred to in statistics as an aggregation problem.

Many of these various groups may be united against a common enemy, but left to their own druthers, will fight among themselves- as they have for centuries. Saddam managed to keep some order- through the strong hand of brutality, but the same will not and cannot occur through similar US or US sponsored tactics.

All this will cause is a continuing set of vendettas with no end in sight. While it's true that in the short term, the US and its Quislings may rid themselves of some effective enemies, in the long term, more will take their place. And there will be even more vendettas.

Moreover, methods that may have appeared to garner welcome results from the far right's limited (and dispicable) perspective in Central America, just aren't applicable in the same way to Iraq and the Middle East. The dynamics of the conflicts are completely different.

Unless Americans are prepared to continue killing and torturing and enduring casualties for a long, long, time- this approach (aside from being the moral equivalent of what America supposedly went to fight) is bound to fail- and likely to have other unintended consequences as well.

[NYC]

13. Dictionary definition:

Definition:

1. a member of an irregular armed force that fights a stronger force by sabotage and harassment

2. a person who takes part in an armed rebellion against the constituted authority (especially in the hope of improving conditions)

3. in opposition to a civil authority or government

From: http://www.hyperdictionary.com/search.aspx?define=insurgent

I suppose they fit definition #1. They are fighting what should be a stronger force, and it does not mention "constituted authority" or "government".

[Crunchy Frog]

17. In other words, our founding fathers

and the "heroes" of the American Revolution. At least according to that dictionaries definition.

[depakid]

20. Connotations are much more important sometimes

Dictionaries are great- and people use multiple ones all of the time. Medical, legal, electrical engineering and others- they are all so indispensible- and they relate to disciplines that require specific denotation. In cultural things- if you're learning a new language or are still struggling with vocabulary, then dictionary denotations are also really important.

Once you've mastered a language, you have to deal with widespread and commonly held meanings. Sublties. In the vernacular, semantics becomes more subtle and usage in context can "bleed over" and color perceptions.

That's, like, Marketing 101.

In one sense, the meaning of "insurgents" boils down to "anyone who opposes the prevailing American policy maker's 'vision' of what order should be imposed. But the way it's commonly understood by the vast majority in America at least (and probably most in Britain)- what pervades (perverts?) the mindset- is that "insurgents" come from elsewhere- from "out of state" if you will. They insurge.

But even if that were true, in the larger context of the Islamic vs. the Western "world." Who's insurging?

My thoughts are (and my experience is) that strategies aimed at building lasting resolutions of conflicts must be based on some common understanding of the situation as it is- not how one would like it to be nor how one maybe feels a little better looking at it.

It's a tough thing to do and there aren't easy answers. There aren't cool formulas. It's not math.

Often times, things have to play out- which is why, if you've ever been with a skilled mediator, you'll notice that they let the parties have it out for a while- before they try to reframe issues.

Returning to Iraq, the article suggests that adopting tactics used in Central America- which, btw: are similar in many respects to those used by "the insurgents," will somehow produce a "better result."

The logic is thus:

"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."

My response to that is:

Any 6th grader can learn basic algebra (and as lil' tangent- where did algebra come from?).

[NYC]

24. A common understanding of what it is does not seem to exist.

...strategies aimed at building lasting resolutions of conflicts must be based on some common understanding of the situation as it is..

I think there is no desire to see the other side's view at all.

[depakid]

30. Here's where we differ

I believe there is... with no illusions.

[NYC]

52. We have nothing but illusions from the current government.

And I think they believe the illusions they create, whether or not the rest of us do.

In summary, they lie.

[bemildred]

11. The Iraqi resistance is not a bunch of Salvadorian peasants.

They are far better armed and they do excellent "death squad"
themselves. Confusing the two will not lead to good results.

[Crunchy Frog]

12. Wow, talk about a recipe for a civil, or even regional, war.

Setting up Kurds and Shiites to kill and terrorize Sunnis, and even to sneak over the border into Syria to kill, kidnap, and terrorize there?

I agree, the dynamics and societies of that region are very different than that of Central America. It will likely have the effect of triggering massive retributions based on ethnicity or tribal affiliation, as well as setting up despised minorities in other countries for large scale persecution.

Plus, there seem to be a number of groups operating in the region that are pretty skilled in the area of assassination and kidnapping themselves. What makes these guys think they can train our guys to do it better than their guys?

And we're morally superior to Sadaam...how exactly, in this situation?

[Ian David]

15. Be sure to see Salvador by Oliver Stone

This is one of my all-time favorite movies.

It's an excellent dramatization of the historical events in El Salvador.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00005AUJR/qid=1105239863/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/103-3131873-5009409?v=glance&s=dvd

[ScrewyRabbit]

14. I guess the plan is to fight terror with terror

These guys are morally bankrupt.

[Ian David]

18. We're seeing this completely differently from our opposition

Whether you believe in the bible or not, our president and his pals do.

They're called "Dominionists."

They are actively trying to fulfill what they see as their role in biblical prophesy to bring about The War of The Apocalypse, because they think it will make Jesus come back.

Bush, Ashcroft, Rumsfeld, Cheney-- they all KNOW that this is suicidal.

They WANT it to be suicidal.

Colin Powell saw this, and he even said as much (I think it was to Bob Woodward).

We keep talking in terms of oil money, Halliburton, global empire, and the like. The oil and the money are only part of their agenda. Or perhaps even just a smokescreen for their agenda.

What Bush REALLY wants is to destroy the world.

I know that sounds crazy, but that's because it IS crazy.

And scarier still? There have been polls that show (I wish I could remember where) that a sizable portion of the population believe that The Armageddon is upon us and that Bush is helping to bring it about.

So, when you wonder why the freepers "don't see" what we do, please remember this:

A good number of them DO see it, and they WELCOME it.


It's like they're intentionally aiming The Titanic into the iceberg because they believe that Jesus lies at the bottom of the ocean, and the only way to get there is to take the whole ship and its passengers with them. Lifeboats? Who needs lifeboats?

You know those suicide bombers we read about and see on TV all the time? They strap bombs to their chests, walk out into a marketplace, and then detonate themselves, looking forward to their eternal reward in heaven in the name of liberating their people.

The Dominionists are the same way. But their job is easier. They don't have to strap on the bombs and push a button. All they have to do is go to church every Sunday, vote Republican, and wait for Jesus to call them home.

We look at the quagmire in Iraq and say it won't work because we don't understand our enemy.

Has our administration tried a SINGLE thing yet that WOULD work?


It's not that the government doesn't "know the enemy."

They DO know them.

It us we who don't know our enemy.

Our enemy is a bunch of Dominionist fundamentalist christians instituting policies that we see as disastrous failures, and THEY see as exciting strides toward a brave new doomsday.

In case I wasn't clear, I do not believe in all this bible and doomsday crap. But the problem is, THEY do.

[daleo]

25. The Titanic analogy is a good one, and memorable.

That was an interesting post. I still believe oil is a huge part of it, but I have also come to believe that these religious motivations cannot be discounted.

[Occulus]

31. Oh, please learn more about Dominionists

and Reconstructionists. They're powerful and frighteningly dangerous.

[JohnOneillsMemory]

59. But the Neo-cons are NOT Dominioinists, they merely use them.

This is what makes it so confusing to figure out the players in American Fascism, it is an alliance of very different but equally dangerous social forces:
Dominionists+
Corporateers+
Cold Warriors+
Spooks+
Media Demagogues etc...

All of them cleverly coordinated by the neo-cons at the head of the octapuss.

They all gain by owning Congress, eliminating the Constitution, and using the Pentagon as a private arsenal against the world's economic competition.

They want to rule THIS world, not 'the next one.'

American fascism as practiced by the Straussian neo-cons merely exploits the religious cultural energies, they don't believe them. That's the opiate of the masses, not pragmatic gangsters.

They want to set up an American-dominated planet for as long as possible, not destroy it. Of course, their environmental policies and militarism are taking a toll on the planet's longevity but that is not intentional, merely neglectful and reckless.

The Dominionists are merely allies in attacking the Constitution and using the propaganda of the Crusades to justify a 'virtuous' war and utilize the irrational follow-the-leader-blindly political organizations full of Christian fundie's authoritarian personalities.

No, the neo-cons are extremely pragmatic about using religious cults as tools for their own purposes.

But they've bungled the invasion of Iraq so badly that some of the tentacles are wondering if the neo-cons should continue at the head.

Imagine war so incompetently deployed that the Pentagon and much of the CIA reject them. That's where we are.

The pragmatists will eventually take over from the neo-cons, I predict. The Pentagon fucking hates losing.

[kysrsoze]

64. Bingo. The religion thing is just a B.S. cover.

They want to control the Middle East. The Israelis think the US wants to help them out. The fundies believe we are there to bring about the rapture. The (mis)Administration believes we can control the Middle East, bringing untold fortunes in oil and military spending. This is what it's all about for them - profits.

[reprobate]

27. Excellent post Ian. This would explain a lot.

It would explain why * cares nothing about the environment, the economy, peak oil, or even global climate change.

It takes a real twist of the mind, but once done it's apparent that this cabal is truly and actually crazy. I'm not a shrink, but would bet that a shrink would label them all as psychotic.

[mojavekid]

53. Ian and company, great posts. This needs more attention.

I agree with Ian's post and I agree that * Co. are manipulating these extreme religious groups, But do * Co. REALLY buy it? perhaps Ashcroft, but the others are in my opinion, just too big a bunch of scum bags, to believe in anything beyond their own hides and bank accounts.

The oil is also another weapon in this fight, to be used in the same way the religious nut jobs are used. The deck is definitely stacked.

[leftchick]

40. best post of the week!

and the scariest! :scared:

[NuttyFluffers]

19. yup, we are now officially the terrorists now.

we are publicly sponsoring death squads and assassins to commit terrorism on the population there.

we are officially what we claim to despise.

[JohnOneillsMemory]

23. Ronald Reagan isn't fucking dead enough. CIA John Stockwell speech:

(Here's a 1987 warning from a CIA insider on the US atrocities in Central America and the world along with a warning about what is now known as the Patriot Act, the Gitmo Bay dungeon, and the disappearance US citizens to carry out illegal wars with impunity.)

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4068.htm

John Stockwell, former CIA Station Chief in Angola in 1976, working for then Director of the CIA, George Bush. He spent 13 years in the agency. He gives a short history of CIA covert operations. He is a very compelling speaker and the highest level CIA officer to testify to the Congress about his actions. He estimates that over 6 million people have died in CIA covert actions, and this was in the late 1980's.

>snip<

"The CIA was in fact forming the police units that are today the death squads in El Salvador. With the leaders on the CIA's payroll, trained by the CIA and the United States.

We had the `public safety program' going throughout Central and Latin America for 26 years, in which we taught them to break up subversion by interrogating people. Interrogation, including torture, the way the CIA taught it. Dan Metrione, the famous exponent of these things, did 7 years in Brazil and 3 in Uruguay, teaching interrogation, teaching torture. He was supposed to be the master of the business, how to apply the right amount of pain, at just the right times, in order to get the response you want from the individual.

They developed a wire. They gave them crank generators, with `U.S. AID' written on the side, so the people even knew where these things came from. They developed a wire that was strong enough to carry the current and fine enough to fit between the teeth, so you could put one wire between the teeth and the other one in or around the genitals and you could crank and submit the individual to the greatest amount of pain, supposedly, that the human body can register.

Now how do you teach torture? Dan Metrione: `I can teach you about torture, but sooner or later you'll have to get involved. You'll have to lay on your hands and try it yourselves.'

.... All they could do was lie there and scream. And when they would collapse, they would bring in doctors and shoot them up with vitamin B and rest them up for the next class. And when they would die, they would mutilate the bodies and throw them out on the streets, to terrify the population so they would be afraid of the police and the government.

And this is what the CIA was teaching them to do.

>snip<

the Intelligence Identities Protection act, which makes it a felony to write articles revealing the identities of secret agents or to write about their activities in a way that would reveal their identities. Now, what does this mean? In a debate in Congress - this is very controversial - the supporters of this bill made it clear.... If agents Smith and Jones came on this campus, in an MK-ultra-type experiment, and blew your fiance's head away with LSD, it would now be a felony to publish an article in your local paper saying, `watch out for these 2 turkeys, they're federal agents and they blew my loved one's head away with LSD'. It would not be a felony what they had done because that's national security and none of them were ever punished for those activities.

Efforts to muzzle government employees. President Reagan has been banging away at this one ever since. Proposing that every government employee, for the rest of his or her life, would have to submit anything they wrote to 6 committees of the government for censorship, for the rest of their lives. To keep the scandals from leaking out... to keep the American people from knowing what the government is really doing.

Then it starts getting heavy. The `Pre-emptive Strikes' bill. President Reagan, working through the Secretary of State Shultz... almost 2 years ago, submitted the bill that would provide them with the authority to strike at terrorists before terrorists can do their terrorism. But this bill... provides that they would be able to do this in this country as well as overseas. It provides that the secretary of state would put together a list of people that he considers to be terrorist, or terrorist supporters, or terrorist sympathizers. And if your name, or your organization, is put on this list, they could kick down your door and haul you away, or kill you, without any due process of the law and search warrants and trial by jury, and all of that, with impunity.

Now, there was a tremendous outcry on the part of jurists. The New York Times columns and other newspapers saying, `this is no different from Hitler's "night in fog" program', where the government had the authority to haul people off at night. And they did so by the thousands. And President Reagan and Secretary Shultz have persisted.... Shultz has said, `Yes, we will have to take action on the basis of information that would never stand up in a court. And yes, innocent people will have to be killed in the process. But, we must have this law because of the threat of international terrorism'.

>snip<

They're building detention centers. There were 8 kept as mothballs under the McLaren act after World War II, to detain aliens and dissidents in the next war, as was done in the next war, as was done with the Japanese people during World War II. They're building 10 more, and army camps, and the... executive memos about these things say it's for aliens and dissidents in the next national emergency....

FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, headed by Loius Guiffrida, a friend of Ed Meese's.... He's going about the country lobbying and demanding that he be given authority, in the times of national emergency, to declare martial law, and establish a curfew, and gun down people who violate the curfew... in the United States.

And then there's Ed Meese, as I said. The highest law enforcement officer in the land, President Reagan's closest friend, going around telling us that the constitution never did guarantee freedom of speech and press, and due process of the law, and assembly.

What they are planning for this society, and this is why they're determined to take us into a war if we'll permit it... is the Reagan revolution.... So he's getting himself some laws so when he puts in
the troops in Nicaragua, he can take charge of the American people, and put people in jail, and kick in their doors, and kill them if they don't like what he's doing..."

>snip<

more if you can bear it...

[leveymg]

26. Before Iraq There Was Vietnam, Malaysia, Ireland and Iraq

The Reagan Administration didn't exactly invent torture, strategic hamlets and death squads in Latin America. Before El Salvador there was Vietnam. The Salvadoran and Guatemalan counter-insurgencies merely built on a base of doctrine the British had developed during their 500 plus years of colonial experience around the world. The Phoenix Program quite consciously copied the Brits, who had successfully used targeted assassinations and rural depopulation strategies in Malaysia, Kenya, and earlier in the Caribbean and Ireland.

Operation Condor, which was the basis for the Salvadoran death squads, was initially designed and carried out by German experts in assassination and terrorism, Nazis who had escaped to South America at the end of World War Two via the "ratlines" under US Army Counter Intelligence Corps protection.

Let's not forget the model for all counter-insurgencies that followed: the Roman Empire. The policy there was, if your city resisted conquest, every man, woman and child would be slain or worse captured as slaves and worked to death or used as human fodder in the gladiatorial spectacles. If your kingdom surrendered to Rome, they would let the local princes run their own affairs under the watchful eye of the Roman Consul. If Rome needed conscripts or allies in its many wars, they were handed over on demand, along with the usual taxes. If local elites needed help putting down rebels, the Roman garrison would provide technical experts in interrogation and crucification. Sound familiar?

History is no excuse, but it is instructive.

[Judi Lynn]

48. This speech was given in the 1980's, & refers to a Reagan action

which you mentioned in your post: The Intelligence Identities Protection Act. Clearly says it's a FELONY to reveal the identity of an agent, etc., etc. How is it our media can't find a way to remember this in 2004, and 2005? Damned odd.

This is one superior speech, and important item to read. I'm passing it around where I live after having read it. One thing I think should be pointed out to anyone who'll take the time to read, this information he offers concerning the bogus story we've been fed about Cuba's position in Angola. Too many people haven't bothered to find out the truth:

He lied about our relationship with South Africa. We were working closely with the South African army, giving them our arms, coordinating battles with them, giving them fuel for their tanks and armored cars. He said we were staying well away from them. They were concerned about these white mercenaries that were appearing in Angola, a very sensitive issue, hiring whites to go into a black African country, to help you impose your will on that black African country by killing the blacks, a very sensitive issue. The Congress was concerned we might be involved in that, and he assured them we had nothing to do with it.

We had in fact formed four little mercenary armies and delivered them into Angola to do this dirty business for the CIA. And he lied to them about that. They asked if we were putting arms into the conflict, and he said no, and we were. They asked if we had advisors inside the country, and he said `no, we had people going in to look at the situation and coming back out'. We had 24 people sleeping inside the country, training in the use of weapons, installing communications systems, planning battles, and he said, we didn't have anybody inside the country.

In summary about Angola, without U.S. intervention, 10,000 people would be alive that were killed in the thing. The outcome might have been peaceful, or at least much less bloody. The MPLA was winning when we went in, and they went ahead and won, which was, according to our consul, the best thing for the country.

At the end of this thing the Cubans were entrenched in Angola, seen in the eyes of much of the world as being the heroes that saved these people from the CIA and S. African forces. We had allied the U.S. literally and in the eyes of the world with the S. African army, and that's illegal, and it's impolitic. We had hired white mercenaries and eventually been identified with them. And that's illegal, and it's impolitic. And our lies had been visible lies. We were caught out on those lies. And the world saw the U.S. as liars.


After it was over, you have to ask yourself, was it justified? What did the MPLA do after they had won? Were they lying when they said they wanted to be our friends? 3 weeks after we were shut down... the MPLA had Gulf oil back in Angola, pumping the Angolan oil from the oilfields, with U.S. gulf technicians protected by Cuban soldiers, protecting them from CIA mercenaries who were still mucking around in Northern Angola.
(snip)

The finest thing he says, in my own personal view is the following:

And by the way, I urge you to read. In television you get capsules of news that someone else puts together what they want you to hear about the news. In newspapers you get what the editors select to put in the newspaper. If you want to know about the world and understand, to educate yourself, you have to get out and dig, dig up books and articles for yourself. Read, and find out for yourselves. As you'll see, the issues are very, very important.
(snip)

Thanks so much for posting this article. He covers intensely important material anyone who cares about the truth should read. He'll help shine a light through the darkness!

(Isn't it interesting that CIA agents, when they finally get fed up and walk away, ALL express a sense of deep sorrow about what certain of our administrations have done?)

[reprobate]

28. Someone should tell the about the principle of 'blow-back'.

These dumb shits can't reason themselves out of a paper bag.

Don't they realize that they are just painting targets on their own backs?

So far, with the exception of 9/11, which I don't consider a part of this war, we have gone without any repercussions on our soil. Just the printing of this kind of crap in the M$M will make it to the insurgents in iraq. What would you do if you were them?

Turn about is fair play. Who doesn't believe that the insurgent could not carry their assassinations to these shores. They have plenty of Sunni's here. And this is an armed nation, you can buy sniper rifles on almost any corner, and explosives are almost as easy.

We have 150K troops there and are training Iraqis too. And yet the insurgents attack and kill whoever they want with impunity. Anyone think the secret service could do a thing to stop them if they took it into their heads to start removing our gov't leaders? How many suicide attacks or sniper attacks would they have to mount before they were successful. The SS is not unlimited, they are human and make mistakes, get tired, just like everyone else.

This cabal has to be the most insane group of elite bastards in the history of modern man.

[Mike Niendorff]

29. So, to sum up:

Private "paramilitaries".
Death squads.
Kidnappings.
Torture.
Murder of civilians deemed "sympathizers".


Fascism 101.


MDN

[theresistance]

32. Absolutely evil

Three incredible points to make. 1) A "senior military official" admits the US is "losing" in Iraq. What more can be said? 2) "Most analysts" admit the destruction of Fallujah in November, the modern-day equivalent of the crushing of the Warsaw ghetto uprising, was a failure and only spread the "insurgency" around; and 3) The US-supported genocide in Central America of the 1980's is now being advocated for Iraq!.

The world must stand up and put an end to this!

Donald Rumsfeld has already said that Iraq could learn from the recent history of El Salvador, when he visited in early November. See report from AP: http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4610634,00.html

The history Iraq can learn from includes the massacre of 767 men, women and children, with ages ranging from 1 to 100, by an American-trained military unit in 1981. The archbishop of El Salvador was murdered in 1980 after he wrote to President Carter begging him to stop supporting the murderous government.

Much more can be said, but the bottom line: This is just plain evil, wrong, and must be opposed.

[jfern]

33. Discussion over here too

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/1/8/21595/02169

[snippy]

34. It's just as Bush says: "They hate us for our freedom to kill them." n/t

[TahitiNut]

35. Any sane person must wonder, just who hates whom for their freedoms??

The Bushoilini Regime is, by far, the most corrupt and dangerous regime on the planet today. They know not any boundaries of morality, law, or justice. They are totally bereft of human virtue.

[snippy]

37. True. n/t

[Judi Lynn]

36. Most of us have to learn history one bit at a time, as it sure as hell

doesn't get dealt with honestly during our public educations, does it?

I had no idea John Kerry was involved as prominently as he was in trying to relieve the suffering in Central America. That would make him even more an enemy of the rightwingers:

"You're not always measured by the things that you have a bill named after you for -- sometimes you're measured by stopping really bad things from happening, like when I stood up and helped stop Ronald Reagan's illegal war in Central America," Senator Kerry declared on a recent campaign stop in Wisconsin.

In 1986, John Kerry, then a freshman senator, was a persistent critic of the Reagan-Bush policies in Central America. Drawing parallels to his experience in Vietnam, Kerry called for an end to the contra war in Nicaragua and was a critic of U.S. policy in El Salvador. Kerry gained both admirers and enemies when he chaired the Senate Subcommittee on Narcotics, Terrorism and International Operations, which reporters quickly dubbed the "Kerry committee." Kerry's investigation of the then-obscure Colonel Oliver North eventually helped to uncover the Iran Contra scandal. Kerry's supporters admired his maverick spirit and courage; conservatives attacked him for playing into the hands of communists in El Salvador and Nicaragua.

President George W. Bush recruited many Reagan/Bush-era veterans of the Central American wars to serve on his foreign policy team. Despite objections from Democrats in Congress, Bush's déjá vu appointments have included Eliot Abrams (who pled guilty to two counts of lying to Congress during the Iran Contra hearings), Richard Armitage, John Poindexter, Roger Noriega and Otto Reich. Most recently, John Negroponte was appointed ambassador to Iraq. Negroponte was ambassador to Honduras under George H.W. Bush and was criticized by human rights organizations for not doing enough to stem death squad activity there.

The relationship between today's President Bush and El Salvador's conservative ARENA party government is one of mutual gratitude. Consider it payback.
(snip/...)

http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/elections/elsalvador/



In Aceituno, Rudy Betriz
brought his seven-year-
old son to see the graves
of his cousins. Betriz said
he believes he survived the
1981 massacre in his village
because he left early for
school that day.

[Ian David]

41. George W. Bush and the Dominionists

A person can function "normally" in a million and one ways and hold the most irrational beliefs imaginable, as long as the irrational beliefs are culturally accepted delusions.
Robert Todd Carroll, The Skeptic's Dictionary (http://skepdic.com/),
"Alien Abductions"

George W. Bush, Head of the American Dominionist Church/State
http://www.betterworld.com/getreallist/article.php?story=2004022916161044
Folks,

This is one of the most frightening, incredible, scholarly articles I have ever read about George Bush and the Dominionist religious movement to which he and much of the GOP apparently belong. If you're not entirely clear on why this administration seems so bent on destroying the walls between church and state, or how "compassionate conservatism" should look so much like Machiavellianism in practice, you should definitely read this article. It explains so much of the underlying motivations of the whole religious right, in fact, that I'd go so far as to call it required reading.

Here's a small excerpt:

Dominionists have gained extensive control of the Republican Party and the apparatus of government throughout the United States; they continue to operate secretly. Their agenda to undermine all government social programs that assist the poor, the sick, and the elderly is ingeniously disguised under false labels that confuse voters. Nevertheless, as we shall see, Dominionism maintains the necessity of laissez-faire economics, requiring that people “look to God and not to government for help.”<13>

It is estimated that thirty-five million Americans who call themselves Christian, adhere to Dominionism in the United States, but most of these people appear to be ignorant of the heretical nature of their beliefs and the seditious nature of their political goals. So successfully have the televangelists and churches inculcated the idea of the existence of an outside “enemy,” which is attacking Christianity, that millions of people have perceived themselves rightfully overthrowing an imaginary evil anti-Christian conspiratorial secular society.

When one examines the progress of its agenda, one sees that Dominionism has met its time table: the complete takeover of the American government was predicted to occur by 2004.<14> Unless the American people reject the GOP’s control of the government, Americans may find themselves living in a theocracy that has already spelled out its intentions to change every aspect of American life including its cultural life, its Constitution and its laws.

And this quote, taken from Machiavelli himself, is chilling:

“Let a prince therefore aim at conquering and maintaining the state, and the means will always be judged honourable and praised by every one, for the vulgar is always taken by appearances and the issue of the event; and the world consists only of the vulgar, and the few who are not vulgar are isolated when the many have a rallying point in the prince.”

The Despoiling of America
How George W. Bush became the head of the new American Dominionist Church/State
By Katherine Yurica
February 11, 2004

-C

--------

pecial Report

The Dominionist church-state: the enemy within

By Jerry Mazza
Online Journal Contributing Writer

Download a .pdf file for printing.
Adobe Acrobat Reader required.
Click here to download a free copy.

November 17, 2004—On December 24, Christmas Eve 2001, Pat Robertson stepped down as President Of The Christian Coalition. Lo and behold behind the nativity scenes religious conservatives believed Robertson's step was taken so that President Bush could take his place as head of the American Holy Christian Church. So reported Katherine Yurica in "The Despoiling of America—How George W. Bush became the head of the new American Dominionist Church/State." <1>

More
http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/111704Mazza/111704mazza.html

--------

Bush as the AntiChrist



From an article in the Seattle Weekly on Bush and the Fundamentalist Right:
http://www.seattleweekly.com/features/0449/041208_news_antichrist.php

Few have preached harder against the Christian right's wrongs than the Rev. Rich Lang of Seattle's Trinity United Methodist Church in Ballard. "This administration is a culture of death, and so is the religious right," says Lang. In his Open Letter to George Bush, published in Real Change, Lang thunders, "You claim Christ but act like Caesar.
http://www.realchangenews.org/pastissuesupgrade/2002_04_18/opinion/opinion.html

There is blood all over your hands with the promise of even more blood to come. You sit atop the nations like the Biblical Whore of Babylon openly fornicating with the military men of might." His sermon "George Bush and the Rise of Christian Fascism" (posted like Luther's theses on the church Web site, www.tumseattle.org ) rails that "the power and seduction of this administration emerges from its diabolical manipulation of Christian rhetoric . . . the mirror opposite of what Jesus embodied. It is, indeed, the materialization of the spirit of Antichrist: a perversion of Christian faith and practice."

Posted at 04:22 PM Liberal Agit-Prop Feedback Comments (2)
Fri - September 10, 2004
More:
http://homepage.mac.com/akitzmil/iblog/C826490882/

[Judi Lynn]

50. Great links you provided.

This small item is poignant:

A soldier in the U.S. Army e-mailed Seattle Weekly, "I'm just a citizen who was raised in a Christian community and is tired of having my values hijacked by a conservative movement that only applies them selectively at home and hardly at all overseas."

A lot of food for thought. Thanks.

[seemslikeadream]

43. US Martyrs Pose Questions for Negroponte

October 28, 2003

Authentic Americans
US Martyrs Pose Questions for Negroponte
By TONI SOLO

US nuns murdered in El Salvador

In 1981, a couple of decades before Rachel Corrie was murdered, the bodies of four women were found in a shallow grave in a rural district not far from San Salvador, El Salvador's capital. They had been raped and shot dead by members of the Salvadoran army on the orders of senior officers. In the context of the time, the atrocity would hardly have merited reporting. But the women were United States citizens. Two were religious sisters of the New York based Maryknoll order, Ita Ford and Maureen Clarke. One was an Ursuline Sister, Dorothy Kazel, the fourth a lay missioner, Jean Donovan. By virtue of their nationality, the story did make the news, just--the back page of the New York Times, to that paper's eternal shame.

Those four women had helped defend Salvadorans from the terror unleashed against their own people by the Salvadoran government with support from the United States administrations of Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. They gave their lives working alongside vulnerable people and communities in El Salvador. The murders followed the assassination in 1980 of Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero. The women's deaths were manipulated by the US government and its ever-pliant news media. The full facts took years to emerge. US ambassador to the UN, Jean Kirkpatrick, falsely accused the women of having supported the Salvadoran armed opposition, the FMLN. In fact, the four women were passionate advocates of non-violence, accompanying the rural villagers they served while caught up in a violent civil war.

Ambassador Kirkpatrick's statements on the case of the four women were to be expected from an unrepentant supporter of the bloodthirsty Argentinian military dictatorship. Her successor at the UN was Vernon Walters, former deputy director of the CIA, co-organiser of the continent wide terrorist blueprint Plan Condor and promoter of Ronald Reagan's terrorist war against Nicaragua. In 1986 Vernon Walters threw in the face of the UN his government's rejection of the International Court of Justice verdict convicting the US of terrorism against Nicaragua.

Kirkpatrick's and Walters' apologetics for mass murder helped John Negroponte, then US ambassador to Honduras, cover up his support for the systematic forced disappearances used to destroy Honduran civilian opposition to the presence of Contra bases in their country. Thomas Pickering, US ambassador to El Salvador at the time, also gave misleading information on local army and paramilitary murders, probably an essential qualification for his subsequent posting in 1989 as US ambassador to the UN, taking over from Vernon Walters.

Jean Kirkpatrick, Vernon Walters, Thomas Pickering, John Negroponte and other US government representatives sent clear signals that the local military in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala were to be allowed a free hand by the United States government to murder tens of thousands of civilians and anyone who spoke out against the slaughter. Perhaps the defining climax to the sickening murder campaign came in 1989 when the Salvadoran army killed six Jesuit academics and two of their domestic staff at the University of Central America in San Salvador. These crimes were made possible because the United States government consistently tried to conceal its institutional role in funding, training and supporting the military and paramilitary perpetrators. The Iran-Contra scandal was the culmination of that sustained program of regional deceit

http://www.counterpunch.org/solo10282003.html



By virtue of their nationality, the story did make the news, just--the back page of the New York Times, to that paper's eternal shame.

[GRLMGC]

49. Disgusting nt

[Judi Lynn]

51. Valuable information in your article.

Is there any chance people will ever WAKE UP?

With powerful people like this pounding home the propaganda, are we crazy to hope citizens will finally start thinking long and hard about what the hell is going on, or simply take their word for it, as usual? Just leave it all in their hands, no matter what?

Found this article concerning the trial of two El Salvador generals, who ALSO hand their grimey hats in South Florida:

El Salvadoran generals not liable for churchwomen's deaths
November 3, 2000
Web posted at: 1:50 p.m. EST (1850 GMT)


From staff and wire reports

WEST PALM BEACH, Florida -- A federal jury in Florida decided Friday that two former Salvadoran generals were not to blame for the deaths of four American churchwomen.

The jury found that former Salvadoran Defense Minister Jose Guillermo Garcia and Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova, former head of the Salvadoran National Guard were not responsible for the women being raped and murdered by five members of the Salvadoran National Guard.

Nuns Ita Ford, Maura Clarke and Dorothy Kazel and missionary Jean Donovan were abducted on December 2, 1980 at police checkpoint and their bodies were found the next day beside a dirt road.

Their families filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the two generals, claiming the women's deaths were part of a campaign to silence sympathizers of El Salvador's leftist guerrillas during the country's 12-year civil war.

During the three week trial, attorneys for the families showed jurors declassified documents to show that the generals failed to stop their soldiers from killing thousands of civilians, including El Salvador's Roman Catholic archbishop, six Jesuit priests, doctors and peasants.

Garcia and Vides Casanova admitted they knew their troops were killing innocents, but said there was little they could do to stop the atrocities.
(snip)

http://archives.cnn.com/2000/LAW/11/03/churchwomen.verdict.int.02/


Here's what the four nuns look like UNMURDERED.....

[VegasWolf]

45. bu$h admin = murderers. n/t

[unpossibles]

54. monkey see, monkey do

"Maybe it is time for some attitude adjustment squads. Take some of these fruitcakes out in the country for a long ride on a dark night."

this is from the Freepers. And people wonder why I say the direction we're heading is dangerous simply because people want to torute their fellow citizens. Sorry. "adjust their attitudes" - my bad.

[Barrett808]

56. Negroponte responds! ("No evidence Negroponte knew anything")

Check out today's addition to the story:

(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. There is no evidence, however, that Negroponte knew anything about the Salvadoran death squads or the Iran-Contra scandal at the time. The Iraq ambassador, in a phone call to NEWSWEEK on Jan. 10, said he was not involved in military strategy in Iraq. He called the insertion of his name into this report "utterly gratuitous.") EDITOR'S NOTE: This report, initially published on Jan. 8, was updated on Jan. 10 to include Negroponte's comments to NEWSWEEK

"No evidence" Negroponte knew about the death squads?

[struggle4progress]

57. kick

[seemslikeadream]

58. Is the U.S. Organizing Salvador-Style Death Squads in Iraq?

AMY GOODMAN: It's good to have you with us. Can you talk about what this Salvador option means, hearing about the Newsweek report that they might employ it in Iraq?

ALLAN NAIRN: Well, Newsweek said that -- they described the Salvador option as the targeting of combatants and their sympathizers, and the key word is sympathizers. In El Salvador and not just Salvador, but about three dozen other countries, the U.S. government, in an integrated effort involving the C.I.A., the Pentagon, and the State Department, backed the creation of military units that targeted civilian activists. In Salvador, I interviewed many of the officers involved in running these squads. For example, General “Chele” Medrano, who was on the C.I.A. payroll, described how they picked their targets. He said, they targeted people who speak, and these are his words: “…against yankee imperialism, against the oligarchy, against military men. These people are traitors to the country. What can the troops do, when they found them this he kill them.” Actually, they didn't always kill them. Often, they brought them to the headquarters of the treasury police, the national guard, the army and they tortured for them days. One former member of the Salvadoran treasury police, Rene Hurtado, described a course that was given at army general staff headquarters where American officers gave instruction in techniques including electroshock torture. Hurtado himself said he conducted such torture. He said, these are his words: “You put wires on the prisoner’s vital parts. You place the wires between the prisoner’s teeth, on the penis, on the vagina. The prisoners feel it more so the feet are in the water, and they are seated on iron so the blow is stronger… When it's over, you just throw him in the alleys with a sign saying, Mano Blanco, ESA (Secret Anticommunist Army), or Maximiliano Hernandez Brigade.” These are the names of the Salvadora death squads. I was given a chance to see the archives of the Salvadoran National Police, the intelligence archives and you could see they have filed marked, union, student, religious. They showed me a card file, which included surveillance reports on activists who had traveled to other countries. These surveillance reports were given to them, according to the captain who was giving me this tour, by the C.I.A. The whole filing system was set up for them by the U.S. Agency for International Development. Medrano was at one point brought to the oval office in the White House, and presented a silver medal by president Lyndon Johnson for an - he showed me the medal, inscribed on the medal - for exceptionally meritorious service. This program actually began not just under Reagan, but during the John F. Kennedy administration.
more
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/10/1456242

[thegreatwildebeest]

61. Lest anyone think...

Lest anyone think that this is the realm of only Republican administrations witness the various dubious regimes given support by the Kennedy/LBJ administration in South America, and the looking of the other way of Carter from the Indonesian crisis, and again by Clinton in the 90's. I would expect more out of the whole foreign policy apparatus in general, and not just the overtly schizo arms of the Republican administrations.

[Scaramouche]

60. Some quotes on our role in Central Anmerica

http://billmon.org/archives/001645.html">Bilmon has opened the Whiskey Bar today and is handing out doubly strong shots like this:

One death squad member, when asked about the types of tortures used, replied: "Uh, well, the same things you did in Vietnam. We learned from you. We learned from you the means, like blowtorches in the armpits, shots in the balls. But for the "toughest ones" — that is, those who resist these other tortures — "we have to pop their eyes out with a spoon. You have to film it to believe it, but boy, they sure sing."