. . . death squads are sure to follow:
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.Courtesy of The Poor Man. When we last discussed Negroponte back in April, when it was announced that he would serve as the U.S. ambassador to Iraq—whatever that title means—my concern wasn't so much that Negroponte would again organize death squads and march them through the Sunni triangle, but that the Bush administration was actively seeking the most inappropriate political jackanape for the job. Especially when the individual in question doesn't speak a language that applies within 1,000 miles in any direction. But I was wrong! My skepticism was misplaced—they are going with the death squads. So in some sense he's the only man for the job.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.)
It's important to remember that these people—Gonzales, Negroponte —weren't pulled out of a vacuum, but were vetted and chosen as the least objectionable candidate in the eyes of President Bush. Yet there are any number of people whom Bush could have nominated for the job. Surely a few of them aren't preceded by monickers like "Torture Memo" and "Death Squad"?
Posted by Kriston at January 9, 2005 6:17 PMThey really have no idea at all what they are doing, do they? How and the hell is this mess going to get fixed?
Posted by: Rob W at January 10, 2005 8:46 AMYou and the author of the article have no idea of history. El Salvador has what to do with "subsequent Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal" exactly?
Negroponte is a hero of the Americas for his contributions in the struggle against murderous marxists. And if his contributions against terrorists are as effective, we'll all be safer because of his involvement in the middleeast.
I don't want to live in a world where communists who murder Mosqito indians indiscriminately or islamists who blow up men standing in line for a job are coddled by guilt-ridden liberals from the security of their desktops.
Negroponte. American Hero.
Posted by: j.scott barnard at January 10, 2005 11:44 AMMy concern regards those Sunnis who lie within the enormous political grey range between American apologist and active insurgent. Those who condemn neither? Both? Not only do I think that kidnapping/interrogating/assassinating noninsurgent figures will fail to win over hearts and minds, but even if I am wrong on the tactical assessment of the strategic value of such, I am opposed to the American use of tactics that can be readily identified with the terrorists that we are supposed to be fighting. As to your question re Salvador, The Poor Man addressed this one pretty efficiently.
Posted by: Kriston at January 10, 2005 12:53 PMJ. Scott: I see you read Instapundit. Iran-Contra has everything to do with it. First off, the background briefer was the person connecting El Salvador to the new plans being thrown around.
As I'm sure you know, the death-squads program operated in both Honduras and El Salvador. Negroponte was U.S. ambassador to Honduras during this period. Honduras was where the Contras were being trained and where the money from Iran-Contra was going.
The problem with the program is that it doesn't work and pours gasoline on the fire. As we have already seen, locals "informing" on suspected insurgents in both Afghanistan and Iraq have used the U.S. military as an unwitting tool of revenge against people they don't like. Nothing will increase this problem like a Pheonix Project-style assasination squad program designed to eliminate suspected insurgents in Iraq.
Needless to say this doesn't help us combat what the Iraqi Interior Minister described this week as a 40,000 strong insurgency supported by 160,000 helpers, not to mention the many tens of thousands of others who look the other way.
Like all moral questions, at bottom it isn't in our interest to behave like the terrorists who attack Americans and Iraqis. This is exactly what they want: moral equivalence between themselves and the Americans. Then the argument gets real simple for them: "We may use bad methods, but so do they and they are foreign devils." We can't win against that argument. Ever. And if we don't have the support of the populace in Iraq, we cannot win. For all of your yapping about "guilt-ridden liberals," you fail to ask the first question needed: Will this work? The answer, of course, is no.
Finally, however we have to ask ourselves: Is it morally right to engage in torture and semi-random killing in order to reach our goals? Are we to be completely unmoored from our own values in order to subjugate another country? At some point, we must either acknowledge and follow our professed values or frankly admit that they are no longer the princples we follow.
Conservatism used to provide the country with important moral reminders about the fact that our exercise of power at home and abroad must be tempered with a thorough understanding of how good intentions can result in a human disaster. Now it merely consists of Liddy-style posturing to soothe the anxieties of those who dislike change and bad news.
Posted by: Rob W at January 10, 2005 12:57 PMas an instapundit e-mailer writes in the post that rob references -- the one kevin drum took on a few days ago -- what eventually broke the back of the rebels and the murderers was a populace that refused to be intimidated, even in the face of violence (of course, i'm taking that fellow at his word). so in light of what kriston says, how will it be received by the iraqi populace if america resorts to death squad related programs activities?
Posted by: matty at January 10, 2005 4:44 PMOf course there is a huge difference between the Honduran and Salvadoran examples and Iraq. In Central America, local troops were fighting local rebels. American involvement was, (ostensibly) as advisers only. Iraq involves the invasion of the country by U.S. forces without provocation (no WMD, remember), and a deadly occupation. This complicates the political situation and makes it harder to support the U.S.-backed government. Vietnam is a better analogy--there the Phoenix Program was a tactical success and a strategic failure. I suspect any new death squad program will be the same for Iraq.
Posted by: Rob W at January 10, 2005 5:00 PMDear J. Scott Barnyard:
The only murderous ones were the right wing paramilitary groups, the goverment, and anyone who supported them (including Reagan and his supporters). You were not there (in El Salvador), so you have absolutely no right to talk, and it is YOU who have no idea of the history of El Salvador.
It's "miskito", not mosqito (or mosquito). And they are from nicaragua and honduras, not El Salvador. And it was the anti-communists that killed the indigenous people (pipil), not the FMLN. It is the salvadoran goverment that made it a crime to speak nawat, not the communists.
the only terrorist is Negroponte, and anyone who considers him a hero is a fascist nazi.
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