The "Democracy Option" disappears in Iraq
by David Batstone
The Pentagon is clearly worried about a deepening quagmire in Iraq. Nearly
two years after the invasion to oust Saddam Hussein, the presence of U.S.
forces does not appear to be moving Iraq toward a stable, civic society. A
frustrated Pentagon is exploring new strategies.
Newsweek magazine reported last week that Pentagon insiders are touting a
plan code-named the "Salvador Option." The plan refers to the secret support
of the Reagan administration in the 1980s for hit squads in El Salvador that
targeted rebel militia and their civilian sympathizers. Many Pentagon
conservatives credit these so-called "death squads" with turning the tide
against a strong revolutionary movement in El Salvador.
I worked in human rights in Central America for nearly 12 years. My tenure
began in the early 1980s when I launched and then ran a non-governmental
group concerned with economic and community development.
Death squads roamed freely in El Salvador and Guatemala at the time. In
these two countries alone, they assassinated or "disappeared" more than
150,000 civilians. They targeted anyone - church pastors, literacy teachers,
community development workers - who appeared to support social reform.
My organization arranged for volunteers from the United States to live with
civilians threatened by the death squads. Our effort was successful because
the death squads were made up largely of members of the military or police
working clandestinely. They realized that brazenly killing civilians through
official channels would threaten U.S. aid. More risky still would be the
murder of U.S. citizens - the temporary cessation of U.S. military aid to El
Salvador after the rape and murder of four U.S. religious women in 1980
proved that point.
All the same, I witnessed countless cases of military abuse. The security
units regularly justified the murder of civilian suspects as a necessary
defense in the fight against "terrorists." The military acted as judge,
jury, and executioner. The police worked hand in hand with the military. The
police investigated community leaders working for social change during the
day, and would turn that information over to the army hit squads who made
the civilians "disappear" in the middle of the night.
How chilling that the Pentagon is seriously considering a plan to take us
back to those dark days. According to Newsweek, "the 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...."
The Pentagon's affinity for a "Salvadoran Option" in Iraq appears consistent
with its broader shift to promote a strong state security apparatus
internationally in the fight against terrorism. In a summit of Latin
American defense ministers held in Quito, Ecuador, in late 2004, Pentagon
chief Donald Rumsfeld unveiled his campaign to reverse nearly two decades of
military reform in Latin America. Though the summit went largely unreported
in the U.S. media, we may look back at it in years to come as a significant
watershed for American foreign policy.
Central to Rumsfeld's Quito doctrine is the re-integration of the military
and police, reversing a major reform objective in the hemisphere during the
last two decades. Both U.S. and Latin American human rights agencies deem
that separation of powers necessary to bring military activity under
civilian accountability.
During the drafting of the final summit statement, the Canadian delegation
tried to salvage the gains for civilian freedoms once absent in the region's
former security states. Backed by Brazil and Chile, the Canadian defense
ministry introduced language that would reaffirm a commitment to
international human rights and civil protections. The Pentagon team,
however, successfully blocked this corrective from being added to the
summit's final documents.
The nostalgia for the military strongmen of Latin America appears to be
growing in Washington. Is it merely coincidence that President Bush
appointed Elliot Abrams in mid-2003 to be his senior advisor on the Middle
East? Abrams was a key player in the crafting of Reagan's "Salvador Option"
in Central America. When confronted in the mid-'80s with a United Nations
report that the vast majority of "atrocities in El Salvador's civil war were
committed by Reagan-assisted death squads," Abrams energetically defended
U.S. foreign policy: "The administration's record on El Salvador is one of
fabulous achievements." Abrams soon thereafter was convicted of lying to
Congress about the Iran-Contra affair, only to be pardoned five years later
by President George H.W. Bush.
The invasion of Iraq was sold to the American public as a necessary means to
arrest the spread of terrorism. We were told that Saddam Hussein could no
longer be allowed to deploy security forces to terrorize the Iraqi people
and eliminate movements for democratic reform. Yet here we are today, two
years later, and the United States is on the verge of initiating its own
death squads. I wonder at what point over the past two years we gave up on
the "Democracy Option" in Iraq?
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| User: "Woodswun" |
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| Title: Re: The "Democracy Option" disappears in Iraq |
20 Jan 2005 04:21:16 PM |
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John F Lemke wrote:
The "Democracy Option" disappears in Iraq
by David Batstone
The Pentagon is clearly worried about a deepening quagmire in Iraq. Nearly
two years after the invasion to oust Saddam Hussein, the presence of U.S.
forces does not appear to be moving Iraq toward a stable, civic society. A
frustrated Pentagon is exploring new strategies.
I'll bet they're privately cursing Bush for not heeding their warnings
that we were stretching our resources too thin. I know everyone else
who saw the elephant is.
Woods
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| User: "R. Foreman" |
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| Title: Re: The "Democracy Option" disappears in Iraq |
20 Jan 2005 09:58:31 PM |
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Woodswun <woodswun@tepidmail.com> Spat the Words
John F Lemke wrote:
The "Democracy Option" disappears in Iraq
by David Batstone
The Pentagon is clearly worried about a deepening quagmire in Iraq. Nearly
two years after the invasion to oust Saddam Hussein, the presence of U.S.
forces does not appear to be moving Iraq toward a stable, civic society. A
frustrated Pentagon is exploring new strategies.
I'll bet they're privately cursing Bush for not heeding their warnings
that we were stretching our resources too thin. I know everyone else
who saw the elephant is.
Woods
I was listening to people commenting on the Bush innauguration
speech. One person made the point that Bush actually believes
we're being successful in Iraq, and others in the administration
and the pentagon, etc, others involved, are agast at this and
are distancing themselves from it as it likely will mean the
death of their political career once Bush is gone.
There's a disconnect between what Bush believes is happening
and what reality is dictating. Call it the madness, the madness
of King George the Bush.
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