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It's noteworhty that this option has come to the fore once Negroponte became US Ambassador to Iraq. After all he was US Ambassador to Honduras in the early '80s and inserted death squads into the local insurgency in El Salvador to great effect.
After much handwringing, Rummy will give him the OK and Negroponte can begin killing off those in the Sunni Triangle in earnest.
first impressions, this is REALLY dangerous.Originally Posted by philingraham
Yes, it is. But if you're operating under NeoCon assumptions then "death squads" make a certain amount of sense...
what assumptions are those?
1) America is preemminent
2) We can't leave oil to the Arabs
3) The Sunnis are just a bunch of RagHeads
4) There's alot of money to be made
I'm pretty ure those arn't their core assumptions.
What are they, then...?
...which was to sit down with his friend Osama bin Laden
drink tea, understand his demands, and surrender to
Islamo-terror?
Newsweek's typical blatant bias and factual inaccuracy
always makes for fun reading.
Yep, the magazine was instrumental in John Francois
Kerry's electoral defeat.
Thank you Newsweek (and Le Monde).
The Salvadorian Marxists never really enjoyed anything
approaching significant popular support in El Salvador.
Which is what make this Newsweek article so hilarious.
Much like the Ba'ath's who are making noises only in 2
of 16 Iraqi provinces, they were not able to control much
more than a minor percentage of some very, very rugged
countryside during the entire period.
And then, usually only at the point of a gun. On occasion,
they'd set off a bomb, maybe lob a few random mortar
rounds in downtown San Salvador, or pull off their
signature 'boom-boom, out go the lights' trick by cutting
the main power transmission lines to the capitol.
The only thing that really kept them in business at all
was a steady stream of money and supplies routed via
Cuba and Nicaragua - and when the tail end of the
'export the revolution' supply chain dried up, magically,
they were suddenly scrambling to lay down their arms
and get a piece of the legitimate political action before
they ended up being a bunch of has-beens, out rotting
away in the jungle.
and where are the weenie Salvadorian Marxists today?
Doing what the Democrats and John Francois Kerry are doing:
A whole lotta whining over their loss.
Today, El Salvador is next to Chile, South America's fastest
growing economy. Every refugee has returned home, even
those who escaped to the USA and Canada are returning
money, investments and themselves to El Salvador.
So much for the "John Francois Kerry (Marxists) option".
Ron Wright also notes a totally different option with the El
Salvador experience in the NY Times:
Wrong again John Francois Kerry.Conditions were horrible when Salvadorans went to the polls on March 28, 1982. The country was in the midst of a civil war that would take 75,000 lives. An insurgent army controlled about a third of the nation's territory. Just before election day, the insurgents stepped up their terror campaign. They attacked the National Palace, staged highway assaults that cut the nation in two and blew up schools that were to be polling places.
Yet voters came out in the hundreds of thousands. In some towns, they had to duck beneath sniper fire to get to the polls. In San Salvador, a bomb went off near a line of people waiting outside a polling station. The people scattered, then the line reformed. "This nation may be falling apart," one voter told The Christian Science Monitor, "but by voting we may help to hold it together. . . .
The elections achieved something else: They undermined the insurgency. El Salvador wasn't transformed overnight. But with each succeeding election into the early 90's, the rebels on the left and the death squads on the right grew weaker, and finally peace was achieved, and the entire hemisphere felt the effects.
As we saw in El Salvador and as Iraqi insurgents understand, elections suck the oxygen from a rebel army. They refute the claim that violence is the best way to change things. Moreover, they produce democratic leaders who are much better equipped to win an insurgency war.
(..)
Of course the situation in El Salvador is not easily comparable to the situations in Afghanistan or Iraq. On the other hand, over the past 30-odd years, democracy has spread at the rate of one and a half nations per year. It has spread among violence-racked nations and to 18 that are desperately poor. And it has spread not only because it inspires, but also because it works.
It's simply astounding that in the United States, the home of the greatest and most effective democratic revolution, so many people have come to regard democracy as a luxury-brand vehicle, suited only for the culturally upscale, when it's really a sturdy truck, effective in conditions both rough and smooth.
Last edited by Illuminatus; 01-09-2005 at 05:12 PM. Reason: corrected "keyboard induced, spelling error"
Which is kind of nuts, I mean why stop there? Why not blame Clinton or Harry Truman or FDR for that matter? So stick to the issue.
Your guy got elected, not anyone else. I hope Pinochet-Lite sits well with you. I hope then when/if extrajudicial justice comes to the USA in the name of 'efficiency' you are also proud of that.
You go to great lengths to justify endless murder in the name of the good ol' USA...
You panned the article without addressing the original problem that provoked the article i.e. our losing position in Iraq.
Kerry is history... Bush is the ugly reality.
Are Death Squads an acceptable expression of US desires to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi People?
I was in Southern AZ during the early 80s and we lived in the reality of the Sanctuary Movement which was largely the consequence of brutal killings in El Salvador instigagated by the USA. Where were you ? Probably thumbsucking somewhere.
You take the typical tack of Conservatives when you justify American brutality by citing the current "great" economy enjoyed by El Salvadorans in the Present. That's not the pic I get from El Salvadoran refugees I still know hiding out in the States.Do you actually know any of these people ? Or are you content to spout Conservative drivel under the auspices of the ridiculous Bush Administration ?
Do me a favor, Illuminti, and don't bother whining about what pathetic sources the NY Times, Newsweek, CNN, Le Monde, Haaritz are.
Your whining is becoming increasingly keening as your insane aims are crumbling around your feet...
How do you "address [an] original problem" that is
purely speculative in nature?
"The Pentagon may" - or may not.
"NEWSWEEK has learned," - from who? Sources anyone?
or gossip.
Let's have some actual proof for a change Newsweek.
Then, they want to compare Iraq to El Salvador : )
Since day one of this Islamo-terror war "Special Forces teams
[have always] advised, supported and trained" more than two
dozen elite forces around the world.
Somehow, this is all new to our John Francois Kerry Marxists.
They're SHOCKED simply SHOCKED that Special Forces would
act in such a barbaric manner. Let's be nice to these poor
terrorists....sniff.
No wonder the Losing Left lost another election (and
will continue for another generation or until they "get it").
And then, Newsweek tries to capture a semblence of credibilty
by ending with:
[..Pentagon sources emphasize there has been no decision yet
to launch the Salvador option. ..]
Oh yeah? no names, no facts? -- just commentary, opinion and
speculation. No wonder Osama wanted Kerry to win.
Not one to exchange ad homimens (another reason why
the Left lose elections) -- I submit the following article from
StrategyPage which is, as usual (imho), much more useful and
complete than the Newsweek treatment, and suggests that
the El Salvador parallel isn't really apt.
"IRAQ: Round Up the Usual Suspects, Dead or Alive"
Enjoy, and have a nice evening.
qq swes wer
There is nothing speculative about the fact we are losing our a$$ right now in the streets of Iraq.
You like to demand facts from whatever articles that are offerred as a basis of discussion when they don't reflect your point of view. What constitute's a fact to the likes of you ? I can play this game too by continuously denigrating any and all sources you offer to substantiate your ridiculous claims.
By the way your syntax sucks...
Apparently you are prepared to do anything to further US interests even if it means killing innocent people on a grand scale, try 200,000 people. Yeah, you know all those folks that are sympathetic to the insurgencies aims.
Do you actually support the troops ? To support the troops would mean you contacting your people in DC and demanding immediate withdrawal. The alternative is a continuing degeneration into mass murder.
But nooooo...You are committed to your point of view regardless of the consequences.
In the meantime I look forward to parsing everything you have to say about anything...
And what's wrong with that? I don't know anything about El Salvador in the 80s, but well-trained teams of commandoes sent after the insurgents make much sense.
Isn't that every government's policy in regards to their country?1) America is preemminent
The Iraqi oil belongs to Iraqis. We are just customers. And so far we haven't seen any of this oil. Not a drop.2) We can't leave oil to the Arabs
3) The Sunnis are just a bunch of RagHeads
Who made any money from it? Even Haliburton's earnings are very modest. They, and other defense-related companies made way more money from the no-bid contracts they had during the Kosovo campaign.4) There's alot of money to be made
Yes,
I like to "demand facts" from a publication like Newsweek. They're
famous for speculative reporting. They hate it too. Facts always
seems to cut into their sales. But then, I'm free to ask for facts.
You can do that in a free country. Socialist countries, like your
Ba'ath party dominated Syria, or the Soviets ("Socialists" in English)
have a problem with those who "demand facts".
Your frustrations (which is so typical of the Left) at one demanding
facts from a magazine like Newsweek is quite evident, understandable
and natural for your ideology.
ps,
don't like the syntax? It's a free forum, you're free to ignore
and free to skip to the next post, even free to critisize
(ask me if I care......go ahead : ).
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