More on the 'Salvador Option'

With a little time this afternoon, I thought I'd post a little more on the dirty war the administration is now running in Iraq. I'm grouping these posts under the topic 'Salvador Option.' This name, utilized by administration officials in their internal debates, intentionally recalls the operations throughout Central America in the 80's in which the CIA equipped and trained specific local units in terror tactics which involved snatching supposed enemies of the state. These"snatched" individuals very often turned up tortured or dead, an estimated 50,000 of them, including nuns, priests, labor leaders, and anyone else who questioned the policies of their government.

(IMPORTANT: There is no evidence that US military personnel are involved in any way in this policy. In the dirty wars of Central America in the 80's, the primary sources of training and technical support were CIA operatives and the School of the Americas. I do not rule out the possibility that some military special ops personnel could be involved, but there is no evidence of any military personnel being involved. The civilians at DoD, Rumsfeld and his planners, maybe, but do not convolute the actions of a corrupt administration with the actions of the US military personnel serving in Iraq.)

For a little background, start with this Newsweek article from early January 2005 which is one of the first thorough public mentions of the Salvador option. This article frames it as a debate among Pentagon officials.

Next, I'll lay out my previous posts on this issue, chronologically. 1 (an eyeopening account from the WaPo) 2 3 4 5 6 7 .

One of the characteristic traits of these tactics is the discovery of groups of bodies with their hands tied behind their back or corpses shot "execution style" in the back of the head. Whenever you see these details, remember that supporting these groups is US government policy.

Now on to new citations.

And when the disappeared are finally found, on the streets or in the city's massive rubbish dumps, or in the river, their bodies bear the all-too-telling signs of a savage beating, often with electrical cables, followed by the inevitable bullet to the head.

In a new twist in the ongoing brutality of this country, Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence is escalating dramatically.

Last July an Observer investigation reported that Iraqi police commandos were running secret torture units, and last week there was international outrage when an Iraqi government bunker was found being used as a makeshift prison. American forces found 173 half-starved prisoners being held in dreadful conditions. Most were Sunnis.....

According to human rights organisations in Baghdad, 'disappearances' - for long a feature of Iraq's dirty war - have reached epidemic proportions in recent months. Human rights workers, international and local, who asked not to be identified in order to protect their researchers in the city and their organisations' access to senior government officials, told The Observer last week that they have hundreds of cases on their books. They described the disappearances as the most pressing human rights issue in a country that is in the midst of a human rights disaster. ....

We blame the government for these events, and no matter how often we have complained there has been no investigation. I have spoken to the UN. I have handed over a dossier of what has been going on.

'We have been trying to persuade the US and UK governments for the past two years about what has been going on. It has taken until now to convince them that this is real.'

The US government knew it was real. It was policy.

British-trained police operating in Basra have tortured at least two civilians to death with electric drills, The Independent on Sunday can reveal. ....

In the US-controlled districts of Iraq, some senior military and intelligence officials have been accused of giving tacit approval to the extra-judicial actions of counter-insurgency forces.

Critics claim the situation echoes American collaboration with military regimes in Latin America and south-east Asia during the Cold War, particularly in Vietnam, where US-trained paramilitaries were used to kill opponents of the South Vietnamese government.

Count me as a critic I guess. And remember, these policies are not only being culled from the past. The three sided civil war in Columbia that the US is supporting to the tune of a billion dollars a year consists of government forces, the FARC narco revolutionaries, and a third faction usually referred to as the paramilitaries who are largely mercenary forces who practice the same techniques, storming a village, rounding up all the men, killing some and taking some away to "disappear."

Sorry for the long post, but it was these tactics, disappearances, and mass killings of the dirty wars of Central America that first brought me to political consciousness. Prior to this, I had never really cared about politics and the foreign policy of our nation. I had always believed the US to be a force for good abroad, and the fact that my country would sanction and support this shocked me to political awareness. So, if I tend to go on about this, forgive me.