Is this the America you want to live in?
| Jan. 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. |
How far of the rails has this nation gone that we're even having this discussion. I... am at a complete and total loss for words on this. I knew that appointing Negroponte was a bad idea, but good god. I had no idea he would actually pursue death squads again.
Excuse my French, but how the FUCK are we supposed to win this "war on terror" when we're torturing and quite literally terrorizing our way to "victory"? What the FUCK is the difference between a group of terrorists and a death squad?
And please, before anyone fires off some sort of angry email... Yes, I understand war is messy. And brutal. And dehumanizing. I understand and accept that. you can't grow up in a family that's 3 generations deep in military service to this country and not understand that. In fact its my understanding of that this is the main reason I think war should only be fought when absolutely necessary, and the main reason I opposed this war. I just didn't think it was necessary. But this... this is something else entirely.
The point - the entire point - of treaties like the Geneva Conventions is that we have agreed that although war must at times be fought, there are rules of "civilized" conduct that must be followed. War is brutal, but it shouldn't be more brutal than is absolutely necessary. Hence the protection of innocent civilians and military POW's, for example. When those rules are broken those actions are deemed crimes - war crimes - and the punishment is severe.
As a species, we have agreed that some conduct is simply out of bounds, and collectively we have decided to outlaw it. As a nation we helped create those treaties precisely because we believed they matched our nation's values. After all, we've always seen ourselves as the guys wearing the white hats, right? We fought totalitarian governments precisely because they engaged in policies such as this.
But good god - even if you don't want to take the principled route, even if somehow you're content to live in a world in which your government, your representatives, quite literally YOU engage in this sort of activity - there's a pragmatic concern as well. These rules don't just apply to us. They apply to others as well. They don't just protect enemy combatants, they protect our soldiers as well. We agree to abide by rules so that OUR soldiers can be protected. Which is why of course late last week a dozen high-ranking retired military officers, including former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. John M. Shalikashvili, came out in public opposition to the nomination of Alberto Gonzalez as Attorney General. They understand this isn't an esoteric debate. It's one that quite literally determines the safety and security of our troops out in the field.
Death squads. DEATH SQUADS.
Clinton gets impeached over a blow job, but the current President of the United States nominates a man who provides legal justification for torture while having his Sec. of Defense consider the implementation of U.S. death squads. When will this nightmare end? When?
We cannot win this war if we compromise everything we stand for in the process. Why is that so hard for some people to understand?
"They hate us for our freedom."
How utterly meaningless is your definition of freedom if it includes government sponsored death squads?
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