The Salvador option...

[Little Raven]

Just how deep does the rabbit-hole go, anyway?

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.

Well, credit where credit is due. They are thinking outside the box...

 

[Bugfatty300]

Drastic situations call for drastic measures.

 

[Akka]

Wow.
This is becoming dirtier and dirtier...

But I've no doubt there will be plenty of people, particularly among those who spoke the loudest to say how Saddam was evil, that will support such kind of terror-squads...

 

[Mark1031]

Drastic situations call for drastic measures.

Could you give examples from recent history where drastic measures worked? I'm thinking Vietnam for us and Chechnya and Afghanistan for Russia(USSR). I’d say all these conflicts used very drastic measures to no good ends. I think it is part of human nature to think that in a fight “getting tougher” will work. I’d like to know where it has for an occupying force and not a home grown dictator.

 

[betazed]

Could you give examples from recent history where drastic measures worked? I'm thinking Vietnam for us and Chechnya and Afghanistan for Russia(USSR). I’d say all these conflicts used very drastic measures to no good ends. I think it is part of human nature to think that in a fight “getting tougher” will work. I’d like to know where it has for an occupying force and not a home grown dictator.

Hmmm... do not know much history (so I have been reading it nowadays ) but AFAIK I can give one example where it worked.

The British Raj in India. Before the 1857 Sepoy revolt the British administration in India was really a tug-of-war between liberal humanitaniarism (of course from the pov of the britishers) and military domination, After the revolt it shifted drastically within a few years to ruthless domination using drastic steps to curtail nationalism among Indians. This was very successfull and probably extended the life of the Raj by another century.

So drastic measures work provided you have a clearly defined goals. Which of course in current Iraq (mis)adventure is as present as a galliformes' dentition.

 

[Iggy]

I think Iraq resembles a country in civil war more than a country which has an insurgency problem. Perhaps the powers that be should come to terms with the growing scale of the problem.
The above "snatch squad" idea may have worked some months ago, but the problem is bigger now.

 

[Jeff Yu]

Well, why not? We'll finally be able to fight terrorists using terrorists of our own!

 

[amadeus]

Good idea, I don't see why we didn't implement it earlier.

 

[amadeus]

Well, why not? We'll finally be able to fight terrorists using terrorists of our own!

Hold it right there! The American left doesn't consider the people fighting in Iraq to be terrorists, they're "insurgents" (or even more disgustingly, "freedom fighters.")

 

[Akka]

RMSharpe at his best

Slandering in one post his own behaviour in the previous one ^^

 

[h4ppy]

I don't mind the Salvador option. We are replacing failed tactics with sucsessful ones. The fact that they are less discriminate is saddening yet the ends justify the means.

 

[Bugfatty300]

Could you give examples from recent history where drastic measures worked? I'm thinking Vietnam for us and Chechnya and Afghanistan for Russia(USSR). I’d say all these conflicts used very drastic measures to no good ends. I think it is part of human nature to think that in a fight “getting tougher” will work. I’d like to know where it has for an occupying force and not a home grown dictator.

Ummm The Salvador operations is an example if you bothered to read the artical.

But if that was no-brainer then here are some more.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=108667
Paticuarly the 4th post if you want US examples alone.

 

[North King]

Ugh... We see more examples of American imperialism... Central American actions are by far the WORST example of American actions abroad, and, in fact, are one of the best examples of how promise of a free society when down the toilet.

 

[Erik Mesoy]

Ummm The Salvador operations is[sic] an example if you bothered to read the artical.[sic]

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.

I thought you said you read the article?

yet the ends justify the means.

For a Saddam lookalike, I suppose they do. For the heavily supposed beacon of freedom and democracy, no.



I played a Paladin in D&D. Those are the guys with the harshest alignment code, Lawful Good with no deviations allowed. For a Paladin, the ends never justify the means. No killing innocents for a "greater good". No standing back and letting events unfold.

In my opinion, this is the standard the USA claims to hold to, and this is the standard that both the spirits of the Founding Fathers and the rest of the world expect the USA to hold to.
Anything less is nothing more than Nietzche personified.

He that fights with monsters must take care lest he become a monster.

And this is what the US is doing.

 

[JohnRM]

Just how deep does the rabbit-hole go, anyway?Well, credit where credit is due. They are thinking outside the box...

This is what I've said they should be doing for months now. At this rate, innocent civilians are being killed anyway, so what does it matter?

 

[YotoKiller]

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.

I thought you said you read the article?

You have no idea what your talking about do you? Iran-Contra was a funding scandal, Oliver North, ect.

The operation its self was successful. The leftist guerillas were gotten rid of.

 

[shadowdude]

Yeeee haw!

Come on Pentagon authorize it, quick!

 

[amadeus]

Slandering in one post his own behaviour in the previous one ^^

That wasn't it at all, I was pointing out that leftists tend to use terrorist-friendly terms like "insurgent."

 

[zulu9812]

That wasn't it at all, I was pointing out that leftists tend to use terrorist-friendly terms like "insurgent."

Woah there, cowboy. Who it that's bandying around the term 'insurgents' these days? Is it the right-wing, authoritarian US government? Why, yes it is...

 

[amadeus]

Unfortunately, political correctness and the mentality to appease our enemy has seeped into parts of the administraiton. There's nothing I'd like to see more than a more forceful policy on Iraq.