from SLATE, 5/10/06:>The NY [TIMES] flags the latest trend in Baghdad: Sunnis creating neighborhood-watch-groups-cum-militias to keep out government commandos, who often operate as death squads. One interesting twist flagged by the Times (and [the SLATE columnist, Eric Umansky] a few weeks ago): Local groups seem to have fairly cordial relationships with the Iraqi army, which they consider less sectarian and more trustworthy than the Interior Ministry's commandos.<
Some on the left have heralded the Cheney/Rove administration's use of the "El Salvador" option in Iraq, i.e., the use of death squads to maintain order and protect/extend US interests. I think this is a gross exaggeration. The situation in El Salvador was quite different, a civil war between the US-backed rich and a well-organized guerilla army, the FMLN. The death squads were mobilized (often consisting of rich kids and mercenaries, some of the latter being employed during the day as police or army) to suppress all opposition to the US and its rich allies. On the other hand, neither the Sunnis nor the Shi'a in Iraq are fully allied with the US. The Shi'a used to be more pro-US, but are moving away from any alliance. The up-and-coming Shi'ite leader, as I understand it, is Muqtada al-Sadr, whose militias have come to blows with the US occupiers. The only allies that the US have in Iraq seem to be the Kurds (who want to secede from Iraq anyway), small groups of politicians and bureaucrats largely huddling in the "Green Zone," and some local middle-class intellectuals. Some of these allies (e.g., the Interior Ministry) are linked to death squads, but in general it's a matter of a brewing civil war between different ethnic groups and sects. One group might have a "militia" but another calls it a "death squad" and vice-versa. These death squads are part of a Iraqi-vs.-Iraqi civil war more than part of a US strategy. The idea that the US elite is pursuing the "El Salvador" option in the form of death squads seems to result from the manifestly untrue assumption that the Cheney/Rove brigade always gets what it wants. The US power elite might benefit from a full-scale civil war (in that it justifies staying in the hell that is Iraq these days), but a true "El Salvador option" -- i.e., total victory -- would be better. -- Jim Devine / "the world still seems stuck in greed-lock, ruled by fossilized fools fueled by fossil fuels." -- Swami Beyondananda
