On 5/10/06, Leigh Meyers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> quoted:
Mr. Secretary, in light of this evidence of U.S. support for and the
existence of death squads in Iraq, what is the basis for your January
11, 2005 statement, that the idea of a Salvador option in Iraq is
"nonsense"?
I request a copy of all records pertaining to Pentagon plans to use U.S.
Special Forces to advise, support and train Iraqi assassination and
kidnapping teams. I look forward to receiving your response.
Sincerely,
Dennis J. Kucinich,
Member of Congress
[etc.]
this pile of journalistic evidence (and lack of serious analysis)
really doesn't address what I said at all. Here's what I said:
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 [much] better.<
The problem, it seems, is that those who are pushing the "Salvador
option" theory of what's going on in Iraq are falling for an old trap:
it's like the people who think that those outside the United States
can't think up ways to torture their enemies without U.S. help. Iraqis
aren't smart enough to develop death squads on their own? Is the
Cheney Gang a bunch of puppet masters?
The fact is that what the "School of the Americas" and similar U.S.
institutions do is _form alliances with_, _encourage_, and _steer_
existing groups in Latin America and elsewhere so that they more
closely fit with the power elite's goals. (On moral grounds, BTW, this
is just as bad as _creating_ death squads. Aiding and abetting is just
as bad as actually committing a crime.) We have to analyze the
class/ethnic/relgious/economic situation in the dominated countries
rather than simply focusing on the perfidy of the U.S. power elite.
The Iraqi death squads -- note that I am not denying their existence,
nor did I ever do so -- are part of the Sunni/Shi'a conflict
(something that may be too difficult for the advocates of the
"Salvador option" theory of what's going on to analyze). Many of the
Shi'as, the majority of the Iraqi population (at least outside of
Iraqi Kurdistan), are trying to reverse the privileged position of the
minority Sunnis (something that Saddam had encouraged). That's part
of the reason for the seemingly irrational anti-Ba'ath campaign and
the disastrous (from the U.S. point of view, after the fact) abolition
of the Iraqi army. In a distorted way, the Shi'a vs. Sunni conflict is
a class struggle (with a heavy ethnic-religious overlay).
The U.S. elite may be encouraging death squads in Iraq, either
directly or indirectly, but if so, it's a self-destructive policy,
since it encourages civil war. They may be supporting death squads not
because of some metaphysical drive to support death squads (reflecting
the deep immorality) but because they _need_ allies like the current
Iraqi Minister of the Interior. The U.S. has been well known to ally
with "Sons of Bitches" as long as they are "their" (the elite's) SoBs.
But it's a mistake to see this as being without any _cost_ to the US
elite. A civil war would keep Iraq's oil resources from being useful
as power tools, among other things. It's true that the U.S. elite can
pull its troops behind the walls of their permanent bases. But if they
don't actually control the country, Bush's "splendid little war" is
pretty pointless (from the elite perspective).
I wish people would analyze the situation "on the ground" rather than
simply leaping in with both feet to make moral judgements and theories
that look at only the line of causation from the U.S. elite to Iraq
and ignore the reverse line of causation.
--
Jim Devine / "the world still seems stuck in greed-lock, ruled by
fossilized fools fueled by fossil fuels." -- Swami Beyondananda
