Is it possible that the thing about the death squads which irritated liberals the most was that they worked?

But I doubt very much that the current administration is going to support anything that produces the kind of excesses the Salvadoran death squads did. After all, we're not the French in the Ivory Coast, now are we.

What this plan also reminds me of is the Search and Destroy missions in Vietnam, which were similar in some ways. I wouldn't be surprised if that's the kind of option they go with, putting Special Forces on the job snatching key insurgent figures.

Dave
http://www.diablog.us

>>Is it possible that the thing about the death squads which irritated liberals the most was that they worked?<<

Anyone who makes excuses for death squads is a fascist. Period.

Dave,

I remind you that during the course of the 12-year war, an estimated 75,000 people were killed. According to the UN truth commission, 90% of those atrocities were committed by U.S. sponsored death squads. The US government donated a $6 billion to their efforts. If that's not "supporting terrorism," then I don't know what is.

Furthermore, the death squads did not "work" (whatever work means. would you characterize the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians as collateral damage?). Unemployment, poverty, and a proliferation of guns in the country have today led to mayhem, chaos and instability. That's why approximately 20% of Salvadorans now live abroad.

Dave, do you still consider the dispatch of death squads a success? If so, please let me know how you justify them.

Yours,

Igor Volsky

Is it possible that the thing about the death squads which irritated liberals the most was that they worked?

No.

Actually the concept of training and equipping covert hit squads is neither new nor unprecedented. It was used to great effect during the US and Columbian government's war on Pablo Escobar and Medellin drug cartel.

Several covert groups were established ("Death to Kidnappers", an anti-kidnapping hit squad was one)and targeted on Escobar's support structure as well as the primary players in the cartel. Eventually it flushed out Escobar himself and the cartel collapsed (Read Mark Bowden's Killing Pablo for details).

I expect that something similar is being utilized in the war with Al Quada and the hunt for Bin Laden.

The keys to having and effective program lies in both developing a strong intelligence picture of the organizations you are targeting and in your overall control of the groups involved. Without intelligence you hit the wrong targets and reinforce the environment for guerilla or insurgent activities. Without control, you lay the groundwork for a wider conflict, the loss of moral authority, the room for expansion or "mission creep" and the potential for future stability problems in the country.

Regarding the morality of the situation, it can be argued in both directions ad nausem but when push comes to shove, the cold calculus is likely to be boiled down to "who wins".

what Dean said

targeted and limited terror against terror doesn't seem like that bad an idea, but we must do it ourselves: the problem over time has been training indiginous populations and then turning them loose, which is an almost certain way to loose both the "targeted" and "limited" aspect

and I agree it's morally ambiguous any way you look at it

"UN truth commision", eh? I don't suppose this "truth commision" was entirely devoid of representatives of the goverments of Iran, North Korea, Syria, Sudan, ect. was it? I mean it would be like expecting fairness from a UN commision on human rights containing the previously mentioned...er, bad example. What I mean is we wouldn't expect the UN commision on International Terrorism to be composed of...hmm. Well, in any case if the UN says something bad about the US, you can believe it.

>>I remind you that during the course of the 12-year war, an estimated 75,000 people were killed. According to the UN truth commission, 90% of those atrocities were committed by U.S. sponsored death squads. The US government donated a $6 billion to their efforts. If that's not "supporting terrorism," then I don't know what is.<<

We donated the money to the Salvadoran government and they chose to use some of it to equip death squads. We trained many of their soldiers, and that made them more competent and they used those skills in death squads. I don't believe we sent men on death squad missions or told them to kill innocent civilians.

>>Furthermore, the death squads did not "work" (whatever work means. would you characterize the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians as collateral damage?). Unemployment, poverty, and a proliferation of guns in the country have today led to mayhem, chaos and instability. That's why approximately 20% of Salvadorans now live abroad.

Dave, do you still consider the dispatch of death squads a success? If so, please let me know how you justify them.<<

Look, I didn't send the death squads out and I don't endorse that method of dealing with internal dissent, but from the perspective of those who wanted to keep the Salvadoran government in power and keep the region relatively stable and the insurgents suppressed, they did the job - at least for a while. They certainly weren't 'good' by any objective moral standard, but they were at least somewhat effective.

Dave

The situation was like this: Communists were trying to overtake El Salvador; we opposed that, being as how we're a) against communism and b) not very far from El Salvador. Cuba's bad enough being where it is; we didn't need another Soviet state to our south. Now, these "death squads" were not U.S. units, either in composition or in spirit. They were renegade ad hoc groups trying to flush out and kill communist guerillas who were themselves killing civilians, like Pol Pot's crews. Why did they cease operations? Because V.P. Bush went down there--by Reagan's directive, of course--and demanded they cease after news spread that this was going on. It was never anything sanctioned by us, nor would it be. And cease they did. We'll do anything to kill the enemy, but they have to be the enemy...not innocent civilians. Accusations are easy to level, but we were innocent of sending forth these squads. It was excessive force not authorized by us.