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Ramo
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Austin, Texas, USA
Oct 1999
time: 23:32
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quote:
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.
[...]
The interim government of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi is said to be among the most forthright proponents of the Salvador option. Maj. Gen.Muhammad Abdallah al-Shahwani, director of Iraq’s National Intelligence Service, may have been laying the groundwork for the idea with a series of interviews during the past ten days. Shahwani told the London-based Arabic daily Al-Sharq al-Awsat that the insurgent leadership—he named three former senior figures in the Saddam regime, including Saddam Hussein’s half-brother—were essentially safe across the border in a Syrian sanctuary. "We are certain that they are in Syria and move easily between Syrian and Iraqi territories," he said, adding that efforts to extradite them "have not borne fruit so far."
Shahwani also said that the U.S. occupation has failed to crack the problem of broad support for the insurgency. The insurgents, he said, "are mostly in the Sunni areas where the population there, almost 200,000, is sympathetic to them." He said most Iraqi people do not actively support the insurgents or provide them with material or logistical help, but at the same time they won’t turn them in. One military source involved in the Pentagon debate agrees that this is the crux of the problem, and he suggests that new offensive operations are needed that would create a fear of aiding the insurgency. "The Sunni population is paying no price for the support it is giving to the terrorists," he said. "From their point of view, it is cost-free. We have to change that equation."
Pentagon sources emphasize there has been no decision yet to launch the Salvador option. Last week, Rumsfeld decided to send a retired four-star general, Gary Luck, to Iraq on an open-ended mission to review the entire military strategy there. But with the U.S. Army strained to the breaking point, military strategists note that a dramatic new approach might be needed—perhaps one as potentially explosive as the Salvador option. |
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6802629/site/newsweek/
Note that the Pentagon source said that those targetted wouldn't be limited to the insurgents, but would include sympathizers as well (and that point is made again by another source suggesting punishing the entire Sunni Arab population).
Granted, a decision hasn't been made about this, but seriously - death squads?
And why am I not suprised that the Allawi gov't is strongly pushing this policy?
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Ted Striker
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United States of America
Jan 1970
time: 21:32
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quote:
Originally posted by techumseh
I have no doubt that the US admin would authorize such an option. They are desperate and ruthless. However, I don't think it will work in the end. Iraq is not El Salvador, the US is relatively much weaker and has a much poorer intellegence picture. The US has dominated Central America for a century, Iraq is unknown territory by comparison.
Something else that is likely to figure in the American strategy of desperation is the partition of Iraq. After the election, in which Shia and Kurds will participate, and the Sunnis won't, the US may direct the the division of the country (using Iraqi puppets, of course), write off the Sunni-controlled areas, and seek to place oil rich areas under the control of relatively friendly Shia and Kurd client states. |
The other big reason it might not work is that news is alot harder to surpress now than it was 20 years ago.
Like when your guys get seen torturing prisoners, etc...
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Pax
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quote:
Originally posted by techumseh
Syria is squeezed between the US and Israel. It's in a very precarious position. Iran is in a much stronger strategic position. The US can't attack it because it would inflame the Iraqi Shia population, plus the US armed forces are bogged down in Iraq. |
Attacking another country would be pure madness. I can't even see how it could be considered. I too wonder how many acts of war(slaps in the face) a government can withstand before it either goes to war or the people revolt.
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Ramo
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Austin, Texas, USA
Oct 1999
time: 23:32
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quote:
I'm still trying to figure out why this is a bad idea, if the mass of the Shiites wish it. Of course, the Kurds already wish it. I don't know why we would need to "direct it" however. |
Let's see:
1. There aren't clean geographic dilineations between the various groups (i.e. Baghdad). A partition would be extremely bloody (see British India). In particular, a civil war would almost certainly be faught over Kirkuk (which is oil rich and hotly contested between Kurds, Arabs, and Turkmen).
2. A Sunni Arab state without Kirkuk would be extremely poor, and thus would be the perfect recruiting ground for Osama.
3. A Shia state would almost certainly be Islamist without the Kurds or Sunni Arabs, and it would have designs over Eastern Saudi Arabia. They're not going to be pals of ours either, incidentally.
4. Turkey isn't going to like an independent Kurdistan very much. Particularly after we train their death squads.
5. And the Shia don't want it.
Basically, it's an absolutely atrocious idea, and it's pathetic that some in our gov't may favor such a "solution."
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10-01-2005 12:05
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