DEATH SQUADS--THEY'RE BACK!

Everything old is new again? Perhaps at the Pentagon. Newsweek reported recently that military officials frustrated with the worsening situation in Iraq are considering "the Salvador option." Under this plan, the Pentagon would use Special Forces to assist Iraqi militia units--made up of Kurds or Shiites--that would target Sunni insurgents and sympathizers. These paramilitary squads might engage in assassinations or kidnappings. It is not unusual for a military facing an insurgency to develop counterinsurgency units within the chain of command. But as the magazine notes, this plan is reminiscent of the 1980s US policy that supported the El Salvador military, which was tied to death squads and fielded brutal counterinsurgency units that massacred innocent civilians while pursuing leftist rebels. Back then, the death squads killed American nuns, Jesuit priests and Archbishop Oscar Romero. The US-trained military slaughtered about 800 peasants at El Mozote, and the Reagan Administration--with State Department official Elliott Abrams leading the way--denied that the horrific event had occurred. Today Abrams works in the White House, and Pentagon planners pine for a return to El Salvador-style tactics. Empowering unaccountable paramilitary units that operate outside military channels would be a dangerous move. The El Salvador strategy yielded horrendous abuse and atrocities. It should be repudiated, not emulated.

JUST SAY NO TO AIDS

Subscriber Login

User Name

Password

Subscribe Now!

The only way to read this article and the full contents of each week's issue of The Nation online is by subscribing to the magazine. Subscribe now and read this article -- and every article published since for the past five years -- right now.

There's no obligation -- try The Nation for four weeks free.

• Get The Nation at home (and online!) for 75 cents a week!
• If you like this article, consider making a donation to The Nation.