Sorting Out The Death Squads

Understandably, there’s much hub-bub over the Newsweek article of a few days ago about the U.S. contemplating the so-called  death-squad “Salvador Option” in Iraq. As  the magazine put it:

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. There is no evidence, however, that Negroponte knew anything about the Salvadoran death squads or the Iran-Contra scandal at the time. The Iraq ambassador, in a phone call to NEWSWEEK on Jan. 10, said he was not involved in military strategy in Iraq. He called the insertion of his name into this report "utterly gratuitous.")

This is gratuitously sloppy reporting that errs in contradictory directions. I’m making NO defense of either the Reagan or current Bush administration’s policies. But precisely because I oppose the war in Iraq, it would be nice if Newsweek got it right. I spent a good deal of the 1980’s reporting from Central America and, modestly, have some expertise in understanding the death squads and their relation to U.S. policy and strategy.

The Newsweek story  jumbles badly what we know about the squads and confuses them with other U.S.-trained uniformed units that were not the same thing. On the other hand, to say that Ambassador Negroponte didn’t know anything about the Salvadoran death squads is an error of such proportions that it actually discredits the entire Newsweek report.  It’s absurd, because during the time Negroponte was Ambassador to Honduras, the activities of the Salvadoran death squads were public knowledge for everybody. Nobody denied their existence or their handiwork, including the most right-wing ideologues of the Reagan administration. So what on earth is Newsweek saying? Negropnnte's own denials are equally ridiculous. He was a key player in the overall regional strategy of the Reagan administration and its disingenuous of him to claim status as a mere bystander.

David Holiday  has the most comprehensive, and I mean comprehensive deconstruction of what links there were and were not between the U.S. and the  death squads.  He details the host of errors and misinterpretations that plague the Newsweek report. And David is hardly an apologist for the Pentagon. He has spent 14 years working in and on El Salvador and was for a long time a key staffer at the Washington Office on Latin America, a left-of-center human rights NGO.

He points out that, unlike Newsweek’s assertion, The Reagan admin strategy was hardly "secret." And the reference to the U.S. supporting “nationalist” forces in El Salvador is clearly about aiding the right-wing party Alianza Republicana Nacionalista, known as ARENA (the party that has held the Salvadoran presidency since the late 80’s):

True, the U.S. Republican Party did help ARENA get its act together as a party in the early 1980s, and the godfather of ARENA was Roberto D'Aubuisson, believed by the CIA and everyone else to be behind alot of the death-squad activity, including the murder of Archbishop Romero. But that somehow the U.S. government was behind the death-squad strategy is still far-fetched.

The U.S. did aid the Salvadoran intelligence apparatus in the 60s and 70s (including ANSESAL, which D'Aubuisson came out of) as I believe Mike McClintock points out in great detail, but I don't think there's any evidence the U.S. government was behind non-armed forces violence, i.e., that it was a U.S. strategy. I suppose, critics will say, "well, that's why it's a 'still-secret' strategy!"

What we know thus far, however, is that U.S. had little direct control, and not nearly the influence they would have liked, over violence carried out by the Salvadoran military in the early 1980s. The reasons were numerous, but the U.S. chose sides pretty quickly, and the Salvadoran military knew they were needed for the "war on communism", so they knew they could do pretty much anything they wanted without suffering a cut off of aid (grossly stated, of course, and all of which would change with the Jesuit case, of course).

The Jesuit case, by the way, refers to the November 1989 murder of six priests by elements of the the Salvadoran Army's U.S.-trained 1st Infantry Brigade -- an outrage that undercut congressional support for the whole U.S. project in El Salvador and inadvertently opened the door to a peace agreement.

If you have any real interest in understanding what’s significant and insignificant about the Newsweek report, I urge you to read David’s entire, encyclopedia-sized post. It’s so complete and detailed he ought to be charging for it

None of this is to say that the U.S. isn’t, indeed, in a desperate military fix in Iraq which is no doubt leading to some very desperate speculation by Pentagon planners. Via Eric Umansky’s fine blog we read a dark, dark, dark account from Baghdad by The Atlantic’s William Langewiesche. If it’s anywhere near the truth, and I don’t doubt that it is, Iraq promises to haunt us for years to come. An excerpt:

The truth is that however vicious or even sadistic the insurgents may be, they are acutely aware of their popular base, and are responsible for fewer unintentional "collateral" casualties than are the clumsy and overarmed American forces. Rhetoric aside, this is not a war on terror but a running fight with a large part of the Iraqi people. It is a classic struggle between the legions of a great power and the resistance of a native population. It is infinitely wider and deeper than officials can admit. And the United States is on the way to losing it.

In any case, the war has degenerated to the extent that the construction sites have become nothing more than symbols of the despised American presence. For the resistance they also serve as convenient collection points for identifiable collaborators—usually laborers—who can easily be hunted down and killed as a lesson for others. There is a lot of that sort of teaching going on these days. At just one sewage project in Baghdad, for example, as many as thirty Iraqi workers were shot in only three months late last year. It is an unusual record only because someone kept count. The assassination campaign is systematic…The question is no longer who is against the United States in Iraq but who is not.

I fear that ten years now this sort of reporting will become accepted mainstream fact regarding Iraq, mostly because I see no evidence to contradict it. All there is Official Spin. It seems we have little capacity as a people to learn the most basic lessons of our own history.

Comments

[GMRoper]

Damn find posting Marc. You pulled a lot of information together and gave it a terrific overview. It made the "wait" rather worth it while you met your other deadlines. Maybe someday I'll be able to do as well. In a few hours I expect you'll have someone posting a comment about either the "myths" of Death Squads or that what is happening in Iraq is an exact duplicate of what is happening in Iraq.

I'm hoping that William Langewiesche's article is wrong, but I don't know in-as-much as I haven't looked at all of the evidence. We shall certainly see within a very short period of time following the Iraqi elections.

[GMRoper]

Damn find posting Marc. You pulled a lot of information together and gave it a terrific overview. It made the "wait" rather worth it while you met your other deadlines. Maybe someday I'll be able to do as well. In a few hours I expect you'll have someone posting a comment about either the "myths" of Death Squads or that what is happening in Iraq is an exact duplicate of what is happening in Iraq.

I'm hoping that William Langewiesche's article is wrong, but I don't know in-as-much as I haven't looked at all of the evidence. We shall certainly see within a very short period of time following the Iraqi elections.

[GMRoper]

"what is happening in Iraq is an exact duplicate of what is happening in Iraq."

That should read "what is happening in Iraq is an exact duplicate of what happened in El Salvador."

Sorry about the double posting above

[GMRoper]

"what is happening in Iraq is an exact duplicate of what is happening in Iraq."

That should read "what is happening in Iraq is an exact duplicate of what happened in El Salvador."

Sorry about the double posting above

[jim hitchcock]

Myths of the death squads, GM? Don't think so. D'Aubisson was a particular brand of evil. Hope his death was painful. Anybody know anything further on his spawn who bears his name? Last I heard he ,too, was involved in ARENA.

[jim hitchcock]

Myths of the death squads, GM? Don't think so. D'Aubisson was a particular brand of evil. Hope his death was painful. Anybody know anything further on his spawn who bears his name? Last I heard he ,too, was involved in ARENA.

[Marc Davidson]

I thought I sent in something earlier on this. Maybe related to the glitch causing the double postings of others.

Thanks, Marc. Very timely.
It does seem that those who are ultimately responsible for some of the worst atrocities are never caught and continue to lead "respectable lives". Cases in point Kissinger, Negroponte, andd'Aubuisson. Pinochet may become the exception. Wasn't the term "plausible deniability" coined during the Reagan years?
The butchers work out the details in the field, and the higher ups keep their hands and their reputations clean by virtue of their distance both physical and through the layers that constitute the chain of command.
One minor correction:
"Negropnnte's own denials are equally ridiculous. He was a key player in the overall regional strategy of the Reagan administration and its disingenuous of him to claim status as a mere bystander."
I think his statement in the Newsweek article is in reference to his involvement in military strategy in Iraq.

[Marc Davidson]

I thought I sent in something earlier on this. Maybe related to the glitch causing the double postings of others.

Thanks, Marc. Very timely.
It does seem that those who are ultimately responsible for some of the worst atrocities are never caught and continue to lead "respectable lives". Cases in point Kissinger, Negroponte, and (until his death) d'Aubuisson. Pinochet may become the exception. Wasn't the term "plausible deniability" coined during the Reagan years?
The butchers work out the details in the field, and the higher ups keep their hands and their reputations clean by virtue of their distance both physical and through the layers that constitute the chain of command.
One minor correction:
"Negropnnte's own denials are equally ridiculous. He was a key player in the overall regional strategy of the Reagan administration and its disingenuous of him to claim status as a mere bystander."
I think his statement in the Newsweek article is in reference to his involvement in military strategy in Iraq.

[jim hitchcock]

Meant, of course, that I can't imagine anyone arguing they were a myth. And, sorry about the dbl post

[GMRoper]

Jim, I agree, there is no myth. That was meant as a little sarcasm aimed at my friend and fellow Red Sox Fan (and political polar opposite) Steve and was only meant in jest.

[reg]

Thanks for the digging and background on this Marc. I don't have time to digest all of the links right now, but I will.

The thing that disturbs me most about the information you've posted is the clip from the Atlantic article. Their reporting - Fallows in particular - has been superb and inasmuch as it comes from a very moderate quarter (one of their editors, the fervently pro-war Michael Kelly was among the first journalists to die in Iraq) it's doubly disturbing. The stuff I've read in the Atlantic has shaped my thinking about the war and reinforced my worst fears. (Michael Moore hasn't, incidentally.) Anyone who would toss some of the facile accusations at the Atlantic that war critics face from some of the posters here and elsewhere on the web is in deep denial. Important stuff.

And one doesn't have to be a conspiracy theorist to wonder why the hell guys like Negroponte seem to always land back on their feet in the wrong place at the right time, their dishonesty as intact as their dubious reputations.

[reg]

Regarding the prediction that some misguided leftist is going to claim "what is happening in Iraq is an exact duplicate of what happened in El Salvador."

GMR - Not me. Because it's worse...in that the civil war is likely to be even more intractable, the forces we're attempting to contain are more zealous, the international and regional politics are more critical, the internal ethnic/political/religious factors are even more complex, the current level of chaos is greater, the costs and casualties to our own people will be more painful, the burden on our over-stretched military is exponentially larger, the blowback is likely to haunt us far longer and there are far fewer people on our side involved in this project who even understand the language, much less the region.

El Salvador ? Not to sound cynical, but that was a piece of cake. As far as death squads are concerned, frankly if we or "our Iraqis" are going to seriously attempt to destroy the insurgency, I can't imagine that we could succeed without them. No quarantee, but more than likely a necessary ingredient if the Sunni regions are to be contained by a Shiite majority, given all of the ugly history. That's not my recommendation as to how to proceed, because frankly I don't know how to proceed or even what a rational objective is at this poiint - it's not my war. Just an observation.

[Marc Davidson]

If the same forward thinkers who were involved in the "liberation" of Aghanistan in the '80s are doing our strategic planning in Iraq, we may end up fighting in 10 years the same people who are our henchmen today.
Ultimately, if we are to survive as a society, we need to move beyond the idea of war as a solution. The wars we fight in one generation to remedy the effects of the wars of the previous generation seem to be ever costlier and consequential. Alas! Fear often trumps rationality in our dinosaur brains.

[steve]

Allen Nairn wrote a good article and one of the very few that explored the relationship between the US and death squads in El Salvador in the 1980's. The "leftist" corporate media largely ignored it. Meanwhile supporters of Reagan's policies in Latin America like Shirley Christian at the NYT were 'reporting' from El Salvador...

Nairn's article is at:

http://www.progressive.org/pdf/deathsquads.pdf

[reg]

Marc D - I'm certain that many of the same "forward thinkers" involved in the "liberation" of Afghanistan are doing strategic planning in Iraq - on the other side.

[steve]

"In a few hours I expect you'll have someone posting a comment about either the "myths" of Death Squads or that what is happening in Iraq is an exact duplicate of what is happening in Iraq."

--nope, neither, since neither can be empirically verified. Are there elements of ElS in Iraq? I guess GM would say no, but I think the citations cited by Marc suggest otherwise.
Myths are the stuff of what is not empirically verifiable, like, say hippies spitting at vets or a great 'cultural divide'...

[rosedog]

Really great post, Mark... and the following thread has been good too. (Despite the momentary double vision.)

"I fear that ten years now this sort of reporting will become accepted mainstream fact regarding Iraq, mostly because I see no evidence to contradict it."

Neither do I. Everything I've read or heard offers this same disquieting vision, and I mean from sober, war-seasoned journalists---some of whom supported the invasion initially. A couple of the accounts from friends or friends of friends who've just talking personally, just off the record.

Tom Brokaw's Senior Foreign Producer, ML Flynn, said months ago that Baghdad's the most dangerous place she's ever been. Far worse that Beirut ever was. And it’s only gotten scarier since then.

No one who’s been there seems optimistic. Virtually all see only hell ahead.

It's clear as day that Exit Strategy is the game now. And it has been for some time. It’s just that folks haven't been willing to say so, except behind closed doors, until now.

PS: Reg, I agree about the Atlantic in general, and Fallows in particular. His piece during the end stages of the run up to the war taking a look at what was likely to happen, after the initial battles were over, and the so-called peace began, was the best of any I read….and has turned out to be entirely prescient.

[Marc Cooper]

Second time you posted this 20 year old article. And ur dead wrong ... the coroporate media was all over the death squad stories in the early 80's. Karen De Young of the Washington Post did some of the best early stories and even did one for Motehr Jones. In early 1982 most Salvador based US correspondents were warned in a death squad proclamation-- by name- that they were possible targets. They wrote extensively about the detah squads. Your manhichean view that the mass wallows in ignorance while only a handful of enlighted readers of the alternative press possess the secret truths is f...ing wearisome.

[Marc Cooper]

Rosedog.. the above post was answering 'steve' not you. I just wanted to note that a full 3 years before the Progressive article he points out saw light, there was plenty being written in the MSM about El Salvador, death squads, massacres, torture and the CIA. Remember that Ray Bonner was on the story early -- 1980-- and while the NYTimes pushed him off the story, he had already set the bar and there was some spectacular reporting going on... a lot from Dough Farah working for the Post.

Amen on The Atlantic. I just finsihed a medium sized essay for them on the sorry plight of American liberals and that will appear in mar-april.

[steve]

"Your manhichean view that the mass wallows in ignorance while only a handful of enlighted readers of the alternative press possess the secret truths is f...ing wearisome."

Nonsense, my views aren't that much different from good friends of yours and you know that. I disagree with your claim, the Nairn article went into these issues with much more depth than what had previously been done. And it was, in fact, largely ignored when it came out. It was so ignored that the Progressive ended up taking out a full page ad in the Washington Post just to get it the attention it merited at the time. It can't be that bad, even Doug Ireland has cited it on his blog.

[steve]

correction, Nairn's article is cited at Dennis Perrin's blog..., not Doug Ireland.

[rosedog]

"Amen on The Atlantic. I just finsihed a medium sized essay for them on the sorry plight of American liberals and that will appear in mar-april."

GREAT!!!!!!!!! Can hardly wait to read that puppy!

(I wondered what you were madly working on. Figured it wasn't the thing about the 40-year-old broad in the Lexis cold cocking the 30-year-old jerk in the junker, in the rain....although that was a cool little tale, and very elegantly written, BTW. Made me think that YOU should try your hand at short stories.)

[Marc Cooper]

NOTE; THIS IS TO STEVE NOT ROSEDOG:You have no bleeding idea what you are talking about. You are a broken Ideology Machine that has one mode only-- unilateral propaganda. Never mind what I know about Salvador and the press...my only authority on speaking about the issue is having been a working member of the press in El Salvador... that's all. In March 1982 -- two years before Nairn's article-- the White Hand death squad published a list of 30- someodd US reporters working in el sal and said they were murder targets. These brave reporters then had basketball shirts made with numbers that reflected their place on the death list and then wore them to official salvadoran government and army press conferences,. Why dont u stop pulling on ur pud and whining for maybe one day and by implication stop demeaning these people -- many of them who did and do work of a professional and informational level never achieved by the Progressive,the Nation or Star-War-bar-like places like Znet. There isnt a single reporter in the alternative press who has a record to show on Central American reporting that can come close to that of Farah and Dinges of the Post.. De Young of the Post... and frankly some brdcst pieces that I and some friends did for CBS, PBS and the Chri Sci Monitor. The old fart Medrano that Alan Nairn interviewed in the Progressive was someone we all spoke to and interviewed at one point... if I can fish out the phoito Ill post the one I have of Medrano and I together having tea as he outlined how he helped build the death squads. Go fishing or something...but give it a rest...u are really wearisome, apart from being deaf and blind.

you are a damn broken record... and u continue to make a public fool of urself by saying at least 49 times a week that I wont criticize my other friends who disagree with me. Who the fuck cares?

[steve]

Why would occasional pieces in the corporate media be evidence of a strong concern about the matter of death squad relationships with the US? And why would Nairn's article be something that is so offensive to you? Ya'd think I'd cited something from Jeff Rense or some other conspiracy cite that just had no place in serious discussion.
I don't believe there's anything wrong with pointing out the contradiction of your bizarrely vituperative reaction to someone who has opinions shared by your friends on the left. Otherwise, one would think I'd done something to incur your wrath.

[Marc Cooper]

That's as far as I go in any exchange with u steve.. it's more productive to see how long I can hold my breath at the bottom of my swimming pool.

For laughs... here's a link to a poor digital copy of the pic of me with death squad founder General Medrano... snapped at his home in El Salvador a year and a half before Nairn's Progressive piece :)

http://marccooper.typepad.com/family.8.14.04%20063.jpg