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 Pentagon Looks Beyond the SurgePosted on Mar 12, 2007
Military commanders have begun to develop a contingency plan for Iraq that envisions a drawdown of troops. The strategy is based in large part on past American machinations in El Salvador, and will focus on training locals rather than providing the main force. Los Angeles Times: American military planners have begun plotting a fallback strategy for Iraq that includes a gradual withdrawal of forces and a renewed emphasis on training Iraqi fighters in case the current troop buildup fails or is derailed by Congress. Such a strategy, based in part on the U.S. experience in El Salvador in the 1980s, is still in the early planning stages and would be adjusted to fit the outcome of the current surge in troop levels, according to military officials and Pentagon consultants who spoke on condition of anonymity when discussing future plans. But a drawdown of forces would be in line with comments to Congress by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates last month that if the “surge” fails, the backup plan would include moving troops “out of harm’s way.” Such a plan also would be close to recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, of which Gates was a member before his appointment as Defense Department chief. A strategy following the El Salvador model would be a dramatic break from President Bush’s current policy of committing large numbers of U.S. troops to aggressive counterinsurgency tactics, but it has influential backers within the Pentagon. Advertisement Elsewhere: . CommentsAre you a Truthdig member yet? Login now, or register with Truthdig. Add Your Comment
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The Crushing Legacy of Bush and Cheney
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By Bukko in Australia, March 13, 2007 at 6:32 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
The L.A.Times article was creepy for who it didn’t mention and the way it referred to who it did bring up. For one, there was no mention of John Negroponte, “Mr. Death Squad.” This guy was envoy to Central America during the 1980s, when the U.S. was behind getting right-wing death squads to murder hundreds of thousands of peasants in brutal ways, like being hacked to death with machetes and burned alive. Negroponte was envoy to Iraq, and gee whiz, right about that some time death squads started killing Iraqis in brutal ways like being punctured to death with electric drills and burned alive by car bombings!
The Salvador Option stands for savagery, for the U.S. unleashing savage forces that it manipulates to reduce the population of its target countries. It’s the genocide option, basically. But the L.A. Times story makes it look like there were just 55 Green Berets in El Salvador, and skips right over the Nicaraguan Contras, the Honduran death squads trained at the School of the Americas (aka “Assassins”) and the massive butchery of U.S. backed dictators like Efrain Rios Montt in Guatemala. And don’t get me started on Barry McCaffrey!
The U.S. record in Central America is SHAMEFUL! Just as it is, and will be to come, in Iraq. If there is any cosmic justice, any such thing as karma, the same sort of thing will happen INSIDE America. And if/when it does, it will be a Republican government that unleashes death squads on the American populace. That’s one of the reasons I got the hell out of there.
Report thisBy Kol Klink, March 12, 2007 at 8:48 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
A good article from the LA Times but I noticed the word ‘genocide’ was entirely absent. I suggest the LA Times retitle their article to read ‘El Salvadore Genocide Option May Be Attempted In Iraq’
Mr Biddle commented in the article that the ‘salvadore option’ will not work in Iraq because in El Salvadore we were fighting a single enemy, a Marxist insurgency. I agree with him.
If we are going to sanction genocide in Iraq exactly who are we going to commit genocide against? The Iraqi insurgency is composed of many factions and some foreign fighters. How do we decide with whom to embed our ‘advisors’ that are left behind to guide and train the butchers? Is genocide likely to make us more loveable in the mid east? Will the Saudis stand down while their Sunni brothers are butchered in Iraq? Will Iran stand down while their Shia brothers are butchered in Iraq? Not!
This is another example of a desperate administration willing to try anything to pull its fat out of the fire.
Report thisBy Quy Tran, March 12, 2007 at 12:14 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Pentagon doesn’t have any power to pull out troops from Iraq. Only Halliburton’s Cheney can when it got fed up with tax payers money from there.
Report thisBy Robert Higgins, March 12, 2007 at 11:44 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
El Salvador. Contra Rebels. Iran. Um so are they going to have Iraq start growing cocaine to fund the counter counter insurgency.
Report thisBy Steve Hammons, March 12, 2007 at 9:02 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Maybe at some point, as this article states, US troops will be reduced.
Maybe they will redeploy to the three “megabases” that have been built, according to the TruthDig.com interview with Col. Karen Kwiatkowski (USAF, ret.).
Regardless of what happens in coming months and years, there seem to be many covert elements to the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
The Bush-Cheney administration’s, the neocons’ and war profiteers’ deceptions indicate we should look below the surface for answers. For more on this, the article below may be of interest:
‘Mistakes’ or ‘plans’ in Iraq, War on Terror?
By Steve Hammons
Columnist, PopulistAmerica.com
Populist Party of America
February 12, 2007
http://www.populistamerica.com/mistakes_or_plans_in_iraq_war_on_terror
Report this