xnj
19th June 2005, 18:21
[Interesting points: 1) The pro-occupation death squads are drawn from former Baathists and 2) Atrocities attributed to the Iraqi resistance may, in reality, be committed by the death squads.]
June 18, 2005
Death-squad Style Massacres: "The Salvador Option" Becomes Reality
by Max Fuller, Centre for Research on Globalization, 2 June 2005
On 8 January this year, Newsweek published an article that claimed the US government was considering a 'Salvador Option' to combat the insurgency in Iraq (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6802629/site/newsweek/). The Salvador Option is a reference to the military assistance programme of the 1980s, initiated under Jimmy Carter and subsequently pursued by the Reagan administration, in which the US trained and materially supported the Salvadoran military in its counter-insurgency campaign against popularly supported FMLN guerrillas. The Newsweek article was widely cited in the mainstream media but the allegations were rapidly dismissed by Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld. Though the reports mentioned human-rights violations, they generally made little of the fact that it was the very units that US military advisors had instructed that were frequently responsible for the most unspeakable crimes* and that there was at times a clear correlation between fresh bouts of training and subsequent atrocities (see Noam Chomsky, 'The Crucifixion of El Salvador', http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/sam/sam-2-02.html).
In an earlier interview on 10 January, retired General Wayne Downing, former head of all US special operations forces, took a very different line, stating that US-backed special units had been 'conducting strikes' against leaders of the so-called insurgency since March 2003 (cited in 'Phoenix Rising in Iraq' by Stephen Shalom, http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=7227). However, Downing was careful to say that implementing a Salvadoran strategy would add an extra 'type' of unit to the occupation's arsenal. What neither the press, Donald Rumsfeld, nor General Downing pointed out was that the Salvador Option was already well underway in Iraq, and far more literally than might have been imagined.
According to an article recently published in New York Times Magazine, in September 2004 Counsellor to the US Ambassador for Iraqi Security Forces James Steele was assigned to work with a new elite Iraqi counter-insurgency unit known as the Special Police Commandos, formed under the operational control of Iraq's Interior Ministry ('The Way of the Commandos', Peter Maass, http://psychoanalystsopposewar.org/resourc...Commandos.html) (http://psychoanalystsopposewar.org/resources_files/TheWay_of_the_Commandos.html)).
From 1984 to 1986 then Col. Steele had led the US Military Advisory Group in El Salvador, where he was responsible for developing special operating forces at brigade level during the height of the conflict. These forces, composed of the most brutal soldiers available, replicated the kind of small-unit operations with which Steele was familiar from his service in Vietnam. Rather than focusing on seizing terrain, their role was to attack 'insurgent' leadership, their supporters, sources of supply and base camps. In the case of the 4th Brigade, such tactics ensured that a 20-man force was able to account for 60% of the total casualties inflicted by the unit (Manwaring, El Salvador at War, 1988, p 306-8). In military circles it was the use of such tactics that made the difference in ultimately defeating the guerrillas; for others, such as the Catholic priest Daniel Santiago, the presence of people like Steele contributed to another sort of difference:
People are not just killed by death squads in El Salvador – they are decapitated and then their heads are placed on pikes and used to dot the landscape. Men are not just disemboweled by the Salvadoran Treasury Police; their severed genitalia are stuffed into their mouths. Salvadoran women are not just raped by the National Guard; their wombs are cut from their bodies and used to cover their faces. It is not enough to kill children; they are dragged over barbed wire until the flesh falls from their bones, while parents are forced to watch. (Cited by Chomsky, op cit.)
Full article:
http://www.occupationwatch.org/analysis/ar...squad_styl.html (http://www.occupationwatch.org/analysis/archives/2005/06/deathsquad_styl.html)
May 02, 2005
The Way of the Commandos
By PETER MAASS, New York Times Magazine, May 1, 2005
Getting to Know the General
In a country of tough guys, Adnan Thabit may be the toughest of all. He was both a general and a death-row prisoner under Saddam Hussein. He favors leather jackets no matter the weather, his left index finger extends only to the knuckle (the rest was sliced off in combat) and he responds to requests from supplicants with grunts that mean ''yes'' or ''no.'' Occasionally, a humble aide approaches to spray perfume on his hands, which he wipes over his rugged face.
General Adnan, as he is known, is the leader of Iraq's most fearsome counterinsurgency force. It is called the Special Police Commandos and consists of about 5,000 troops. They have fought the insurgents in Mosul, Ramadi, Baghdad and Samarra. It was in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad in the heart of the Sunni Triangle, where, in early March, I spent a week with Adnan, himself a Sunni, and two battalions of his commandos. Samarra is Adnan's hometown, and he had come to retake it. As the offensive to drive out the insurgents got under way, the only area securely under Adnan's control was a barricaded enclave around the town hall, where he grimly presided over matters of war and peace, but mostly war, chain-smoking Royal cigarettes at a raised desk in the mayor's office. With a jowly face set in a permanent scowl, Adnan is perfectly suited to the grim realities of Iraq, and he knows it. When an admiring American colonel compared him to Marlon Brando in ''The Godfather,'' Adnan took it as a compliment and smiled.
Full article:
http://www.occupationwatch.org/headlines/a...way_of_the.html (http://www.occupationwatch.org/headlines/archives/2005/05/the_way_of_the.html)
June 18, 2005
Death-squad Style Massacres: "The Salvador Option" Becomes Reality
by Max Fuller, Centre for Research on Globalization, 2 June 2005
On 8 January this year, Newsweek published an article that claimed the US government was considering a 'Salvador Option' to combat the insurgency in Iraq (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6802629/site/newsweek/). The Salvador Option is a reference to the military assistance programme of the 1980s, initiated under Jimmy Carter and subsequently pursued by the Reagan administration, in which the US trained and materially supported the Salvadoran military in its counter-insurgency campaign against popularly supported FMLN guerrillas. The Newsweek article was widely cited in the mainstream media but the allegations were rapidly dismissed by Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld. Though the reports mentioned human-rights violations, they generally made little of the fact that it was the very units that US military advisors had instructed that were frequently responsible for the most unspeakable crimes* and that there was at times a clear correlation between fresh bouts of training and subsequent atrocities (see Noam Chomsky, 'The Crucifixion of El Salvador', http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/sam/sam-2-02.html).
In an earlier interview on 10 January, retired General Wayne Downing, former head of all US special operations forces, took a very different line, stating that US-backed special units had been 'conducting strikes' against leaders of the so-called insurgency since March 2003 (cited in 'Phoenix Rising in Iraq' by Stephen Shalom, http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=7227). However, Downing was careful to say that implementing a Salvadoran strategy would add an extra 'type' of unit to the occupation's arsenal. What neither the press, Donald Rumsfeld, nor General Downing pointed out was that the Salvador Option was already well underway in Iraq, and far more literally than might have been imagined.
According to an article recently published in New York Times Magazine, in September 2004 Counsellor to the US Ambassador for Iraqi Security Forces James Steele was assigned to work with a new elite Iraqi counter-insurgency unit known as the Special Police Commandos, formed under the operational control of Iraq's Interior Ministry ('The Way of the Commandos', Peter Maass, http://psychoanalystsopposewar.org/resourc...Commandos.html) (http://psychoanalystsopposewar.org/resources_files/TheWay_of_the_Commandos.html)).
From 1984 to 1986 then Col. Steele had led the US Military Advisory Group in El Salvador, where he was responsible for developing special operating forces at brigade level during the height of the conflict. These forces, composed of the most brutal soldiers available, replicated the kind of small-unit operations with which Steele was familiar from his service in Vietnam. Rather than focusing on seizing terrain, their role was to attack 'insurgent' leadership, their supporters, sources of supply and base camps. In the case of the 4th Brigade, such tactics ensured that a 20-man force was able to account for 60% of the total casualties inflicted by the unit (Manwaring, El Salvador at War, 1988, p 306-8). In military circles it was the use of such tactics that made the difference in ultimately defeating the guerrillas; for others, such as the Catholic priest Daniel Santiago, the presence of people like Steele contributed to another sort of difference:
People are not just killed by death squads in El Salvador – they are decapitated and then their heads are placed on pikes and used to dot the landscape. Men are not just disemboweled by the Salvadoran Treasury Police; their severed genitalia are stuffed into their mouths. Salvadoran women are not just raped by the National Guard; their wombs are cut from their bodies and used to cover their faces. It is not enough to kill children; they are dragged over barbed wire until the flesh falls from their bones, while parents are forced to watch. (Cited by Chomsky, op cit.)
Full article:
http://www.occupationwatch.org/analysis/ar...squad_styl.html (http://www.occupationwatch.org/analysis/archives/2005/06/deathsquad_styl.html)
May 02, 2005
The Way of the Commandos
By PETER MAASS, New York Times Magazine, May 1, 2005
Getting to Know the General
In a country of tough guys, Adnan Thabit may be the toughest of all. He was both a general and a death-row prisoner under Saddam Hussein. He favors leather jackets no matter the weather, his left index finger extends only to the knuckle (the rest was sliced off in combat) and he responds to requests from supplicants with grunts that mean ''yes'' or ''no.'' Occasionally, a humble aide approaches to spray perfume on his hands, which he wipes over his rugged face.
General Adnan, as he is known, is the leader of Iraq's most fearsome counterinsurgency force. It is called the Special Police Commandos and consists of about 5,000 troops. They have fought the insurgents in Mosul, Ramadi, Baghdad and Samarra. It was in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad in the heart of the Sunni Triangle, where, in early March, I spent a week with Adnan, himself a Sunni, and two battalions of his commandos. Samarra is Adnan's hometown, and he had come to retake it. As the offensive to drive out the insurgents got under way, the only area securely under Adnan's control was a barricaded enclave around the town hall, where he grimly presided over matters of war and peace, but mostly war, chain-smoking Royal cigarettes at a raised desk in the mayor's office. With a jowly face set in a permanent scowl, Adnan is perfectly suited to the grim realities of Iraq, and he knows it. When an admiring American colonel compared him to Marlon Brando in ''The Godfather,'' Adnan took it as a compliment and smiled.
Full article:
http://www.occupationwatch.org/headlines/a...way_of_the.html (http://www.occupationwatch.org/headlines/archives/2005/05/the_way_of_the.html)