Posted on 01/09/2005 6:57:35 AM PST by Brian Mosely
Jan. 8 - What to do about the deepening quagmire of Iraq? The Pentagon’s latest approach is being called "the Salvador option"—and the fact that it is being discussed at all is a measure of just how worried Donald Rumsfeld really is. "What everyone agrees is that we can’t just go on as we are," one senior military officer told NEWSWEEK. "We have to find a way to take the offensive against the insurgents. Right now, we are playing defense. And we are losing." Last November’s operation in Fallujah, most analysts agree, succeeded less in breaking "the back" of the insurgency—as Marine Gen. John Sattler optimistically declared at the time—than in spreading it out.
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
Death is the only thing these murderous bastards understand, bring it on!
This will be Grab Abu......
We *should* have been doing this all along. The Kurds have no love for Saddam's minions and the thought of being hunted by them should put the fear of one God or another into the "insurgents."
The best thing to do is treat the MSM like a mushroom: Keep it in the dark and feed it BS...
Maybe one small, good baby step start would be for our senior military officers to stop calling them "insurgents" and start calling them "fascist terrorists."
Our senior military personnel need to remember that wars are fought with words as well as weapons.
I have NO problem with this......but you know the dims are going to come out of the woodwor about this
I think this game might actually be called Kill Abu........
You signed up today to tell us you're a Republican? Welcome to FRee Republic.
I like this *option*. Implement immediately, Rummy. Get it under control, ASAP. Just wish I could re-enlist and join in the fun.
....What to do about the deepening quagmire of Iraq....
Kill, kill, kill.
When the enemy is destroyed, dead and gone, the problems will be solved.
First I'll take my grain of salt, this coming from News Weak. This anonymous 'senior military officer,' is he retired? Sick Willy appointee? In any way shape or form associated with U.S. armed services? If it comes from an MSM source it needs triple verification.
In the history of fighting against terrorist movements, this kind of strategy was almost always used when the terrorists were eventually defeated. When the terrorists won (which they have), it wasn't used.
The Baathist hangers on and Sunni Whaabists are conducting a civil war already. Did innocents get killed in Salvador? Yes. Are they now getting killed by the car bombers in Iraq? Yes. Counter-terror actions like targeted assassination of leaders of these illegal combatants is both reasonable and lawful. They are not protected by the Geneva Convention and deserve only death. Your comparison to Rwanda is flawed also. I don't hear widescale ethnic murder being advocated here, do you? In the long run, giving a recalcitrant enemy hope only prolongs the conflict and kills more innocents. Further, we and the Iraqis must shut down the flow of arms, money and fighters from Iran and Syria - even if it means violating the borders of either of those two countries. Our enemies have chosen this kind of warfare because they know our weaknesses. We will lose if we get too squeamish. That is, in fact, what they are counting on. It will not be pretty, but we can win, if we are persistent.
It's about time!
Wake up pal...war is hell. These are not death squads...they are "democratic liberation forces" and should have been unleashed a year and a half ago. The name "death squads" was coined by lib queers in the house and senate to demonize Pres Reagan and his efforts to deliver centarl america out oh the hands of the soviet union. But I suspect you already know this.
Works for me.
on with the option-let's quit screwin around in this iraqi s***hole.
You can save your fingertips. AlibizuX has been zotted already. Looks like it's already dangerous to express any misgivings about administration policy. Even possible policy. (Or else he was more outrageous on some other thread.)
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