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January 10, 2005

The Return of US-Funded Death Squads

Over the weekend, I was busy consorting with drunken sailors and sipping rum, so I just today came across this little morsel. Our very own Department of Defense is discussing the use of the "El Salvador Option."

...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.

Doesn't this sound a little bit like terrorism? Maybe like some of the stuff that Saddam Hussein did? Only now, our tax dollars are supporting it. Come to think of it, I guess our tax dollars have supported some of Saddam's shenanigans in the past, but now we are eliminating the middle man. Much more efficient!!

Now, if this was only previously used when we weren't doing so well reaching our goals in El Salvador, and there's no doubt there will no doubt, be a bit of an uproar from us non-death-squad-liking US citizens, ya think the situation is getting a little desperate over there? Yet, Bush continues to paint a rosy picture in Iraq and expect elections at the end of January to be legitimate.

Yea!!! Death Squads!!!