Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Death squads & torture. State terror in Iraq in context.

Rod H | 18.02.2006 13:24 | Analysis | Anti-militarism | Repression | Terror War

A brief summary of developments in Iraq with useful references.



Just what is going on in Iraq? ‘Bad apples’ humiliate, beat, torture and murder internees. Iraqi ministers blame “lower-level officials” for running death squads (1). It seems whenever they get caught out, military forces cease to be disciplined top-down command-and-control organisations and become autonomous cells of torturers and killers, all without orders or raising suspicion (until they film themselves in the act). But the situation is clearly more complicated, whilst US planners talk of a ‘Salvador Option’ (2), a US general triumphantly declares "We have found one of the death squads. They are part of the police force" (3) without a hint of irony.

While the ‘Salvador Option’ has sparked much debate in anti-war circles, you could be forgiven for having no idea what it means if reliant on the corporate media’s infamous non-coverage. Here’s a quick summary;

“The United States was supporting the government of El Salvador, said President Ronald Reagan, because it was trying “to halt the infiltration into the Americas, by terrorists and by outside interference” (4). “Despite overwhelmingly superior military might, the government could hold the insurgents to no more than a stalemate” (5). Sound familiar? The result; “tens of thousands have been slaughtered and more than a million have become refugees. This is one of the most sordid episodes in US history - and it's got a lot of competition” (6). Grimly familiar indeed. The Salvador Option has mostly being understood as “Special-Forces-led assassination or kidnapping teams” (7), and indeed research has shown that

“even a cursory review of such archives as the one compiled by Iraq Body Count (8) reveals that mass executions have been taking place commonly in Iraq over at least the last six months. What is particularly striking is that many of those killings have taken place since the Police Commandos became operationally active and often correspond with areas where they have been deployed” (9)

This makes a mockery of US claims that the recent death squad caught in action could be an isolated incident (10), Associated Press reports are eerily reminiscent of El Salvador “There is no shortage of Iraqis, particularly in Baghdad, who say family members have been kidnapped and killed by men wearing police uniforms … “It was horrific. Their bodies were tortured and mutilated by drills and an oxyacetylene welder” … "They were blindfolded, handcuffed and severely tortured. One of my brothers had drill wounds in his head, while the other was shot in the head and chest" (11).

Torture is the flipside to death squads in the Salvador Option coin. El Salvador was one of many places where torture was widely deployed by US proxies. A former member of the infamous National Guard testified “I belonged to a squad of twelve. We devoted ourselves to torture, and to finding people whom we were told were guerrillas. I was trained in Panama for nine months by the [unintelligible] of the United States for anti-guerrilla warfare. Part of the time we were instructed about torture”(12), “the embrace of torture by US officials long predates the Bush Administration and has in fact been integral to US foreign policy since the Vietnam War”(13).

The fact US forces arrest death squads while their superiors in Washington deploy them does suggest ‘the US’ is not a homogenous agent. The ’Project for a New American Century’ style neocons were often personally involved in the Reagan-era terror-by-proxy they are seeking to redeploy, while the military itself seems determined to maintain its monopoly of violence: the arrested death squad members and their would-be victim were sent to Abu Grahib (14). This difference in goals/motives between covert and overt forces does not mean that they’re not basically working together however - remember when UK special forces dressed as Arabs shot dead Iraqi policemen and were then rescued by regular troops who demolished prison walls with tanks? (15) “London-based independent defence analyst Paul Beaver said the problem appeared to have been caused by a British intelligence operation to infiltrate insurgent forces going wrong” (16).

There are only so many times you can plead ‘bad apples’ before its obvious you’re dealing with bad trees and bad soil. A little history sheds a lot of light on the current state terror in Iraq.

Recommended reading:

Short articles:

Fuller, Max (2005), ‘For Iraq, the ‘Salvador Option’ becomes reality’. Available at  http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/FUL506A.html
Klein, Naomi (2005), ‘Never before! The amnesiac torture debate’. Available at  http://nologo.org/newsite/detaild.php?ID=506
Mccoy, Alfred (2004), ‘The hidden history of CIA torture’, republished at  http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/02/333931.html

Full books

McCoy, Alfred (2006), ‘A Question of Torture’, Metropolitan Books.
Blum, William (2003), ‘Killing Hope’, Zed Books.

References

(1) BBC News, ‘Iraqi death squads ‘caught in the act’’, Available at  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4719252.stm
(2) Newsweek, ‘The Salvador Option’, Available at  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6802629/site/newsweek/
(3) BBC News, ‘Iraqi death squads ‘caught in the act’’, op cit.
(4) William Blum (2003), ‘Killing Hope’, Zed Books, London, p352.
(5) Ibid p357.
(6) Noam Chomsky, ‘The Crucifixion of El Salvador’, Available at  http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/sam/sam-2-02.html
(7) Newsweek, op cit.
(8)  http://www.iraqbodycount.net
(9) Max Fuller, ‘For Iraq, the “Salvador Option” Becomes Reality’, Available at  http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/FUL506A.html
(10) The Austraian, ‘Iraq to flush out killers in its ranks’, Available at  http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,18184321%255E2703,00.html
(11) Ibid.
(12) William Blum, op cit, p359.
(13) Naomi Klein, ‘Never before! The amnesiac torture debate’. Available at  http://nologo.org/newsite/detaild.php?ID=506
(14) BBC News, ‘Iraqi death squads ‘caught in the act’’, op cit.
(15) Aljazeera, ‘UK admits basra jail raid’, Available at  http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/5B9D68F9-E629-41D5-BD68-D1DE59211CF3.htm
(16) Ibid.

Rod H

Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech