The Salvador Option

MSNBC: "‘The Salvador Option’ - The Pentagon may put Special-Forces-led assassination or kidnapping teams in Iraq"

Alarmed by the thought of another "dirty war?" U.S. officials are considering whether to hunt Sunni rebels in Iraq and Syria by creating the kind of death squads that were used in 1980s Central America, reports Newsweek. Tagged "the Salvador option," U.S.-sponsored paramilitary forces would attack not only insurgency leaders but also - and here's the key word - civilian "sympathizers." Such tactics may stop civilians from abetting rebels with impunity, cracking the insurgents' popular support, but at what cost to human rights? Not only do Iraqi interim leaders, including Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, support this strategy, but the current ambassador to Iraq, John Negroponte, was ambassador to Honduras when such counterinsurgency strategies resulted in disappearance, torture, and murder in that region.