Death Squads in Iraq

Originally posted by rich23
So the Pentagon denies doing anything nasty? Well, they would, wouldn't they? And they're lying. It's as simple as that... and even your second quote admits as much!

Yes they are denying it. You make it seem if Delta is a deathsquad itself. Deathsquad itself is a term that can be obscured as to the real meaning of the a unit's reason for existence. Does it mean other special operations forces are considered deathsquads becauses its based on targeting specific group? Do we called secret task force units that is anti Al Qaeda deathsquads? We call it counterterrorism or anti-terrorism.

And torturing...well people in America has said that we are outsourcing torture to somewhere overseas. Seems to me nobody in America wants to do that job. And yes I'm aware of School of Americas. We don't control whoever we want. We train them and send them back. Think of the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan. And Arabs decided to create Al Qaeda and terrorizing us. Soldiers and officers of Latin American countries pretty much can do whatever they want. Not much we can do. We train them for counterinsurgency, they in turn are called deathsquad by people outside.

As I like to point this out...

www.globalsecurity.org...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 9, 2006 – U.S. troops and Iraqi security forces have stepped up operations in Baghdad to curtail deadly sectarian violence that’s plagued the city in recent months, a senior U.S. military officer told reporters in Baghdad today.

Of 11 operations targeting death squads in Iraq over the past week, 10 were centered in or around Baghdad, Army Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell, spokesman for Multinational Force Iraq, said at a news briefing.

The Baghdad operations were undertaken “to quell the surge of extremists seeking to exert control and impose their narrow, divisive view of the future of Iraq,” Caldwell said.

Some Shiite and Sunni factions have used death squads to intimidate others. Some senior U.S. military leaders have warned that the violence could spiral out of control. However, the United States government has vowed not to allow that to happen.

www.informationclearinghouse.info...

Police Tied to Death Squads

U.S. military officials say they suspect Iraq's highway patrol, staffed largely by Shiites, is deeply involved in torture and killings.

By Solomon Moore
Times Staff Writer

02/21/06 "Los Angeles Times" -- -- BAGHDAD — A 1,500-member Iraqi police force with close ties to Shiite militia groups has emerged as a focus of investigations into suspected death squads working within the country's Interior Ministry.

Iraq's national highway patrol was established largely to stave off insurgent attacks on roadways. But U.S. military officials, interviewed over the last several days, say they suspect the patrol of being deeply involved in illegal detentions, torture and extrajudicial killings.

The officials said that in recent months the U.S. has withdrawn financial and advisory support from the patrol in an effort to distance the American training effort from what they perceived to be a renegade force.

"We don't train them, we don't give them equipment, we don't conduct site visits over there. They are just bad, criminal people," said a high-ranking U.S. military officer who advises the Interior Ministry. The officer was one of three who each spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they wanted to maintain relationships with Iraqi police officials and avoid retaliation by U.S. military superiors.

The U.S. military works closely with Iraqi army units, conducting joint operations and sharing space on some military bases. By contrast, police forces have evolved far more independently in approximately 11,000 stations and outposts around the nation.

The result is a motley conglomeration of agencies under the Interior Ministry with overlapping jurisdictions and poorly defined functions.

"You've got the facilities protection service, the public order brigades, the commandos, the highway patrol, the regular police, the traffic police, patrol officers," said a second U.S. military official.

"Who knows who they all are? Nobody controls them but the minister," the officer said, referring to Interior Minister Bayan Jabr.

Jabr, a Shiite with close ties to the Badr Brigade, a paramilitary group, has been at the center of allegations of abuse at the hands of Iraqi security forces. The minister's notoriety rose last year as the bodies of hundreds of men — mostly Sunni Arabs — started appearing in sewage treatment plants, garbage dumps and desert ravines. Most of the bodies showed signs of torture and execution-style killings. Many families of the deceased said their kin had last been seen in the back of a police vehicle.

The Shiites, who constitute about 60% of the Iraqi population, were severely repressed under Saddam Hussein's regime, which favored the Sunni minority. The Shiites came to power in the wake of the U.S.-led invasion of March 2003. A Sunni-led insurgency has carried out a campaign of bombings and assassinations against the government.

"If we find that these allegations that he is involved are true, we will be taking very firm measures against him," Kamal said. "But generally speaking, high-ranking officers are usually ignorant of what their lower-ranking officers are doing."

U.S. personnel who have been training Iraqi police officers said they long had suspected the highway patrol of conducting illegal raids and killings but had little oversight of the force.

The black-garbed highway patrol officers rarely attend U.S.-financed police academies aimed at improving professionalism and sensitivity to human rights within Iraq's security forces, police trainers said, and have refused to share information about their activities.

U.S. police advisors said the highway patrol was almost entirely Shiite and included a core of 400 to 800 Badr militia members who make up the patrol's 4th Company, which was created last year.

"The 4th Company is filled by people with unconventional militia ties," said the U.S. military officer who advises the Interior Ministry. "Minister Jabr is very supportive of them. The general in charge [of the highway patrol] is very supportive of them."

After the suspected death squad was stopped last month, U.S. police advisors said, four members of the squad confessed to several sectarian killings.

The highway patrol officers were asked, " 'Who are you doing this for?' " said a third U.S. military officer who is involved in training Iraqi troops and has knowledge of the interrogations of the suspected death squad. "And they're telling us, 'Jabr.' " The rest of the squad, said the advisor, has been released.

Sunni Arab leaders complain that an earlier investigation into alleged police abuse has yet to show results.

In November, a U.S. Army unit discovered a secret detention and torture facility run by police officers affiliated with the Badr militia. In all, 169 people had been detained at the secret prison, and photos showed that some inmates had been severely beaten and malnourished.

Jabr pledged to investigate the origin of the detention facility and the possible existence of other secret prisons, even as he downplayed the abuse that had taken place there.

"OK, there were signs of torture … but there were no killings and no beheadings, as some have said," Jabr told reporters in November.

But inmates at the bunker compiled a list of 18 detainees who they said had been tortured to death.

Now what does this tell you? Members of the American military personnel has said they have little oversight of the force. Remember that there are stories where Iraqi civilians don't trust Iraqi police and that they trust American soldiers more. And you ask about the Pentagon lying about such things, when they are trying to destroy these so called deathsquads.

Originally posted by Astygia
Maybe you should keep a list of coalition fatalities as well. Contrary to what some believe, all soldier's aren't "death dealers" eager to kill everything.

I don't believe that. I believe that some soldiers are essentially decent people, although I'm fairly convinced that part of the training is intended to dehumanize the "enemy" in order to make it easier for soldiers to kill Iraqis.

However, the US military, not me, is supposed to be keeping count of US casualties, and elsewhere in this forum there's a thread that suggests they're massaging the figures. I believe the US military would lie about that. They lie about the toxicity of Depleted Uranium, they lie about the nature of the people they've killed (I'm sorry, when I read about "hundreds" of insurgents being killed in Afghanistan or Iraq, I don't believe all of them are insurgents - who are, in any event, simply resisting an illegal occupation of their country) and they lie about pretty much anything that takes their fancy to lie about.

Plus I remember with shock a Pentagon news conference about the Afghanistan invasion in which (I think) General Stufflebeem said "we don't keep track of civilian casualties".

What is it with you lot that are so desperate for some spurious sense of balance? Go and start your own threads keeping count of US casualties for yourselves, for heaven's sake! I'm not stopping you, and I wouldn't go on to such a thread to try to deny that it was happening. This thread is about death squads in Iraq, not about the deaths of soldiers engaged in an illegal occupation of a country intended to strip it of its resources.

You can't really understand that kind of family unless you've served. And despite what Rummy farts out every now and then, morale sucks because the truth behind the situation is slowly filtering overseas, and most don't want to be there anyway.

You know what? If they don't want to be there, they shouldn't go. I'm serious. If you have any doubt that what you're being asked to do is the right thing, then the Nuremberg conventions support you. There are a small number of people who refuse to serve out of conscience, and I applaud them for it. They have to suffer some pretty unpleasant consequences but I have more respect for them than for people who go out and kill because they've unquestioningly accepted the ludicrous idea that Saddam represented a threat to anyone outside his own borders.

I'm not telling you that "death squads" don't exist, given the history of some of our agencies it's probable that they do. But if they do, they more than likely are not soldiers. Spooks aren't soldiers.

First, kudos to you for admitting the possibility that death squads exist. They have been a tool of the US in other countries for decades, and this is known. As for them not being soldiers, well... the main centre for training torturers and death squad brigades is Fort Benning, the School of the Americas, and the Pentagon has oversight. Strictly speaking, I think many of the people responsible have military rank. But they're not ordinary soldiers, no.

And from the point of view of their victims, I don't think it matters much. Agonising torture followed by a bullet in the head... should it matter if the instigators and trainers are CIA or US Army Intelligence?

Originally posted by rich23

However, the US military, not me, is supposed to be keeping count of US casualties, and elsewhere in this forum there's a thread that suggests they're massaging the figures. I believe the US military would lie about that.

They been keeping count since the war. Are you saying they are hiding the real body count? The news media are also keeping count. They have yet to uncover any evidence of such things. I do remember that Al Zawahiri second in command of Al Qaeda would agree with you that the Pentagon has been hiding the real body count as you suggested. Al Zawahiri has been saying that Americans are covering up the body count.

Originally posted by deltaboy
You make it seem if Delta is a deathsquad itself.

You brought up Delta. I'd not made any connection between Delta and death squads.

However, the policy that you can just go in and kill people on suspicion of being "insurgents" is utterly suspect. It allows you to dodge entirely the reasons for being in the country in the first place.

And torturing...well people in America has said that we are outsourcing torture to somewhere overseas. Seems to me nobody in America wants to do that job. And yes I'm aware of School of Americas. We don't control whoever we want. We train them and send them back.

Yup. You train them to torture and to operate death squads. What do you think they're going to do, work as doctors once they get back? And why do you think the US keeps installing people in power who are happy to employ death squads? So the locals can't get uppity and use their own resources to benefit their own people - like, for example Chavez. Of course, the strategy to deal with someone like that (if the coup is unsuccessful, as the 2002 attampt to remove him was) is to raise the military bar and intensify the support of the opposition so he has to buy arms and reduce freedoms to maintain stability, thus alienating his core supporters. Sadly, Chavez seems to be following this path.

You say you're aware of the SOA (or as it has been renamed, the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security and Co-operation - SOA was getting too well-known for what it was), but are you aware that torture was on the curriculum? This goes back decades. Time was when US citizens would have at least had the grace to be ashamed of using torture. Now an increasing number, pumped by a vile and efficient propaganda system, think it's necessary and even manly. This is fascist thinking, whether you like it or not.

Soldiers and officers of Latin American countries pretty much can do whatever they want. Not much we can do.

Not much you can do? I can think of a few things. Not funding them, not training them in torture and mass terror killings, not giving them lists of people to go out and kill, as happened in Indonesia, Guatemala, Iran, and Vietnam (Operation Phoenix) to name only a few off the top of my head.

We train them for counterinsurgency, they in turn are called deathsquad by people outside.

And why is that, I wonder? Why do those naughty foreigners slander these nice counterinsurgency specialists so?

Of 11 operations targeting death squads in Iraq over the past week, 10 were centered in or around Baghdad, Army Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell, spokesman for Multinational Force Iraq, said at a news briefing.

See earlier comments about LH, RH and indeed PR.

The officials said that in recent months the U.S. has withdrawn financial and advisory support from the patrol in an effort to distance the American training effort from what they perceived to be a renegade force.

"We don't train them, we don't give them equipment, we don't conduct site visits over there. They are just bad, criminal people," said a high-ranking U.S. military officer who advises the Interior Ministry. The officer was one of three who each spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they wanted to maintain relationships with Iraqi police officials and avoid retaliation by U.S. military superiors.

"Who knows who they all are? Nobody controls them but the minister," the officer said, referring to Interior Minister Bayan Jabr.

Please note in my very first post in this thread that the Wolf Brigade, one of the most notorious death squads, was under the command of a US officer. Has anyone taken any action against any US officer in command of a death squad. How about not just in Iraq? EVER? All this stuff you're coming out with is just windowdressing, PR for either the gullible or those who desperately want to believe that the US would never do such things because we're the good guys. Wake up: in South and Central America, you never were, and now the US is exporting these practices for use in the new Wars for Oil.

"If we find that these allegations that he is involved are true, we will be taking very firm measures against him," Kamal said. "But generally speaking, high-ranking officers are usually ignorant of what their lower-ranking officers are doing."

Sure. Suuuuuuure.

And you ask about the Pentagon lying about such things, when they are trying to destroy these so called deathsquads.

Don't you get it? It's part of a pattern that goes back decades and earlier in this thread there are plenty of indicators that it's deliberate, secret, and goes to a very high level. What you are looking at is windowdressing. The guy who was in charge of the Salvadorean death squads is doing the same job in Iraq. They're trying to keep it quiet, which is why the reporter was killed and why there's some anti-death-squad photo-ops.

Originally posted by deltaboy
They been keeping count since the war. Are you saying they are hiding the real body count? ....Al Zawahiri has been saying that Americans are covering up the body count.

So are Americans...

www.abovetopsecret.com...'

Originally posted by rich23

You brought up Delta. I'd not made any connection between Delta and death squads.

I brought up Delta as an equivalent to being used for counterterrorism and anti-terrorism. Their mission is similar to what "deathsquads" do. As going after people that are a threat to the government and the country. What is your view of Delta? What is your view of Task Force units design to capture or kill Al Qaeda and its allies?

However, the policy that you can just go in and kill people on suspicion of being "insurgents" is utterly suspect. It allows you to dodge entirely the reasons for being in the country in the first place.

Well gee its war and insurgents prefer to blend in with the population, they don't wear uniforms do they? And I don't know why you brought that up about dodging "the entirely the reasons for being in the country in the first place." You can make a thread about it somewhere else.

You say you're aware of the SOA (or as it has been renamed, the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security and Co-operation - SOA was getting too well-known for what it was), but are you aware that torture was on the curriculum? This goes back decades. Time was when US citizens would have at least had the grace to be ashamed of using torture. Now an increasing number, pumped by a vile and efficient propaganda system, think it's necessary and even manly. This is fascist thinking, whether you like it or not.

Yeah there were manuals on how to interrogate prisoners. Should we be ashamed, I don't know. In wars it seems both sides use torture for some reason.

Not much you can do? I can think of a few things. Not funding them, not training them in torture and mass terror killings, not giving them lists of people to go out and kill, as happened in Indonesia, Guatemala, Iran, and Vietnam (Operation Phoenix) to name only a few off the top of my head.

Its the Cold War, and we pretty much backed whatever groups based on U.S. interests. It's going to be dirty.

And why is that, I wonder? Why do those naughty foreigners slander these nice counterinsurgency specialists so?

What do terrorists or insurgents called them? Counterterrorists or counterinsurgents? Doubtful.

Please note in my very first post in this thread that the Wolf Brigade, one of the most notorious death squads, was under the command of a US officer. Has anyone taken any action against any US officer in command of a death squad.

What U.S. officer?

news.bbc.co.uk...

Abul Waleed, the brigade's commander, is held to be the brains behind a popular Iraqi TV programme in which suspected militants are made to "confess" to the camera.

They're trying to keep it quiet, which is why the reporter was killed and why there's some anti-death-squad photo-ops.

The reporter was killed by who? The secret death squad or by American troops at a checkpoint? Since the article says American troops at a checkpoint killed the reporter, I like to point something out. Remember when I mentioned about American troops who stopped and arrested a couple of death squad members...you say the left doesn't know what the right hand is doing. Well it seems to me that those American troops must be part of this conspiracy as well.

[edit on 3-10-2006 by deltaboy]

[edit on 3-10-2006 by deltaboy]

[edit on 3-10-2006 by deltaboy]

Originally posted by deltaboy
What is your view of Task Force units design to capture or kill Al Qaeda and its allies?

That it's extra-judicial state terrorism.

Well gee its war and insurgents prefer to blend in with the population, they don't wear uniforms do they?

Please tell me when the US declared war on Indonesia, Guatemala, El Salvador, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, etc. etc. It's not war. The US goes in, overthrows a government, and supplies lists to its tame death squads of so-called "troublemakers" including union leaders and academics. Most, if not all of whom, have never taken up arms in their lives. That's the way death squads work, and that's why I have no interest in being drawn into an irrelevant discussion about Delta Force, although I suspect that they too are just murdering people on the flimsiest of evidence.

Yeah there were manuals on how to interrogate prisoners. Should we be ashamed, I don't know. In wars it seems both sides use torture for some reason.

Which side were the thousands of people who disappeared in Chile on? And in Argentina... and so on and so on. War is a legal term, deltaboy. Supposedly the good guys abide by the rules. But this is my point. The US is NOT the good guy in this.

Its the Cold War, and we pretty much backed whatever groups based on U.S. interests. It's going to be dirty.

US interests is about right. That's all the overthrow of governments is ever about, it's not about freedom or democracy, quite the reverse. Guatemala in the fifties, for example, was about preserving the ownership of the country and its infrastructure by the United Fruit Company, which happened to be owned by rich and powerful Americans. The government of the time purchased land - which UF wasn't even using - at the price UF had stated the land was worth in its tax returns. UF then ran off saying they'd been robbed and the land was undervalued, boo hoo... they should have valued it correctly then... but then they'd have had to pay more tax.

Their chums in the CIA overthrew the government for them and ushered in a reign of terror via US trained and equipped death squads. The BS about the cold war is just that. It was always, and continues to be, about US economic dominance and the ability of US companies to suck money and resources out of other countries with impunity. I got lots more examples for you if you need the point rammed home.

In a response to the first article I posted in this thread,

U.S. Rep. James McGovern, a Massachusetts Democrat, writes that the Salvador option "was a bad idea in El Salvador, and it's a bad idea for Iraq. The Bush administration has already greatly diminished U.S. credibility on human rights. Historically, the creation of military assassination teams—or death squads as they were known in El Salvador—has not only led to a greater loss of innocent civilians, but also increased the disaffection of the civilian population with its own government and with the United States. It is a certain, proven prescription for failure."

"Contrary to the article's assertion," he continues, "that the Salvadoran insurgency 'was quelled,' the war in El Salvador did not end because the U.S. won militarily. It ended, in fact, when the U.S. Congress, in the aftermath of the murder by the Salvadoran army of six Jesuit priests in 1989, began to cut U.S. military aid to the Salvadoran armed forces."

Please note in my very first post in this thread that the Wolf Brigade, one of the most notorious death squads, was under the command of a US officer. Has anyone taken any action against any US officer in command of a death squad.

What U.S. officer?

Col. James Steele, for example. Mentioned several times in previous posts. Also, John Negroponte... I'll be getting to these names in my next few posts, because some more details are emerging and I shall be covering this from a couple of other angles.

Originally posted by rich23
I don't believe that. I believe that some soldiers are essentially decent people, although I'm fairly convinced that part of the training is intended to dehumanize the "enemy" in order to make it easier for soldiers to kill Iraqis.

Some are decent..implies that most are not. I may have asked you this before, but are you American? I ask because this sounds like you're making a blanket statement with no experience in the matter. Sort of like me telling a Brit how their forces operate.

You are correct that the enemy is dehumanized, but this is nothing new, nothing specific to the USA. You can't have soldiers hesitating to fire because the poor enemy might not make it home if he dies.

Wars have been fought this way for thousands of years, and here we are debating about it.

However, the US military, not me, is supposed to be keeping count of US casualties, and elsewhere in this forum there's a thread that suggests they're massaging the figures. I believe the US military would lie about that.

Politicians massage figures; the military has no need to lie about its losses. How do you think this information is coming out btw?

(I'm sorry, when I read about "hundreds" of insurgents being killed in Afghanistan or Iraq, I don't believe all of them are insurgents - who are, in any event, simply resisting an illegal occupation of their country) and they lie about pretty much anything that takes their fancy to lie about.

Politics are not military, at least not for most of the military. Anything above O6 or E9 is fairly political, but people in such positions don't spend quite so much time in combat either.

As to what you think about insurgent casualties, you're really in no position to debate with me what happens in a warzone. I know that's unfair because you have never served, but reality isn't clean, and it isn't easy. Whether or not the war should have been started, when your life's at stake you cannot act on what should have been; when you're in the #, you act on what is. Or should coalition soldiers let themselves die because they, like others, were lied to?

Plus I remember with shock a Pentagon news conference about the Afghanistan invasion in which (I think) General Stufflebeem said "we don't keep track of civilian casualties".

There's no way; insurgents kill Iraqis on an hourly basis. Often, the same incident is reported multiple times with differing casualty counts. During sweeps it was pretty common to find dead civilians, some fresh, some weeks gone. Iraq isn't as tidy in a logistical sense as you seem to think it is.

What is it with you lot that are so desperate for some spurious sense of balance? Go and start your own threads keeping count of US casualties for yourselves, for heaven's sake! I'm not stopping you, and I wouldn't go on to such a thread to try to deny that it was happening. This thread is about death squads in Iraq, not about the deaths of soldiers engaged in an illegal occupation of a country intended to strip it of its resources.

I was being sarcastic. It seems like you're so busy trying to paint an evil picture of US forces, you're forgetting that the enemy deliberately hide behind, use, and target civilians to kill whoever the fatwa of the week has been issued to. You use the administration's faults to justify brutality, and the notion of US death squads to explain civilian deaths.

Again, I don't discount the possibility of spooks using these methods, but the question you need to ask yourself is why? What does America gain from letting its agents (or even soldiers, yes I admit it's possible given the recent trials) run around and kill civilians at will?

The answer is nothing, except an extremely bad international reputation if they are discovered. And at this point, I would hope that Bush isn't so stupid as to want his rep to get any lower. I think this is important enough to consider.

You know what? If they don't want to be there, they shouldn't go. I'm serious. If you have any doubt that what you're being asked to do is the right thing, then the Nuremberg conventions support you. There are a small number of people who refuse to serve out of conscience, and I applaud them for it. They have to suffer some pretty unpleasant consequences but I have more respect for them than for people who go out and kill because they've unquestioningly accepted the ludicrous idea that Saddam represented a threat to anyone outside his own borders.

The situation is more complicated than this. During the initial two years, morale was high because this crap hadn't come out. You cannot use current knowledge to retroactively judge people that weren't in the know.

Further, refusing deployment isn't as simple as saying "no" and closing the door. You will be arrested unless you go AWOL, and after thirty days it becomes desertion, an offense punishable by life in prison or death during wartime. While it's not likely that the maximum sentance would be applied, you cannot expect hundreds of thousands of soldiers, most of whom enlisted for love of country, to desert.

In turn, the military should be able to count on its political leadership to use them only when it's truly needed, and the administration has obviously failed us. But even now, with the war's legitimacy nullified, old boots need to be replaced, and asking a soldier to abandon fellows is the ultimate slap in the face.

Generals have resigned under Rumsfeld due to his mentality; I don't see how the seperation between military and politics could get clearer.

the main centre for training torturers and death squad brigades is Fort Benning, the School of the Americas, and the Pentagon has oversight. Strictly speaking, I think many of the people responsible have military rank. But they're not ordinary soldiers, no.

Benning is where I took BCT, home of the infantry, not the death squads. No more blanket statements, this makes you no better than those you condemn.

And from the point of view of their victims, I don't think it matters much. Agonising torture followed by a bullet in the head... should it matter if the instigators and trainers are CIA or US Army Intelligence?

Why wouldn't it matter? Do you want to address the guilty, or are you happy to just blame the USA?

EDIT: grammar/spelling

[edit on 4-10-2006 by Astygia]

Apparently Dennis Kucinich has become rather interested in the issue of death squads in Iraq. According to this article he's written twice to Donald Rumsfeld on the subject. From one of the letters (dated April 5 2006):

We know that some of the Pentagon's Iraq experts were involved in the Reagan Administration's paramilitary program in El Salvador. Colonel James Steele, Counselor to the U.S. Ambassador for Iraqi Security Forces, formerly led the U.S. Military Advisory Group in El Salvador from 1984-1986, where he developed special operating forces at brigade level during the height of the conflict. The role of these forces in El Salvador was to attack "insurgent" leadership, their supporters, sources of supply, and base camps. Currently Colonel Steele has been assigned to work with the new elite Iraqi counter-insurgency unit known as the Special Police Commandos, operating under Iraq's Interior Ministry. Director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte, was U.S. Ambassador to Iraq from June 2004 to April 2005. From 1981 to 1985, he was ambassador to Honduras where he played a key role in coordinating U.S. covert aid to the Contras, anti-Sandinista militias who targeted civilians in Nicaragua. Additionally, he oversaw the U.S. backing of a military death squad in Honduras, Battalion 3-16, which specialized in torture and assassination. The U.S. had similar programs of supporting paramilitary groups set up Nicaragua and Honduras as its program in El Salvador. In a Democracy Now interview on January 10, 2005, Allan Nairn, who broke the story about U.S. support of death squads in El Salvador, suspected that Ambassador Negroponte would most likely be involved in the economic side of U.S. support to death squads in Iraq.

Another relevant extract:

• July 28, 2005 -- Los Angeles Times reports that members of a California Army National Guard company, the Alpha Company, who were implicated in a detainee abuse scandal, trained and conducted joint operations with the Wolf Brigade, a commando unit criticized for human rights abuses. In an online Alpha Company newsletter, Captain Haviland wrote, "We have assigned 2nd Platoon to help them transition, and install some of our 'Killer Company' aggressive tactical spirit in them." The article further states that despite the Wolf Brigade's controversial reputation for human rights violations, it is regarded as the gold standard for Iraqi security forces by U.S. military officials.

Do we think some kind of coherent picture is emerging here? One last excerpt from Kucinich's letter...

March 27, 2006 -- The Independent reports that while U.S. authorities have begun criticizing the Iraqi government over the "death squads," many of the paramilitary groups accused of the abuse, such as the Wolf Brigade, the Scorpion Brigade and the Special Police Commandos were set up with the help of the American military. Furthermore, the militiamen were provided with U.S. advisers some of whom were veterans of Latin American counter-insurgency which also had led to allegations of death squads at the time.

Here's an Observer article detailing what happens to someone picked up by one of these death squads:

What happened to him in his 24 hours in captivity was written across his body in chapters of pain, recorded by the camera. There are police-issue handcuffs still attached to one wrist, from which he was hanged long enough to cause his hands and wrists to swell. There are burn marks on his chest, as if someone has placed something very hot near his right nipple and moved it around.

A little lower are a series of horizontal welts, wrapping around his body and breaking the skin as they turn around his chest, as if he had been beaten with something flexible, perhaps a cable. There are other injuries: a broken nose and smaller wounds that look like cigarette burns.

An arm appears to have been broken and one of the higher vertebrae is pushed inwards. There is a cluster of small, neat circular wounds on both sides of his left knee. At some stage an-Ni'ami seems to have been efficiently knee-capped. It was not done with a gun - the exit wounds are identical in size to the entry wounds, which would not happen with a bullet. Instead it appears to have been done with something like a drill.

What actually killed him however were the bullets fired into his chest at close range, probably by someone standing over him as he lay on the ground. The last two hit him in the head.

Now these forces are set up, trained, and equipped by the US... but the work they do is too embarrassing for the US to admit as much. Instead, it's just another example of how savage Arabs, or Muslims, or whichever other less enlightened ethnic or religious group it is, can be. And here's the thing:

Hassan an-Ni'ami may well have been a terrorist. Or he may have had knowledge of that terrorism. Or he may have been someone who objected too loudly to foreign troops being in Iraq. We will never know. He had no opportunity to defend himself, no lawyer, no trial. His interrogation and killing were a breach of international law.

But "it's just war", isn't it, Deltaboy? And that makes it all all right.

If you really think it's ok, try a simple thought experiment. I say simple... it might tax your imagination to its utmost, I don't know. Try imagining your own country invaded by a foreign power. Let's say the Chinese decided to liberate the US from the tyrant George Bush. And let's say they succeeded in occupying the country. Would you put on a uniform to go and fight a massive army of occupation? If you complained about foreign troops in the country, would you object to being picked up, tortured and shot in the head? Because that's what happens in these countries where US-backed death squads run rampant. There's precious little assurance that they're getting the right people, and certainly no trial, no chance for the victims to defend themselves against allegations.

As for Yasser Salihee, the journalist... there was no checkpoint, according to the most detailed account I could find.

The route he chose was not blocked off and there was no sign warning motorists to halt, witnesses say. As he neared the scene of the military operation, a U.S. Army sniper fired at his car. One bullet hit a tire. The other hit Salihee in the forehead. That bullet also severed fingers on his right hand, indicating he was holding up at least one of his hands at the time he was killed. U.S. officials are investigating the shooting.

Hmm... an unspecified military operation in his neighbourhood. He'd just popped out of his house to run an errand. A sniper kills him. It's better evidence that he was deliberately killed than is raised against most of the people killed by the death squads.

Originally posted by Astygia
Some are decent..implies that most are not.

Perhaps I should have said "many" rather than some. I'm British but have lived in the States and was amazed at the militarization of the culture. I met far more Americans who have, as they like to say, "served" than I've ever met British ex-servicemen. And like anyone else, I try to put together a picture of the world around me from as many sources as I can.

You are correct that the enemy is dehumanized, but this is nothing new, nothing specific to the USA.

It's not specific to the USA, but it does speak to the issue of whether people are "decent" or not. And it is relatively new - in both World Wars there were instances of people not wanting to kill - firing to miss, for example. Training became tougher and more dehumanising as a result.

Politicians massage figures; the military has no need to lie about its losses. How do you think this information is coming out btw?

Have a look at this thread and see what you think. I find it plausible.

(I'm sorry, when I read about "hundreds" of insurgents being killed in Afghanistan or Iraq, I don't believe all of them are insurgents - who are, in any event, simply resisting an illegal occupation of their country) and they lie about pretty much anything that takes their fancy to lie about.

Or should coalition soldiers let themselves die because they, like others, were lied to?

As I said, just don't go. Use your conscience and don't commit war crimes. If I were in a situation in which my life were on the line I know I'd shoot first. But these days I know enough to spot nonsense like the Iraq propaganda (now being repeated almost word-for-word about Iran) a mile off. It's no consolation for the kids who are out there now and who swallowed all the guff whole, but as soon as you wake up to what a crock it is, I think you should quit.

Plus I remember with shock a Pentagon news conference about the Afghanistan invasion in which (I think) General Stufflebeem said "we don't keep track of civilian casualties".

There's no way; insurgents kill Iraqis on an hourly basis.

Actually, I was talking, in that instance, of US troops in the invasion of Afghanistan. I know it's not easy on the ground to give anything like a sensible body count, but my point is the US military, as exemplified by their spokesman Stufflebeem, were simply not interested in whether or how many civilians had been killed.

And the point of this thread is death squads, not US military patrols. Death squads - specially formed, trained and equipped brigades, staffed by Iraqis, trained and equipped by the US to spread terror.

Again, I don't discount the possibility of spooks using these methods, but the question you need to ask yourself is why? What does America gain from letting its agents (or even soldiers, yes I admit it's possible given the recent trials) run around and kill civilians at will?

The answer is nothing, except an extremely bad international reputation if they are discovered. And at this point, I would hope that Bush isn't so stupid as to want his rep to get any lower. I think this is important enough to consider.

The US already HAS an extremely bad international reputation. Go and read the Dennis Kucinich letter to see why. Go back to the first link in the thread, click on the "readers' response" link in the middle, and you'll find the justification for the tactic, which is basically to make the locals more scared of the government than they are of the insurgents. No, it doesn't make sense, it's irrational... but it's how people like Rumsfeld think.

Plus, I think the US wants to encourage sectarian violence, that's part of the covert agenda. It will make the country easier to partition. Watch the Kurds get the bit with the oil in.

The situation is more complicated than this. During the initial two years, morale was high because this crap hadn't come out. You cannot use current knowledge to retroactively judge people that weren't in the know.

I'm not. I'm saying if you have doubts, now, you should act on them. I'd really love it if the facts had come out earlier... but most Americans think their press is free and unbiased and that's a misconception that causes a lot of problems. And I understand there are consequences. Some soldiers are facing up to them.

Here is an article detailing one British soldier's refusal, and it speaks to the reputation of US soldiers around the world and the dehumanisation process discussed earlier:

An SAS soldier has refused to fight in Iraq and has left the Army over the "illegal" tactics of United States troops and the policies of coalition forces.

After three months in Baghdad, Ben Griffin told his commander that he was no longer prepared to fight alongside American forces.

He said he had witnessed "dozens of illegal acts" by US troops, claiming they viewed all Iraqis as "untermenschen" - the Nazi term for races regarded as sub-human.

The decision marks the first time an SAS soldier has refused to go into combat and quit the Army on moral grounds.

Mr Griffin, 28, who spent two years with the SAS, said the American military's "gung-ho and trigger happy mentality" and tactics had completely undermined any chance of winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi population. He added that many innocent civilians were arrested in night-time raids and interrogated by American soldiers, imprisoned in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison, or handed over to the Iraqi authorities and "most probably" tortured.

Mr Griffin eventually told SAS commanders at Hereford that he could not take part in a war which he regarded as "illegal".

This guy's no coward, and the SAS and the paras are two of the toughest regiments in the Army. He's thrown away a distinguished military career.

In turn, the military should be able to count on its political leadership to use them only when it's truly needed,

Ever heard of Brigadier General Smedley D Butler? He wrote a rather wonderful book called War is a Racket, which I think should be required reading in American schools.

asking a soldier to abandon fellows is the ultimate slap in the face.

This speaks to loyalty, a quality I do, believe it or not, appreciate. I'm not saying it's easy to just walk away. But necessary, I think so.

Generals have resigned under Rumsfeld due to his mentality; I don't see how the seperation between military and politics could get clearer.

There is no separation. I think it's supposed to be Clausewitz who said "war is politics by other means", and someone else inverted it, which is also pretty catchy. There may be disagreements between the Administration and the generals, but it doesn't demonstrate a separation, merely a disagreement about policies and outcome.

Benning is where I took BCT, home of the infantry, not the death squads. No more blanket statements, this makes you no better than those you condemn.

So this source, which says

The Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC or WHINSEC), formerly School of the Americas (SOA; Spanish: Escuela de las Américas), is a United States Army facility at Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia. Its motto is Libertad, Paz y Fraternidad (Liberty, Peace and Fraternity). [1]

The institute is a training facility operated in the Spanish language, especially for Latin American military personnel. Around 60,000 people, roughly 1,000 per year, have taken courses. The SOA was renamed to WHISC, in 2001, as part of the National Defense Authorization Act.

The school is frequently cited as an example of United States' alleged support for regimes in Latin America that have a history of employing death squads and otherwise infringing upon human rights. The school has attempted to rectify this by introducing courses that cover democracy and human rights topics; however, many have alleged that these classes are only taken by a few students and that the minimum of eight hours of ethical instruction mandated by recent law is not high enough to be effective.

...is incorrect? And this source, which has a lot of detail and photographs? This is how they define the SOA:

The School of the Americas (SOA), in 2001 renamed the “Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation,” is a combat training school for Latin American soldiers, located at Fort Benning, Georgia.

Initially established in Panama in 1946, it was kicked out of that country in 1984 under the terms of the Panama Canal Treaty. Former Panamanian President, Jorge Illueca, stated that the School of the Americas was the “biggest base for destabilization in Latin America.” The SOA, frequently dubbed the “School of Assassins,” has left a trail of blood and suffering in every country where its graduates have returned.

So, you trained at Fort Benning. Are we talking about the same Fort Benning? Because, if so, there seems to have been a lot going on at that place that you didn't see. I'm not trying to say you weren't there... I'm trying to say that there's a lot of stuff happening that is kept pretty quiet.

[edit on 4-10-2006 by rich23]

Originally posted by rich23

That it's extra-judicial state terrorism.

Thats funny, when hijackers or terrorists commits act of terrorism and Delta comes in to kill them, you call it state terrorism. So if terrorists decided to take a school full of children hostages and Delta comes in kills them, you call it state terrorism.

Please tell me when the US declared war on Indonesia, Guatemala, El Salvador, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, etc. etc. It's not war. The US goes in, overthrows a government, and supplies lists to its tame death squads of so-called "troublemakers" including union leaders and academics. Most, if not all of whom, have never taken up arms in their lives.

O please whatever, was the conflict in Vietnam a war? The U.S. didn't declare war against North Vietnam at the time. So what do you call it?

That's the way death squads work, and that's why I have no interest in being drawn into an irrelevant discussion about Delta Force, although I suspect that they too are just murdering people on the flimsiest of evidence.

Yes its based on your suspicion and not based on facts.

Which side were the thousands of people who disappeared in Chile on? And in Argentina... and so on and so on. War is a legal term, deltaboy. Supposedly the good guys abide by the rules. But this is my point. The US is NOT the good guy in this.

Don't guerilla groups kidnapped people in Latin America? For example the FARC or M-19? We have guerilla groups and anti guerilla groups called paramilitaries and they do things dirty on both sides. Was it a war? Or just a conflict.

Col. James Steele, for example. Mentioned several times in previous posts. Also, John Negroponte... I'll be getting to these names in my next few posts, because some more details are emerging and I shall be covering this from a couple of other angles.

Mentioned as commander of the Wolf Brigade as you said? Thought he was just an adviser.

And about John Negroponte, I like to use your msnbc source.

www.msnbc.msn.com...

There is no evidence, however, that Negroponte knew anything about the Salvadoran death squads or the Iran-Contra scandal at the time.

Originally posted by rich23
I know, pcx. I'm just hoping that some of the righties will have the guts to come on here and either try and dispute the facts or justify it. I should have called this thread "US-backed death squads in Iraq". That might have gotten their attention.

[edit on 19-4-2006 by rich23]

I think we have some political bating here mods..... where are those 2000 point penalties?

I like to use your source on about the reporter and why he was killed.

By Richard C. Paddock
Times Staff Writer

07/25/05 "Los Angeles Times" -- -- BAGHDAD — Three men in an unmarked sedan pulled up near the headquarters of the national police major crimes unit. The two passengers, wearing traditional Arab dishdasha gowns, stepped from the car.

At the same moment, a U.S. military convoy emerged from an underpass. Apparently believing the men were staging an ambush, the Americans fired, killing one passenger and wounding the other. The sedan's driver was hit in the head by two bullet fragments.

The soldiers drove on without stopping.

This kind of shooting is far from rare in Baghdad, but the driver of the car was no ordinary casualty. He was Iraqi police Brig. Gen. Majeed Farraji, chief of the major crimes unit. His passengers were unarmed hitchhikers whom he was dropping off on his way to work.

"The reason they shot us is just because the Americans are reckless," the general said from his hospital bed hours after the July 6 shooting, his head wrapped in a white bandage. "Nobody punishes them or blames them."

Does it mean they wanted to kill them because they also wanted to investigate about death squads? Doesn't say.

Among the biggest threats U.S. forces face are suicide attacks. Soldiers are exposed as they stand watch at checkpoints or ride on patrol in the turrets of their Humvees. The willingness of the assailants to die makes the attacks difficult to guard against. By their nature, the bombings erode the troops' trust of the public; every civilian becomes suspect.

U.S. military officials say the troops must protect themselves by shooting the driver of any suspicious vehicle before it reaches them.

Heavily armed private security contractors, who number in the tens of thousands, also are authorized by the U.S. government to use deadly force to protect themselves.

One contractor who works for the U.S. government and saw a colleague killed in a suicide bombing said it was better to shoot an innocent person than to risk being killed.

The Opel hatchback is a model favored by insurgents.

The brothers were in the fast lane as a U.S. military convoy of three Humvees was entering the highway from the Gailani onramp. Neither of them saw the soldiers, Abdul-Jabbar said.

Abruptly, Salah slumped over into his brother's lap. Abdul-Jabbar asked what was wrong and then saw blood pouring from Salah's head. There was a single bullet hole in the windshield.

He saw the convoy moving ahead as he pulled over to the side of the road. He said he had seen no signal to slow down and heard no warning shot.

The soldiers turned around and came back a few minutes later. One said he was sorry, Abdul-Jabbar said. Together they waited more than an hour for an ambulance to arrive.

"I asked them, 'Why didn't you shoot me? I am the driver,' " Abdul-Jabbar recalled. "But they didn't answer me."

They killed an architect. He must be a threat to deathsquads.

In Iraq, the U.S. military has redefined the rules of the road.

Military checkpoints — elaborate affairs with mazes of concrete barriers, razor wire and snipers' nests — have been set up at intersections all over Baghdad. Signs are posted in English and Arabic saying "Deadly Force Authorized." Cars that approach too quickly risk being fired upon by troops who shoot to kill.

At times, troops set up temporary checkpoints during raids or other military operations. These can be even more dangerous for civilians because they can appear on city streets without warning.

Military convoys, usually made up of three Humvees, patrol the streets. In each vehicle, a gunner stands with his upper body partially exposed and ready to operate a machine gun mounted on the roof. For troops, it is among the most hazardous places to be in Iraq.

The military expects all vehicles to stay at least 100 yards from a convoy. When cars come too close, troops signal them to move back, sometimes by waving a little stop sign and sometimes by holding up a clenched fist.

Some Iraqis say the fist can be easy to miss. It also can be confusing for motorists in Iraq, where the normal signal for stop is an upraised open hand, as it is in the United States.

He was killed because the American soldiers view him as a threat. As the article mentions the soldiers as jittery. Shoot first ask questions later. That simple. No conspiracy.

Originally posted by rich23


So are Americans...

www.abovetopsecret.com...'

And some of those Americans are saying there is no proof while others including you says otherwise. And please...using the source Rense is not very reliable.

Well this was just in today.

[url=http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061004/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_police;_ylt=AiTYt36pHS8SOF5OkD3TaVkDW7oF;_ylu=X3o'___'BhZDJjOXUyBHNlYwNtdm5ld3M-]Link[/ur l]

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi authorities have taken a police brigade out of service and returned them to training because of "complicity" with death squads in the wake of a mass kidnapping in Baghdad this week, a U.S. military spokesman said Wednesday.

The kidnapping took place on Sunday, when gunmen stormed into a frozen meats factory in the Amil district and snatched 24 workers, shooting two others. The bodies of seven of the workers were found later but the fate of the others remains unknown.

Sunni leaders blamed Shiite militias and suggested security forces had turned a blind eye to the attack.

The top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell, said the Iraqi police brigade in the area had been ordered to stand down and was undergoing re-training.

"There was some possible complicity in allowing death squad elements to move freely when they should have been impeding them," he told a Baghdad press conference.

"The forces in the unit have not put their full allegiance to the government of Iraq and gave their allegiance to others," he said.

The suspended brigade has about 650-700 policemen, Interior Ministry spokesman Lt. Col. Karim Mohammedawi said.

Sunni leaders blamed Shiite militias. What does that tell you?

Originally posted by rich23

Perhaps I should have said "many" rather than some. I'm British but...

Fair enough.

It's not specific to the USA, but it does speak to the issue of whether people are "decent" or not. And it is relatively new - in both World Wars there were instances of people not wanting to kill - firing to miss, for example. Training became tougher and more dehumanising as a result.

No offense, but this speaks to your lack of knowledge in regard to the evolution of military training, at least in the USA. If anything, training has become far less tough over the years.

Most soldiers don't want to kill, but training does not make you indecent. No war is wrong with compassion. But by this logic, you're saying that all soldiers worldwide are indecent, yes? Because there is no combat school in any nation that doesn't dehumanize the perceived enemy. I am wondering if you are unintentionally turning "dehumanized" into "demonized".

Have a look at this thread and see what you think. I find it plausible.

Many things are plausible, this doesn't make them true or likely. Again, many generals have resigned in disgust over this. But the military's duty is to country. The military knows that when its soldiers die, that soldier's family will be notified, and in this day and age it's pointless to hide it. So leave it to the politicians to obfuscate it.

As I said, just don't go. Use your conscience and don't commit war crimes. If I were in a situation in which my life were on the line I know I'd shoot first. But these days I know enough to spot nonsense like the Iraq propaganda (now being repeated almost word-for-word about Iran) a mile off. It's no consolation for the kids who are out there now and who swallowed all the guff whole, but as soon as you wake up to what a crock it is, I think you should quit.

I cannot make you think something different, but you also cannot expect hundreds of thousands of soldiers to just quit because you think it would help. You are calling for the elimination of people who have taken an oath, when you should instead be working against those abusing that oath.

Actually, I was talking, in that instance, of US troops in the invasion of Afghanistan. I know it's not easy on the ground to give anything like a sensible body count, but my point is the US military, as exemplified by their spokesman Stufflebeem, were simply not interested in whether or how many civilians had been killed.

I've never been to Afghanistan, but the situation is similar, given that the cultures are almost identical. Again, you seem to think that because they are not keeping track of civilians, they just don't care. This is untrue; as I said before, there is no way of doing so accurately or efficiently. And you'll have to excuse a military man for caring more about his soldiers than foreign civilians.

And the point of this thread is death squads, not US military patrols. Death squads - specially formed, trained and equipped brigades, staffed by Iraqis, trained and equipped by the US to spread terror.

This is hard to articulate, but I'll do my best.

Ask an American how they feel about the CIA or NSA. Most of their answers, whether they are hostile or friendly in nature, will be formed as if these agencies really aren't part of America, at least in their minds.

I'm asking that you just be somewhat considerate when addressing this sort of thing.

Further, whether or not spooks are training Iraqis to be death squads, why do you not blame Iraqis for killing their own people, regardless of where they trained?

The US already HAS an extremely bad international reputation...

And why would anyone want it to be worse? So we could produce even more enemies and unite them against us? I'm not saying that this isn't happening to further a political agenda, but by your own admission you point at Rumsfeld. The blame goes to the administration, and those individuals whose intentions are other than protecting the country. Not "US forces" as a whole.

I'm not. I'm saying if you have doubts, now, you should act on them.

Again, there is not much you can do to act on doubts when you're in the military. If you refuse to deploy to war, you are a criminal, and you are abandoning your fellow troops.

If you want my opinion, the JCOS should take matters into their own hands and tell this administration we're pulling out. But for a soldier to leave, it must be as ordered, honorably.

He said he had witnessed "dozens of illegal acts" by US troops, claiming they viewed all Iraqis as "untermenschen" - the Nazi term for races regarded as sub-human....

Soldiers can have their own views, but there is no excuse for atrocities.

But here it seems you are again tying "death squads" to soldiers as a whole, else you wouldn't have mentioned it here.

This guy's no coward, and the SAS and the paras are two of the toughest regiments in the Army. He's thrown away a distinguished military career.

As have several US generals thrown away much more distinguished and promising careers.

This speaks to loyalty, a quality I do, believe it or not, appreciate. I'm not saying it's easy to just walk away. But necessary, I think so.

For most soldiers, it's more than not easy, it's impossible.

There is no separation. I think it's supposed to be Clausewitz who said "war is politics by other means", and someone else inverted it, which is also pretty catchy. There may be disagreements between the Administration and the generals, but it doesn't demonstrate a separation, merely a disagreement about policies and outcome.

Rich, I'm surprised you dissolve this issue. There is a disgreement about means, method, motive....so many things I don't have the space to list them. Don't explode one issue and oversimplify another to help your point along.

So, you trained at Fort Benning...

Whether you realize it or not, you are using the Bush logic to attribute guilt to the military. The SOA is at Benning, which again is home of the infantry, the best place to receive combat training. What foreigners do after training, you cannot hold the US as a whole accountable for. This is the same as holding Saddam responsible for terrorists training in Iraq. Again, Bush logic.

Respectfully.

Originally posted by deltaboy
Thats funny, when hijackers or terrorists commits act of terrorism and Delta comes in to kill them, you call it state terrorism. So if terrorists decided to take a school full of children hostages and Delta comes in kills them, you call it state terrorism.

This thread is about death squads in Iraq. My contention is that they're US-trained. Your point - irrelevantly bringing in Delta force again has nothing to do with this. But irrelevance, and denying history, is your strong suit. For example:

Please tell me when the US declared war on Indonesia, Guatemala, El Salvador, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, etc. etc. It's not war. The US goes in, overthrows a government, and supplies lists to its tame death squads of so-called "troublemakers" including union leaders and academics. Most, if not all of whom, have never taken up arms in their lives.

O please whatever, was the conflict in Vietnam a war?

Excuse me... was Vietnam in the list above? Mind you, the US did use death squads in Vietnam, now that you mention it. It was called Operation Phoenix IIRC.

That's the way death squads work, and that's why I have no interest in being drawn into an irrelevant discussion about Delta Force, although I suspect that they too are just murdering people on the flimsiest of evidence.

Yes its based on your suspicion and not based on facts.

a) That's why I used the word "suspicion", because I couldn't be bothered to do any research... not exactly a big debating point, really, as it's something I already admitted in the post and
b) I've put the word "irrelevant" in bold to alert you to the fact that you keep trying to draw discussion away from the issue at hand.

Don't guerilla groups kidnapped people in Latin America?

And this disproves the existence and funding of US-backed death squads how, exactly? More irrelevance.

Mentioned as commander of the Wolf Brigade as you said? Thought he was just an adviser.

OK, the titular commander, perhaps not. But the puppet master, certainly. As for Negroponte, I'm sure that it's just a coincidence that he showed up and the death squads were formed at the same time. Yeah, riiiight. As for "absence of evidence", there's no absence of evidence to show that he was connected to previous use of death squads... but this evidence takes time to emerge. Just wait. It'll come out, eventually.

Mmmmm... more irrelevance.

Originally posted by deltaboy
Does it mean they wanted to kill them because they also wanted to investigate about death squads? Doesn't say.

Thank you for posting several instances showing that innocent people are routinely killed by trigger-happy US soldiers! Well done!

It also has nothing to do with anything I've posted. There are plenty of people killed by US soldiers in Iraq. Most of them have nothing to do with investigating US-backed death squads. Please try and focus on relevancy in your postings.

That post about the US military "redefining the rules of the road" is utterly demonstrative of the repressive attitude of an occupying power. Holding up a clenched fist as a signal to stop, when the accepted signal is an open hand palm out, is just STUPID. There is no other word for it. And it gets people killed. Plus, just to remind you -

The route he chose was not blocked off and there was no sign warning motorists to halt, witnesses say

If it isn't a conspiracy, then it's just another war crime committed by participants in an illegal war for oil. Your choice.

Originally posted by deltaboy
Sunni leaders blamed Shiite militias. What does that tell you?

It tells me it's a mess that's spiraling out of control, and it does nothing to disprove any of the points I've been making so far. The participants in this situation are not monolithic. Not all US troops are crazed trigger-happy lunatics. Not all US personnel know about death squads, or would support their use if they knew. Not all Sunnis want to kill Shia, and vice versa. It's a very unstable mess, and US policies have in large measure caused it... and some shadier elements want it to be a mess to make the partition of Iraq easier further down the line.

Originally posted by rich23

This thread is about death squads in Iraq. My contention is that they're US-trained. Your point - irrelevantly bringing in Delta force again has nothing to do with this. But irrelevance, and denying history, is your strong suit. For example:

Now you say its irrevelant, previously you say that if the United State was to deploy Delta as its "deathsquad" when targeting any particular group for example Al Qaeda. You call it state terrorism. Thats your stereotype.

Excuse me... was Vietnam in the list above? Mind you, the US did use death squads in Vietnam, now that you mention it. It was called Operation Phoenix IIRC.

Yes I mentioned it. What kind of conflict do you call it in Vietnam? Vietnam war or something else? We use our own special forces as well as the local population to be used as counterinsurgency. Think it as the equivalent to VC.

a) That's why I used the word "suspicion", because I couldn't be bothered to do any research... not exactly a big debating point, really, as it's something I already admitted in the post and
b) I've put the word "irrelevant" in bold to alert you to the fact that you keep trying to draw discussion away from the issue at hand.

Yes, I use your word "suspicion" because thats how you prefer it.

And this disproves the existence and funding of US-backed death squads how, exactly? More irrelevance.

No, its true that the U.S. backed counterinsurgency groups by training them and sending them back in to fight Marxist Communist guerrilla forces. We don't call it deathsquads. People tend to call it something else. Remember that people use the phrase one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist.

OK, the titular commander, perhaps not. But the puppet master, certainly. As for Negroponte, I'm sure that it's just a coincidence that he showed up and the death squads were formed at the same time. Yeah, riiiight. As for "absence of evidence", there's no absence of evidence to show that he was connected to previous use of death squads... but this evidence takes time to emerge. Just wait. It'll come out, eventually.

Yeah I'll wait until your evidence comes up.

[edit on 5-10-2006 by deltaboy]