CSteele,

Now come on Steele, when have I ever called you a name you don't richly deserve?

You say: << Yet you haven't disputed a single fact I have posted>>
It ain't through lack of looking,I've been looking hard for your facts but they seem a little thin on the ground.

<< you did accuse me along with Poirot of “glean(ing) most of [our] info from lefty sites”>>
That one was easy to deduce. There is no way that any one could have had a balanced exposure to the news and still come-up with the harebrained theories you and P'rot proffer! So, either, you have only been reading way-out lefty sites, or, perusing other sites through only one jaundiced eye (and I know the latter is true of P'rot).

<<Neither you, Belly or Josephus have offered the slightest condemnation of those actions. Is it because you all support them?>>
As I pointed out before, you guys get great sadistic joy from playing a game that doesn't allow the West to win:
If it doesn't get involved it is accused of collusion.
If it does get involved you and P'rot will snipe and nitpick at every opportunity to find fault.
Talk about ticket to ride, you guys have a unlimited ticket to whine!

Dear SPQR,

Again you had the opportunity to condemn the 'Salvador Option', Runsfeld, James Steele and the death squads yet you did not. Instead we got more “generalizations, truisms and platitudes“.

I highlight the utterly sadistic nature of the torture and murder of thousands of Iraqis by these death squads and you talk about me as a sadist?

Another 'left wing' site, the Washington Post.

“OF ALL THE bloodshed in Iraq, none may be more disturbing than the campaign of torture and murder being conducted by U.S.-trained government police forces.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/03/AR2005120300881.html

And a little more about the El Salvador Option.

“The Salvador Option is an approach to counter-insurgency warfare that was utilised by the United States Department of Defense during the Salvadoran Civil War. The term was later used in the context of counter insurgency operations coordinated by Colonel James Steele, a retired special forces veteran who was nominated by Donald Rumsfeld to help organise Shi'ite paramilitaries in an attempt to quell a Sunni insurgency during the Iraq War.”

and

“Much of what the CIA and the U.S. Military Advisory Group in El Salvador actually knew about the Salvadoran death squads is still kept highly secret. Statements by U.S. officials regarding the activities of the Iraqi Interior Ministry's Special Police Commandos, and other MOI units (which have been accused either of being death squads, of being infiltrated by insurgents, or both), are equally opaque.
What is known is that both the key U.S. official behind both the Milgroup in El Salvador from 1984 to 1986, and the Special Police Commandos since it was formed in September 2004, is the same person, James Steele.”
Wikipedia

It isn't as though people didn't see it coming. It was even openly discussed before it was instigated.

“With no end to the Iraq conflict in sight, some US military strategists have been considering tactics used during the civil war in El Salvador, a brutal and bloody campaign that lasted for years.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4209595.stm

My apologies for yet another 'left wing' link. Those commies at the BBC just won't shut up.

A truth can not be ignored here.
Few informed posters could not point at the wrongs of America.
For that matter even us, our gutless back down in the 1960,s that gave Indonesia half of a country.
But too those same few, would be blind if they let the nasty anti west ,sometimes pure fabrication , blind them to the very real, self imposed troubles in the middle east and most Muslim country,s.
The left died a slow death, at its own hands.
I was part of the fabrications and lies, the jumping in on others issues pretending we not the owners of those events ran the show.
I could find something more balanced to say about some.
If they only looked at westerners having their throats cut on film.
I am an activist still, currently taking part in supporting the wonderful and brave girl the Taleban tried to murder to keep woman away from education.
Most of the left I see would climb over her body to find reason to blame the west.

Dear CSteele,

So let’s get this straight: you've found a source which ALLEGES (allegation no. 1) the existence of Salvadorian groups & Iraqi groups doing dastardly deeds. And it also ALLEGES (allegation no.2) the US military and CIA were collusive.And on the basis of that you've tried convicted and sentenced the US military and CIA (you must be the original hanging judge!).

A little presumptuous don’t you think – could it possibly be confirmation bias at work?

And here’s another angle: since some of your sources are widely read popular periodicals, as you were at great pains to point out, why-oh-why is it so essential you get Belly or Josephus or myself adding to the condemnation? Those stories alone should be evidence enough that the West is self-critiquing (pathologically so) –even on the most flimsiest of evidence.

Did you by chance, happen to come upon similar self critiques from your allies in Teheran? or ANY Islamic source which even *acknowledged* their creeds genocidal behavior?

I'll say one thing for you CSteele, you have fortitude, you will stick with your used car dealer routine right to the bitter end --even when it's apparent you're trying to sell us a rust bucket. Your partner in crime, Poirot goes missing in action whenever someone challenges her one-eyed sales pitch!

Dear Belly,

You said at the start of this thread that “I am unaware of any western involvement in the internal Muslim against Muslim killings.”

You are now aware of exactly such involvement, unless of course you are determined to close your mind to the facts.

Rumsfeld and Steele planned it, organised it, funded it and protected it. That is a matter of record. If you want to challenge it you may but you haven't thus far and I am completely convinced you can not do so.

That is not to say some Americans, especially in the regular army didn't try to stop the torture and slaughter but most like you just turned a blind eye.

My point is this, every time you come out with holier than thou statements about them vs us you are setting yourself up for a fall. Both sides have been horrendously brutal during this conflict and for every accusation of human rights abuse you can quote there will be another to pin on the opposing force. We need to condemn them all.

I was the first to raise the case of Malala Yousafzai on this forum and have followed her progress with a deep appreciation of her strength and courage. It is admirable that you are taking part in efforts to support her. All I ask is that while doing so you spare a thought for the Iraqi girl Abeer Qassim Al-Janabi the fourteen year old who was also shot in the head but didn't survive. However immediately before her death she was forced to endure being raped by three US soldiers the last of whom had just shot and killed her father, her mother and her little sister in the adjoining room.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1340207/I-didnt-think-Iraqis-humans-says-U-S-soldier-raped-14-year-old-girl-killing-her-family.html

If you don't open both your eyes you are either blind or one eyed.

Csteele,

I have no problem in believing in your death squads, just that they were the decisive factor and all would be sweetness and light without those nasty Americans. If it was all down to the death squads, then why are the killings continuing in Iraq now that the US has gone home? What about similar waves of killing elsewhere, such as killings of Coptic Christians in Egypt, the civil war in the former Yugoslavia, the Rwandan genocide, and Republicans vs. Unionists in Northern Ireland? Is the US responsible for the atrocities in these conflicts as well?