Back To The Future

I make it a point to distinguish between describing something and advocating something because so many people seem to confuse the two e.g. predicting that the Republicans would win the election, is not the same this as saying that I want the Republicans to win the election. In fact it is for this reason that I find my self saying*, I really hope that I'm wrong so often.

Digby finds himself in the same situation in this post about the possibility that the Pentagon was exercising the "the Salvador option" in Iraq.

Did we actually perpetuate sectarian violence to force the Sunni population to "pay a price?" Did we create this civil war?

I would think that was nuts except for the fact that it is completely in keeping with the arrogance and idiocy of this administration to have thought this was a good idea. The idea behind the Salvadoran death squads, you'll recall, was to show the spics/wogs/animals that they were up against something so ruthless and violent that they would just give up and surrender. Now ask yourselves if that would have sounded reasonable to this crew, particularly since they view El Salvador as a rousing success. (In fact, the presence of war criminal Eliot Abrams in the White House may just be the most compelling clue.)

I wish I didn't believe this could be true, but it explains the strange lethargy the administration had over the past year. They had a secret plan to end the war --- training Shia death squads to put the Sunni in their place. Shockingly, it doesn't seem to have worked.

* Writing in September, I hoped that I was wrong about October Surprises in general , and a war with Iran in particular. I was wrong about the date, at least. Let's hope that I'm wrong about it completely.