In the Arena

Death Squads

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A reader writes

Hey, Joe. How about addressing indications that the Bush Administration has employed the “Salvador” strategy to train death squads to take out militia leaders?

I certainly hope so. If ever there was an appropriate circumstance for covert action–in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere–it is the effort to find and eliminate terrorists. They really are the enemy, you know.
Update and Correction: I should be more specific here. I am completely in favor of using covert U.S. assets to eliminate known terrorists. I am not in favor of training Iraqis for covert actions, since–as several readers have pointed out–we’d be taking sides in a civil war, although I am open to using carefully chosen Afghan assets to take covert action against the Taliban and Al Qaeda networks.
I am also–and this may shock some people–opposed to killing nuns, and to the actions of the right-wing death squads in El Salvador.