Death-Squad Democracy
By Christopher Dickey
Jan. 11 – Among the many tools used to build and defend pro-American democracies, murder is among the trickiest. But murder—yes, let’s insist on that word—is also quite common in the annals of nation-building, at least in my experience, and sometimes it’s been very effective. Now we hear that some of the Bush administration’s strategists are talking about what they call “The Salvador Option”, which seems to imply “death squads” (as the murderers were called in El Salvador and Guatemala) or “hit teams” (as they’ve been called in Israel).
Yes, Christopher, let’s. Let’s insist on that word.