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Jan. 14, 2005 I’m struck by how little Americans understand powerlessness. An article reminded me. I read Jonah Goldberg’s column faithfully. He’s a talented, entertaining writer, and reading him is always interesting. However, in a recent column he discussed the concept of extending a so-called “El Salvador Option” (i.e., supporting native squads to assassinate opponents; death squads) to Iraq. His argument is that supporting specific squads to eliminate terrorists is morally indistinguishable from supporting large armies to eliminate terrorists. The argument may have some merit, but while defending his argument, Goldberg says a few things that call for rebuttal. In fairness, I must report that years ago, I was a Jesuit. I was in El Salvador and Central America for a brief time in the late 1980s. I knew the Jesuits who were massacred by the military in 1989. I’m no foreign policy expert, but I can address these items. Goldberg writes: “But it's worth noting that the work American special forces did in El Salvador led to successful elections and helped put an end to a civil war that had killed 75,000 people.” No. It’s true that El Salvador did hold elections, and the civil war has ended. But it had nothing to do with the work of the American special forces. The elections were possible because of a perfect storm. The Salvadoran conflict was between a brutal, repressive aristocracy against a brutal, repressive Marxist rebel militia. Until 1989, both sides were unyielding, vicious, often murderous, and determined to fight to the death. As it was, 1989 was a fatal year for communism, and that weakened any foreign support for the rebels. The rebels were in deep trouble in 1989, and they knew it. But it takes two to tango; the aristocracy could have held out. It was the anger over the Jesuits’ massacre that softened up the aristocracy. That murder outraged Salvadorans, and they forced the aristocracy to come to heel. The people’s outrage was so serious that the aristocracy, for one of the very few times in El Salvador’s history, had to back down and offer concessions. That’s how the elections became possible. It had absolutely nothing to do with American policy in El Salvador itself. Goldberg writes: “What united opponents of American policy in Central America was a vague sense that we were on the wrong side. They tittered at Reagan's declaration that the Contras were freedom fighters. They made movies that turned the leftists into the good guys in El Salvador.” No. Opponents didn’t titter and make movies, like schoolchildren who make crafts to express their feelings. People opposed American policy because we were obviously supporting a repressive, murderous regime. No American sits comfortably with that. We may have to accept that moral discomfort sometimes, because we have no other way to oppose worse alternatives, but it still leaves us anxious. In any such case, I’m guessing most Americans feel as I do; if we must support a bad guy to resist someone worse, we should do it only as long as we have to, and we should try to exploit our leverage against his injustice to the degree possible. In El Salvador, opponents saw that these were ignored. We were supporting a repressive regime, and we were acquiescing to its repression. Still, that’s just the first level of discomfort. What made it worse was the historical fact that we helped create the problem in the first place. The rebels were fighting against genuine repression. The rebels didn’t start it. The people we backed, the aristocracy, were repressive first. In essence, the aristocracy had long been stepping on the peasants’ throats, but then complained if the peasants fought back. The peasants may have been able to fight the aristocracy on its own, but against American support, they had no chance. They were powerless. Opponents of American policy simply saw the injustice, and reacted to it. The situation is muddied because of what happened after the original conflict. As we said above, El Salvador came to a relative truce. When the Sandinistas lost power in Nicaragua, American politicians tried to proclaim it as a triumph of democracy. After all, they argued, given a choice between the American-backed option and the rebels, the people chose the American option. Therefore, they back-reasoned, the rebels were illegitimate all along, and that the repressive aristocracy was legitimate all along. Therefore, they add that any opposition was opposition to American democracy. That inference is utterly false. The votes proved nothing. These votes were not referendums on the past; they were practical votes on what to do in the reality they faced at the moment. The Sandinistas were disastrous administrators in Nicaragua; they were the textbook example of why rebels who undermine government never learn the basics of governing. Their decisions were all ideological and hopeful; true governance needs to be practical and realistic. Since they knew that they couldn’t get anywhere without American help, they couldn’t ignore the fact that America opposed the Sandinistas. Sorry, boys, thanks for the revolution, but we have to please the Americans. The election was never a referendum on the revolution; it was strictly about how Nicaraguans prepared to face their future. American politicians, removed a few years, painted the elections as shining examples of benevolent American intervention. This is a misreading of what happened. It’s important that we correct any misreading of what happened in Central America, or similar situations elsewhere. Case in point: I hold that this same misreading led to a fatal assumption in Iraq; that they would welcome us as liberators. The Iraqi people didn’t embrace us at all, and the administration expected them to. That was a huge mistake. It is also disastrous to assume that the vast majority of the powerless Iraqi population, having kept their heads down while Americans and the Baathists and al-Qaeda shot at each other, were eager to take the reins of government themselves. They won’t, and it’s entirely predictable. People who never felt that the ruling government represented them are unlikely to grasp the essentials of representative government. Powerless people survive by keeping their head down. They don’t rise up in righteous indignation. They don’t band together in a united front against evil. They always stay as quiet as possible, because repressive regimes play Whack-A-Mole with dissidents. In America, we like to think that we would fight repression or political abuse, and thank God, because of our history, we probably would. That’s because we have an in-bred confidence that we, as a people, have the ultimate power over government. That’s a rare confidence. Most countries throughout history never imagined that they could contradict the monarchy or government. Tyrants got away with abuse because the people never imagined they could do anything about it. It’s obvious that the Bush administration believed that the majority of Iraqis would be delighted if we removed Saddam. Indeed, they were delighted. However, the administration also assumed, as Americans would, that Iraq would be grateful to us for the effort. We would be welcomed as liberators. The Iraqi reaction confused them; the Iraqis were glad Saddam was gone, but they were in no mood to welcome America. To an American, that reaction made no sense. The reaction makes sense if you factored in the reality that these people were repressed for many years. They don’t stick their neck out. They don’t welcome anyone. I am a conservative, generally. Nevertheless, it’s important that we learn from history properly, and listen to what history is actually teaching, instead of filtering history through an ideological lens. ------------ About the author: KC Mulville holds graduate degrees in philosophy, and is an ex-Jesuit. Now a husband and father of four, he is a programmer for databases and for the web. Email KC Mulville: kcmulville@hotmail.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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