TERRORISM as a Tool of the State = Operation Condor: Clandestine Inter-American System.

[L. Coyote]

The deeper I get in this article, the better it gets. This essay deserves its own thread.
WARNING: This is graduate-level anthropology and political science reading.
It is also provides a very useful academic insight into state use of terror.

I first posted this on:
George Bush Sr. May Face Charges: Conspiring to Kidnap and Murder Political Activists
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2459135

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Operation Condor: Clandestine Inter-American System.
by J. Patrice McSherry - http://larc.sdsu.edu/humanrights/rr/PLAarticles/mcsherry.html

McSherry, J. Patrice. "Operation Condor: Clandestine Inter-American System." Social Justice, Winter 1999 v26 i4 p144.
*Article used with author's permission. Full Text COPYRIGHT 1999 Crime and Social Justice Associates

IN THE 10 YEARS SINCE THE COLD WAR'S END, THE WORLD HAS SEEN A GRADUAL
opening up of formerly Secret state archives on both sides of the East-West divide,
as well as truly astonishing developments in human rights and international law.
Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon's request for the arrest and extradition of
General Augusto Pinochet in October 1998 was perhaps one of the most
astounding of these developments, not least because this case involved a
former ally of the U.S. government in the Cold War. ..........

The arrest of Pinochet refocused world attention on the dirty wars of the Cold
War era in Latin America. A key focus of Garzon's investigation is Operation
Condor, a shadowy Latin American military network whose key members were
Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Brazil. Condor represented a
striking new level of coordinated repression among the anticommunist
militaries in the region, and its existence was suspected, but undocumented,
until fairly recently. Condor enabled the Latin American military states to
share intelligence and to hunt down, seize, and execute political opponents in
combined operations across borders. Refugees fleeing military coups and
repression in their own countries who sought safe havens in neighboring
countries were "disappeared" in combined transnational operations. The
militaries defied international law and traditions of political sanctuary to
carry out their shared anticommunist crusade. This article shows that Condor
was a parastatal system that used criminal me thods to eliminate "subversion,"
while avoiding constitutional institutions, ignoring due process, and
violating all manner of human rights. Condor made use of parallel prisons,
secret transport operations, routine assassination and torture, extensive
psychological warfare (PSYWAR, or use of black propaganda, deception, and
disinformation to conquer the "hearts and minds" of the population, often by
making crimes seem as though they were committed by the other side), and
sophisticated technology (such as computerized lists of suspects). ........

The U.S.
government considered the Latin American militaries to be allies in the Cold
War and worked closely with their intelligence organizations. U.S. executive
agencies at least condoned, and sometimes actively assisted, Condor
"countersubversive" operations. Although evidence is still fragmentary, it is
now possible to piece together information from numerous sources to understand
Operation Condor as a clandestine inter-American counterinsurgency system.

This article draws on a wide variety of data: ......

The article first examines the (scanty) literature on Condor and on state
terrorism to situate the discussion in a theoretical context. Condor's
structures and operations are reviewed and briefly compared with the
"stay-behind" projects in Europe, secret programs designed by the West for
guerrilla warfare and covert operations aimed to undermine Communist and
leftist advances. Finally, the article's conclusion reflects upon the
ideologies and doctrines that gave rise to Condor and the question of ends and
means. ............

E.V. Walter's (1969) classic analysis of 19th-century political terrorism is
still one of the best in terms of explaining the objectives of states that use
terrorism. Walter argued that state elites manipulate fear as a means of
controlling society and maintaining power. Terror is used to engineer
compliant behavior not only among victims, but also among target populations.
Walter's differentiation between victims and larger targets is key. While
victims suffer direct consequences, the targets -- larger sectors of society
-- understand the message. The underlying goal of state terrorism, Walter
suggests, is to eliminate potential power contenders and to impose silence and
political paralysis, thereby consolidating existing power relations. The
proximate end is to instill terror in society and the ultimate end is control.

Not only are there methodological obstacles to scholarly investigations of
state terrorism (primarily the difficulty of obtaining credible information),
there are also issues of acute political sensitivity, especially when one
begins to touch upon U.S. policy and operations. "Terrorism" is an acceptable
term when applied to foreign governments, but to apply it to one's own
government borders on taboo. ........

[L. Coyote]

1. "we will kill all the subversives; then we will kill their collaborators; then their sympathizers

1977 - Argentine General Iberico St.-Jean said:
"First we will kill all the subversives; then we will kill their
collaborators; then their sympathizers; then those who are indifferent...."

....

Condor Counterinsurgency Operations

In 1974 and 1975, as large numbers of people disappeared and disfigured bodies
began to be found, Latin Americans perceived a terrible new level of death
squad operations. The mutilated bodies of 119 missing Chilean leftists, many
of whom originally had been detained by Chilean security forces and others who
had disappeared, were discovered in 1975, mainly in Argentina, but also in
several other countries. Chilean newspapers printed sensationalist stories
blaming deadly "vendettas" within Movimiento de la Izquierda Revolucionaria
(MIR), a revolutionary (but not a guerrilla) organization, and other leftist
organizations. Other stories warned of a dangerous guerrilla army massing in
Argentina and poised to attack Chile. Years later, secret DINA files were
discovered showing that the 119 were disappeared and murdered as part of a
combined Chilean-Argentine security operation called Operation Colombo, linked
to Chilean and Argentine Condor operatives. DNA and Argentine intelligence
organizations had planted the false stories and false identifications of the
victims as part of a PSYWAR campaign designed to obscure and confuse .....

.....

Condor's combined operations in the Southern Cone were carried out by
squadrons of two or more South American military and/or police commandos to
abduct victims and bring them to torture centers in police commissaries,
military barracks, or abandoned buildings. Targets were immediately deprived
of any rights, blindfolded, maltreated, and never acknowledged to be prisoners
by the regime. There was no semblance of due process for the prisoners -- and
there were many thousands of prisoners. .........

Lubian described the methods of the torturers in Orletti: "they created a
relation of absolute dependence under an omnipotent and anonymous authority,
one could do nothing for himself, not the most basic thing...a glass of water,
or to be able to go to the bathroom, were worth more than all the money in the
world." Prisoners who collaborated were rewarded with drinks of water and
beaten if they didn't, creating a sense of personal responsibility for
torture. Drugs were some times used on prisoners to disorient them and make
them talk. Lubian testified that some torturers enjoyed using aberrant,
sadistic sexual tortures directed against both men and women. The torturers
all used the same name, Oscar .........

[L. Coyote]

2. The Role of National Security Ideologies and Doctrines

.....

Why did U.S. officials form alliances with antidemocratic and fascist groups
and militaries? The secret 1954 Doolittle Report sheds light on this question.
It made the case that the United States faced a total war against "an
implacable enemy whose avowed objective is world domination." Echoing the
alarmist National Security Directive/68 (NSC/68) of 1950, <65> it continued:

There are no rules in such a game. Hitherto acceptable norms of human conduct
do not apply. If the United States is to survive, long-standing American
concepts of "fair play" must be reconsidered.... We must learn to subvert,
sabotage, and destroy our enemies by more clever, more sophisticated, and more
effective methods than those used against us. <66>

As Kathryn Olmsted (1996: 110) observes, this manner of thinking evolved into
a philosophy in which the ends justified the means, giving rise to abuses. The
philosophy formed the basis for a strategic national security doctrine that
was diffused to Latin American militaries. ...................

[indepat]

5. Epitome of the art and practice of state terrorism at its zenith, with no holds barred

[countryjake]

3. thanks L. Coyote...so much to read on here this morning...

[L. Coyote]

6. waterboarding and torture needs to be placed in a context, with our death squads

and all the other atrocities we are in denial about.

If this isn't done quickly, the propaganda mill will suceed in selling torture as a uniquely American value.

[I work for workers]

4. Jackie Chan caused 9/11?!?

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

[L. Coyote]

7. George Bush Sr. May Face Charges: Conspiring to Kidnap and Murder Political Activists

More here:

George Bush Sr. May Face Charges: Conspiring to Kidnap and Murder Political Activists

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2459135