Entering the Quagmire 5

NACLAReport Beyond official rationales, the parallels to ENTERING THE Vietnam are most vividly present on the battlefield. Counterinsurgency, the doctrine devel- QUAGMIRE oped specifically for Vietnam, is today the es- sence of U.S. aid and advice to the Salvadorean junta. Search-and-destroy missions, aerial bombardments, pacification-all the tech- niques of Vietnam are now being used to ter- rorize and kill yet another peasant population. Let me assure you that we are [providing Administration officials are sensitive to the military assistance to El Salvador] with the domestic impact of the analogy. Parallels in lan- greatest prudence and caution and with the guage and actions are discussed at national lessons of the past in mind. El Salvador is security meetings, while official briefings on El not another Vietnam. Our objectives are Salvador are punctuated by assurances that limited: to help the government with its problems of training, equipment, repair and maintenance, mobility and re-supply." Walter J. Stoessel, Under-Secretary for Polit- ical Affairs, testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, March 1981. Comparisons between El Salvador and Viet- nam are heard frequently these days-in Con- gress, at protest rallies, in editorials and at State Department briefings. Some see dangerous parallels between the two wars, while others dismiss the Vietnam analogy as "an exercise in emo- tion, not analysis."' After careful examination, we think the analogy to Vietnam is appropriate and even com- pelling. It has been injected into the policy debate on El Salvador not by "nervous Nellies," as Senator Jesse Helms would have it, nor by loose leftist rhetoric. The Administration itself, by replaying the rationales and formulas of the 1960s, has evoked the memory of Vietnam and made the analogy stick. The official rationale for more arms and advisers to El Salvador plugs new variables into an old equation. Substitute Soviet expansionism for "the red tide of communism in Asia." Plug in Cuba as the surrogate where North Vietnam once fit. Add the FMLN guerrillas as the new puppets of a foreign master. Stretch the equation across the Central American isthmus to imperil Mexico, the super-domino that succeeds Japan as the ultimate target of this creeping menace. You now have the all-purpose formula for ex- plaining to the American people why U.S. pres- tige is at stake in a country so intrinsically unim- portant to U.S. interests and security. MaylJune 1981 3 "another Vietnam" is not in the making. It is of from a serious examination of their policies and little comfort, however, to hear that 56 U.S. deeds. So we all drew our own lessons from military advisers in El Salvador will not go out Vietnam. Some called it "a tragic mistake" be- on combat missions (the first 500 advisers in cause so many lives were lost in support of a cor- Vietnam were technically "civilians"). It is no rupt and ruthless regime; others saw the war as more reassuring to be told that President Rea- part of a system-imperialism-that would con- gan does not foresee the need for American tinue to pit the United States against wars of na- combat troops. (Did Eisenhower, Kennedy or tional liberation until fundamental changes took Johnson?) And most disturbing of all is the no- place at home; and still others called it a "noble tion that Vietnam will not be repeated because war" that was lost through failure of will.2 the lessons of that war have not been forgotten. Reagan and Haig fall into this last category. What lessons are they referring to? National What lesson did they learn from Vietnam? That debate was smothered by sheer relief at the war's step-by-step escalation only encourages the conclusion and buried by those with little to gain enemy and gives domestic dissidents an issue. Army regulars and their mutilated victims, ChalatenangoProvince. 4 NACLA Report 4 NACLA Report So give the Salvadoreans what they need now to win the war-and a little bit extra for insurance. Convince the real enemy (Moscow) that the United States will not hesitate along the way, and will stop at nothing short of victory. And convince the American people that it is far less painful to take the plunge than to wade into icy waters slowly and cautiously. The cure must be short and drastic. El Salvador is not another Vietnam, then, only if the strategy works and "our side" wins before there's a need for American combat troops. The Administration's argument is as simple as that. It implies an assessment of the guerrilla forces in El Salvador as a less formid- able enemy than Vietnam's victorious NLF, with no dense jungles to hide in and, as we were also asked to believe in Vietnam, diminishing support from the local population. It requires convincing the American public that it's time to shake "the Vietnam Syndrome" once and for Bodies pile up behind the San Salvadormorgue. all. agreed to "draw the line" in El Salvador even Vietnam Had White Papers Too while admitting that its junta members are "as Jimmy Carter tried to justify U.S. support for unpopular with their own people as was Viet- the Salvadoreanjuntas (there were four of them nam."' 3 between October 1979 and January 1981), by The press was equally amenable to this new citing their efforts to reform the oligarchic struc- formula for intervention. The State Depart- tures of Salvadorean society. But each wave of' ment summary of the White Paper was re- resignations by respected civilian politicians, printed and regurgitated in every major paper.4 each massacre of peasant farmers and each Forgotten by the once again gullible press were body found with tied thumbs and missing limbs, the two White Papers on Vietnam which (inves- frustrated his efforts to affix a centrist label to a tigations revealed only much later) had merely government that just wouldn't behave. provided the public, press and even part of Con- Ronald Reagan quickly dropped all pretense gress with a rationale for policy which had been of tying U.S. aid to reform, and embarked on a put in place months before. policy utterly consistent in its conspiratorial The authenticity of 18 pounds of documents, analysis of events. For Reagan, the nature of the allegedly captured from guerrilla safe-houses by Salvadorean junta is irrelevant; all that matters Salvadorean security forces, was never ques- is the nature of the alternative. By depicting the tioned. Ralph McGehee, a 25-year veteran of the opposition as puppets of the Soviet Union, any CIA and recipient of the Agency's Career In- amount of U.S. military aid can be justified on telligence Medal, wrote this response to the national security grounds alone. miraculous discovery: "Where the necessary cir- The White Paper released by the State De- cumstances or proofs are lacking to support U.S. partment on February 23, 1981, purporting to intervention, the CIA creates the appropriate prove "the central role played by the Commun- situations or else invents them and disseminates its ist countries" in El Salvador, was essential to distortions worldwide via its media operations."5 supplying that justification and shedding Car- Philip Agee, who admits to having forged many a ter's burden of proof as to the junta's good in- document in his days with the CIA, examined the tentions. At least initially, Congress fell into cache and concluded that at least two of the line. Senator Charles Percy (R-Ill.), a late-fly- documents are partly or wholly fabrications, in- ing dove on Vietnam, currently Chairman of cluding the two most sensational: one that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, describes a shopping trip for arms through socialist MaylJune 1981 5 countries and one that purports to show a link be- took the time to compare the State Department tween the guerrillas and the Cuban Department claims of arms shipments to battlefield condi- of Special Operations.6 tions. Francis Pisano of Le Monde wrote that, But even if authentic, the captured docu- "Sixty-odd guerrilla fighters at San Lorenzo ments fall far short of substantiating the conclu- had between them a single bazooka and an auto- sions drawn by the State Department in its eight- matic rifle, which had been taken from the page "summary." A Wall Street Journal article, Salvadorean Army only a few days earlier.... which appeared several months after the White Some of the guerrilla fighters on the slopes of the Paper made headlines around the world, pre- San Vicente volcano were armed with pistols, sents a thorough indictment of the White rifles, machetes and even slings. The regular Paper's accuracy, and casts doubt upon the guerrillas had FAL [Belgian] automatic authenticity of the documents themselves.7 rifles."" Other reports indicated a similar scar- Based on lengthy interviews with State De- city of arms in battle areas across the country. 2 partment officials, includingJon Glassman, the As for captured weapons displayed by the man who allegedly discovered the documents in Salvadorean National Guard, the Financial San Salvador, the article points out the follow- Times of London wrote, "The haul from Con- ing: "Several of the most important documents, chagua was typical: two dozen First World War it's obvious, were attributed to guerrilla leaders rifles, two 19th-century Mausers, three Russian who didn't write them. And it's unknown who hand grenades, and one automatic rifle of the did. Statistics of armament shipments into El type used by the Atlantic Alliance.""3 Salvador, supposedly drawn directly from the Such accounts cast doubt on the extent of out- documents, were extrapolated, Mr.

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