"Salvador strategy"

[Jim Devine <jdevine03@xxxxxxxxx>]

from SLATE's daily news summary:
> The Los Angeles Times leads with word that military planners are
working on designing a new strategy for Iraq, in case the increased
military presence fails to achieve its goals or Congress intervenes.
The plan would be based in part on the U.S. experience in El Salvador
in the 1980s and involves a decrease in troops and an increase in
training efforts....

> The LAT says the planning for the new "fallback strategy" is only
beginning and could change depending on what happens on the ground.
The U.S. military efforts in El Salvador are still controversial but
some argue that a small number of advisers can be more successful than
big military operations such as in Vietnam or Iraq. The paper waits
until nearly the end of the piece to quote some people who think
military planners should not be using El Salvador as a model for Iraq
because the two situations have little in common. The LAT also spends
some time discussing how this new planning is occurring in a divided
Pentagon where tensions are rising. While a group supports Gen. David
Petraeus and his strategy to concentrate on protecting neighborhoods,
others believe the U.S. military should switch immediately to an
advisers-only role, a strategy some believe is a recipe for failure.<

since some people on the left think that the US already has a
"Salvador strategy" in Iraq, it's useful to remember a major
difference between El Salvador back in the 1980s and Iraq now. While
ES had a unified domestic ruling class, Iraq does not.
--
Jim Devine / "The truth is more important than the facts." -- Frank Lloyd Wright