U.S. Sponsorship and Support of the System of National Security States

excerpted from the book

The Real Terror Network

by Edward S. Herman

South End Press

The establishment analysts of terrorism have strained hard to find ties and surrogates that would link the assorted retail terrorists of the left to the Soviet Union. Their job would have been so much easier if they had looked at the acres of terrorist diamonds in their own backyards! The linkages between the United States and the NSSs are clear and powerful-one can show interest and purpose on the part of the superpower, ideological harmony, and a flow of training and material aid that is both massive and purposeful. It is, once again, a testimonial to the power and patriotism of the Free Press that, not only is the terrorism of the NSSs underrated, but the role of the United States as the sponsor-the Godfather-of this real terror network is hidden from view. ... the United States is portrayed as an innocent bystander, occasionally making mistakes in its anxiety to protect the citizens of Latin America from the evils of Communism, but regretful of any excesses that may sometimes occur-there. This amazing pretense is carried through despite the historical record of an openly announced role of Godfather dating back at least to 1823 (the Monroe Doctrine), the more or less steady interventionism since then, the remarkable degree of homogeneity within the NSSs, and the recent record of our role in sponsoring and managing the terror network.

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Robert McNamara argued in 1962 that U.S. training of the Latin military would be a "democratizing" force. The 18 military coups in Latin America between 1960 and 1968 suggest the enormity of McNamara's misperception of reality (or deception of Congress). There is a large body of evidence showing that U.S. training has given not the slightest nod toward either democratic values or human rights; instead, it has provided all the essentials of NSS ideology, plus the encouragement, means and support to put the NSS in place. The intent and effect of the U.S. training programs was to elevate the status, self-esteem and confidence of the Latin military and to politicize it in conservative directions. Frederick Nunn has stated that "subject to United States military influence on anticommunism the professional army officer became hostile to any sort of populism." The fundamentals of National Security ideology as regards the omnipresence of the subversive (communist) threat, total war between the forces of good and evil, and the importance of the military-security forces as protectors of Christianity, Democracy and the Free World is extremely close to the substance of thought of the U.S. military-security complex. This makes it more comprehensible that the NSS ideology blossomed in Latin America in parallel with U.S. training inputs and that relations between the U.S. military establishment and its counterparts in Latin America have been close and warm.

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The NSS was an intended outcome of U.S. efforts to contain popular forces and preserve a favorable investment climate. This conclusion follows from the open design to build up the Latin American military as a political force, the nature of the training which tended to make already conservative military personnel into reactionaries and zealots, and the general approval and support of the NSSs that emerged from that process. This conclusion is in no way qualified by the limited slaps on the wrist applied at one time or another to some of the most grotesque fascist excesses.

There is ... a large body of evidence that U.S. training and aid programs directly and indirectly encouraged and promoted death squads and torture. First, there is the stress on the great desirability of foreign investment, and therefore of a favorable investment climate for economic growth. Second, there is the focus on subversion, counterinsurgency, and a holy war against an insidious Communist enemy who comes in many guises, and who actually hates our beloved protector, the Godfather! This provided the spiritual backup to torture. Third, there is a great deal of evidence of U. S. provision of torture technology and training, which have been diffused among a great variety of client states. Electronic methods of torture, used extensively in the field and in the Provincial Interrogation Centers in South Vietnam, have spread throughout the system of U.S. clients. A.J. Langguth claims that the CIA advised Brazilian torturers using field telephones as to the permissible limits that would avoid premature death. Klare and Arnson show that U.S. firms and agencies are providing CN and CS gas grenades, anti-riot gear, fingerprint computers, thumbscrews, leg-irons and electronic "Shok-Batons" among a huge flow of "equipment, training, and technical support to the police and paramilitary forces most directly involved in the torture, assassination, and abuse of civilian dissidents." Langguth also notes that one of the pioneer death squads in Brazil, Operacao Bandierantes (OBAN) was financed through the auspices of a local business man widely thought to be a CIA agent, with encouragement given to U. S. local corporate funding by the U.S. consulate. And one of the most notorious Brazilian torturers and death squad organizers, Sergio Fleury, was introduced to the Uruguayan police through CIA contacts.

As the United States has supported torture directly via training programs and the implements of torture, and indirectly by means of its sponsorship of the NSS, it is natural that it also protects the torturers by apologetics and silence. This being official U.S. policy, the mass media have done the same. In Paraguay, for example, Al points out that although "Stroessner has said that he considers the American Ambassador to be an ex officio member of his Cabinet, the U.S. has never officially acknowledged or taken steps to prevent the use of torture by a government which appears to be very much within its sphere of influence". In Greece, to take another interesting case, torture on an administrative basis was introduced in 1967 with the takeover by the U.S.-trained, supplied and supported colonels. Al noted in its 1974 Report on Torture that "In terms of power and influence the U.S. government plays the predominant role in Greece." Al also points out, however, that U.S. criteria of acceptability and serviceability seem to be confined to strategic interests and a "congenial environment of political stability." Since the Greek torture regime met these criteria, other matters were of little account, and U.S. policy on Greek torture "as expressed in official statements and of official testimony has been to deny it where possible and minimize it, where denial was not possible. This policy flowed naturally from general support for the military regime.

Al has pointed out "a seeming paradox" in the fact that "never has there been a stronger or more universal consensus on the total inadmissability of the practice of torture: at the same time the practice of torture has reached epidemic proportions. This paradox is resolved by the fact that the greatest superpower on earth finds regimes that torture useful, and thus torture thrives and the Free World has learned to look the other way ...

.... the United States has also "voted" with its guns and money for the death squad. It can be seen in this table that all ten countries in which death squads made their appearance, or were active in the 1970s, were recipients of extensive training by U.S. military and police experts, and that except for Mexico (whose death squads have been the least conspicuous of the ten) all have been heavily subsidized militarily. Perhaps when McNamara spoke of our "democratizing" impact he was referring to the democratization of death. We may note also that in the four cases where the U.S. played a leading role in the introduction of the responsible government, death squads appeared very quickly and were of major importance in the repressive operations of the newly established NSSs. Again, the U.S. role, at a minimum, was support of the states using death squads, and thus indirect responsibility for the death squads themselves. But U. S. responsibility runs deeper when we recognize the extent of overall domination exercised by the United States over this region (considered further in the next section). On one of the principles employed to justify U.S. assistance-that it would allow greater "influence" by the supplier- we must conclude that the death squad is a manifestation of U.S. influence. Torture and the death squad are as U.S.-related-American as apple pie.

Real Terror Network