Look at this Ghoulishness

[ck4829]

Ten days after the murder of the Archbishop (Romero), Roberto D'Aubuisson explained to his American Republican supporters, in a meeting room of the U.S. House of Representatives, that "In order to define the State Department policy, we could use this axiom: who is a communist? Those who consciously or unconsciously collaborate with the Soviet cause. We can ascertain that present State Department policy toward Central America has candidly favored communist infiltration." That was, word for word, the line peddled at the 1980 Buenos Aires meeting of the CIA's Confederación Anticomunista Latina, CAL, that D'Aubuisson would attend in September, in celebration of the Bolivian Cocaine Coup.

Also attending the September 1980 CIA/CAL celebration was John Carbaugh, an aide to Republican Senator Jesse Helms. Helms, a rabid red-baiting segregationist in the 1950's, was an enthusiastic supporter of the fascists. As a ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, of course, Helms knew all there was to know about the death squads, but that didn't stop him from solemnly taking testimony from ARENA's (which D'Aubuisson was the leader of) distinguished killers. Between 1980 and 1992 Helms helped funnel $6 billion into the Salvadoran military.

Hobnobbing with Carbaugh at the CAL confab was Stefano delle Chiaie, Klaus Barbie's top aide. Carbaugh had extensive personal contact with D'Aubuisson, and was instrumental in packaging the ARENA publicity campaign in Washington. Also attending the 1980 CAL meeting was Margo Carlisle, legislative aide to Senator James McClure (R-ID) and staff director of the Republican Conference of the U.S. Senate. Carbaugh and Carlisle hired Mackenzie-McCheyne to handle ARENA's advertising, while Paul Weyrich taught ARENA operatives effective campaign tactics.

In 1980 ARENA killed at least 10,000 Salvadorans, including quite a few members of the new progressive junta, which collapsed under the terror. In July of 1980 D'Aubuisson was fêted in Washington by the Heritage Foundation, the Council for Inter-American Security, the American Security Council and the American Legion. ARENA became, under Reagan, the very symbol of democratic liberalism and the recipient of all the military hardware it could absorb. When the going got too tough for the freedom fighters of ARENA, of course, they could always count on American jets to drop high explosives and napalm on El Salvador's desperate campesinos. The ranks of the FMLN, the Marti Front for National Liberation, swelled, as whole villages were incinerated.

http://www.drugwar.com/setco.shtm

[Lydia Leftcoast]

1. I remember those days all too well, and to their ever-lasting shame

far too many Dems actually supported this butchery in the name of "anti-Communism."

This includes most of the early DLC members, including Al Gore, which was why I was never as enthusiastic about Gore as a lot of people are.