The name, short
and typical, reminds of Texan rangers: James Steele. Fighting in Vietnam
during ten years of war, Steele received the usual promotions, took the
appropriate courses and, in 1984, as a specialist in counter-insurgency, was
sent to assist in the repression of the dictatorship in El Salvador. El
Salvador is the most poignant testimony of human violence by the Empire in the
American continent, and the world.
For over ten years - from October 1979 to June 1991 - the Salvadoran people
were subjected to an ordeal that had not been recorded in history, with a view
to its population, which was only 4,500,000 inhabitants. It is to remember that
back in March 1980, the Christians of Latin America had their first martyr, Dom
OscarRomero, killed when officiating a Mass in the small chapel of El Salvador.
Much more than Thomas Beckett - Archbishop of Canterbury, murdered in his
cathedral in 1170 by political disagreements with King Henry I and 3 years
later canonized by Alexander III - Oscar Romero was a martyr of Christianity.
The Vatican, under Wojtyla and Ratzinger would rather consider holy Jose Maria
Balaguer, founder of Opus Dei, and his companion, Franco, the tyrant of the
Spanish people. The process of beatification of Archbishop Romero, on the
initiative of Christians from El Salvador, is duly forgotten in the Vatican.
It was in El Salvador that Colonel James Steele stood out as an American
"hero" of our time, advising the repressive forces of the
dictatorship in the methods of dirty war, including the torture of political
prisoners. He was sent to the country in 1984, at the height of the civil war
and the alliance of the United States, under Reagan, with the extreme right in
Central America, and served there for two years.
During this period, he participated with the famous Oliver North, in the
smuggling of weapons to Nicaragua at Ilopango airport.
Back in the United States, in 1986, Steele returned to his routine tasks, until
leaving the Army. But in 2003, his knowledge and experience in El
Salvador was recommend to Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense to Bush as
indispensable in the "dirty war"against Iraq, and those tactics
were reconvened.
Steele was not subordinated to his natural superiors in Iraq, but rather
directly to Rumsfeld. As a thorough investigation was conducted by
peloGuardian, and released last week, General Petraeus, chief of military
operations in Baghdad, instructed another retired colonel, James Coffman, to
accompany Steele in his activities.
A report in the Guardian, with the participation of BBC Arabic, demonstrates
that the Pentagon determined and was complicit in torture in Iraq. During his
tenure there, Steele organized groups of Shiites against Sunnis and oversaw the
secret detention centers for militants, in which torture was systematic. The
two colonels guided and supervised interrogations by known methods: electric
shocks, extracting fingernails, beatings to the genitals, impalement,
stick-to-macaw.
In one of those secret centers, also maintained by secret funds, according to
the testimony of General Muthader Iraqi al-Samari, was a 14 year old boy who
was hanged to a column, with his hands tied above his head. The body was blue
due to the numerous bruises caused by blows received.
James Steele is an example of the "heroism" for the American society
of our time.
On the other hand, is an example of real redeeming dignity and heroism for the
American people, the soldier Bradley Manning, who is being tried for the
release of documents that showed, clearly, the perpetration of these and other
crimes.
Translated from portuguese by Lisa Karpova.
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