Why would Cheney bring up El Salvador to compare with Iraq?

[No2W2004]

I just don't get this one....conjuring up memories of the secret white house, the criminal convictions of government officals (some of whom work in the shrubco white house now), the death squads, mass graves, drug and gun running as an example of a success to be emulated in Iraq?

Does Cheney really hold us in contempt that bad?

[Inland]

1. If remember El Salv, it is a bloody disaster and US culpability

Yet to Cheney and his mindset, it and Vietnam were business as usual. Chilling that he is dooming us to repeat all the same mistakes the incompetence of the past gave us.

[cali]

2. Because of a piss poor David Brooks column

in the NYT about 10 days ago in which Brooks essentially argued that the cure for the violence in Iraq is elections and based his argument on the elections in El Salvador. Another NYT columnist (I think it was Krugman) later took Brooks to task for his column, pointing out many errors and assumptions.

[el_gato]

3. Because Cheney is a Murderer

Killing poor people is a long standing U.S. foreign policy.

[tjdee]

4. To show how experienced he is.

He was THERE, in El Salvador, while Edwards was in diapers...

or that's what he insinuated.

[roseBudd]

5. Apples and oranges needs to be our point

El salvador is not made up of Sunni, Shite and Kurd. And was not artificially cobbled together by Great Britian in the 1920s.

[DeepModem Mom]

6. It's a dark world he lives in, and it showed on the screen last night --

I couldn't believe my ears when he added that black note: El Salvador???

[evilqueen]

7. Heh.

Surprised he didn't talk about Nicaragua, too. The "October Surprise" (the real one) had to do with Iran-Contra... something you'd think they'd be distancing themselves from, not calling attention to. Then again, I forgot, these people don't read.

[Eurobabe]

8. cuz unka dick's brain is stuck in the 70s

[yellowcanine]

9. According to a guy on Amy Goodman's show it was a lie anyway.

Sorry I forget the guy's name but he said he was also in El Salvador in 1982 and there were no guerrillas shooting up polling places and in fact most of the people killed during the war were at the hand of government security forces, not the guerrillas.

[RB TexLa]

10. He was speaking to his base

John Edwards did this a couple of times too. If you watch the old debates you will see this in every one of them, President, VP, Senate, you name it. Everyone goes in with a couple of things to say to either fire up or reassure their base.

Cheney was speaking to the far right wing who still get upset over the Congress "interfering with" and using the law against the Reagan administration over those events.