Don’t Return to a Grim Chapter of Our History

New York Times: After the failure of our costly ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, our government is expanding its special operations forces in many countries. The regular Army is deploying units under special ops as well, and now 600 American soldiers are operating in Honduras in the name of the drug war.

This emerging U.S. doctrine is glamorous and cheap, leaves fewer American casualties, and can be conducted in the shadows, undermining the checks and balances expected by Congress, the news media, investigative researchers and pesky protesters.

In Latin America, things may grow worse. The region knows, while North America forgets, that the C.I.A. and Green Berets tried to thwart 20 popular insurgencies and support military dictatorships for decades. Now in many of those same countries, like the powerhouse Brazil, the insurgents have come to power through elections, and the United States is marginalized, with most of Central and South America demanding alternatives to the military war on drugs. See Spanish original