Rep. Grijalva: 'the left has an opportunity to take control' of El Salvador and US should be neutral

Congressman Raul Grijalva's campaign to ensure American "neutrality" in the March 15 Salvadoran elections is a bid designed to help the FMLN win and to erode American influence in Central America.

In the words of DemocracyNow.org, which has championed the FMLN, Grijalva is trying to "reverse longstanding US interference" in El Salvador.

Grijalva (pictured) says in an interview with DemocracyNow, "the left has an opportunity to take control of a government," and the US shouldn't intervene.

Grijalva has voiced no objections to Cuban or Venezuelan "interference" in El Salvador's democratic process. Nor has he called on the FMLN to renounce its past alliances with the Soviet Union and Palestinian terrorist groups, or its continued sympathy with the Colombian FARC and Islamist extremists.

The Arizona Democrat is co-chair of the congressional Progressive Caucus.

CISPES orchestrated fringe lawmakers to sign 'neutrality' letter

The list of signers of a letter urging President Barack Obama to be "neutral" toward the Salvadoran elections contains a rogues' gallery of the most fringe elements of Congress's loony left.

One of the signers, Rep. Jim McDermott (pictured), took a junket to Iraq in 2002 on an anti-American propaganda trip paid for by Saddam Hussein's intelligence service.

CISPES, a front of the FMLN, coordinated the campaign to enlist lawmakers to sign, according to the group's website.

The only senator who signed the letter, Bernard Sanders of Vermont, is also the Senate's only openly avowed socialist.

Members of Congress include:

Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, who led the effort in support of the FMLN, and who says the US should be neutral in El Salvador because "the left has the opportunity to take control."
Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL).
Rep. James Oberstar (D-MN), an old endorser of CISPES and other FMLN front groups from the 1980s.
Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), a former aide to Rep. Ronald V. Dellums who helped the Cuban-backed regime in Grenada run counterintelligence against a suspected pro-US individual in the Grenadian government, and who worked with Dellums in Cuba to generate support for the regime and to discredit President Reagan's concerns that the island was becoming a Soviet ally.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), considered even by Democrats to be one of the looniest people in Congress.
Rep. Jim McDermott, pictured (D-WA), disgraced when he took a Iraq propaganda tour that was secretly financed by Saddam Hussein's intelligence service.
Rep. Bob Filner (D-CA), who copped a plea last year to avoid a conviction for assaulting a woman at Dulles International Airport.
Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), the only Muslim in Congress, he has shown an aversion to federal anti-terrorist legislation.

Click here for the full listing of congressional signers of the letter.

Pro-FMLN congressman calls for US neutrality

A congressman who sympathizes with the FMLN has issued a statement signed with 32 of his colleagues calling for "neutrality" in the Salvadoran elections.

The FMLN's main American front group, the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), is publicizing the effort.

Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) led the campaign, sending the letter to President Barack Obama. The letter, according to CISPES, rejected previous US "intervention" in El Salvador - a reference to President Reagan's successful efforts to battle the FMLN into military defeat in the 1980s. (In the video, Grijalva mis-names his own country in Spanish, calling it the "United States of North America.")

According to its website, CISPES has been working since February to get congressmen to sign the letter demanding "neutrality," in a bid to prevent Washington from using its influence to persuade Salvadorans not to vote for the FMLN.

Speaking in Spanish on a CISPES video, Rep. Grijalva calls on the US not to intervene in the elections, and expresses solidarity with the radical regimes of Bolivia and Venezuela.