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Date Posted: 01/26/07 11:48:17am
Author: Achilles
Author Host/IP: 67.121.113.148
Subject: a tidbit from the 26Jan07 NY Times

Were any of us aware that El Salvador had been essentially bribed to send a battalion to Iraq? El Salvador is the only Latin American nation to contribute troops to Bush's "Coalition of the Piddling." The article begins with the mother of a 20-year-old Salvadoran soldier receiving the news in 2004 of her son's death in Iraq in combat with armed followers of the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr. Her son was a member of the 380-man Cuscatlan Battalion, and the 1st Salvadoran soldier to be killed in Iraq.

"The Bush administration had been treating Salvadoran migrants well despite strong anti-immigrant sentiment in the U.S." In January 2005, there was decision by the administration to grant a 1-year extension of temporary protected status for about 250,000 Salvadorans living in the U.S. The status gives them a reprieve from deportation because of natural disasters or political turmoil at home.

El Salvador was awarded $461 million in anti-poverty funds last fall by the Millennium Challenge Corporation, an American foreign aid agency. (So, what foreign lender provided that $461 million?)

"To say that El Salvador and the United States are joined at the hip is an understatement. Nearly a third of native-born Salvadorans are living in the United States.....Those Salvadorans abroad send home about $2.5 billion every year, which represents about 17 percent of the country's gross domestic product."

Some facts from the 2007 World Almanac re El Salvador:
Population: 6.8 million; Population density: 852 per sq mi; Active troops; 15,500; Per capital GDP: $4,700; Literacy; 80.2%; Life expectancy: men 67.9, women 75.3; Infant mortality rate: 24.4; Internet: 587,500 users.

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