The most damaging aspect of Alfonsin's reforms was his crusade to hold the military accountable for its past human rights violations, in which soldiers and members of security forces tortured and killed thousands of citizens. Alfonsin believed that this was a just solution given the years of suffering that Argentina's citizens had undergone. He proceeded with his retribution policy despite deep resentment and both passive and active resistance from the military: "Alfonsin was facing a military that had not fully reconciled themselves to the loss of their prerogatives" (Stepan, 1988, p. 115).
In Argentina, the military were traditionally viewed as the state's instrument for defending sovereignty and maintaining domestic order. The military came to see it as their primary role to protect the state from subversion by alien forces and ideas, preserve essential Argentine values, and maintain internal purity. Consequently, the military attacked all who might possibly, even in the remotest way, be or become an enemy. This overgeneralization in the selection of victims occurred partly because of the military's view that all the forces that might change traditional values and the status quo were subversive, partly because of the nature of terrorist activity in Argentina. Thus, once
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