Friday, July 20, 2012

"This spring the US drone killing program has come out of the closet...In fact, US assassination and targeted killing, with presidential approval, has been going on covertly for at least half a century...

Those who are mortified by the latest revelations of Obama’s kill list have much to learn from a more comprehensive, historical perspective on US killing around the globe.  

Who knows: Perhaps someone in Congress might even be prodded to do what Senators Fulbright and Church did in years past: hold hearings on this continuing execration taking place in our name. Until then, what follows is an introduction to this ongoing horror story.

 
Section 1 of this article briefly reviews the lethal history of the US Phoenix Program in Vietnam, the original source of subsequent US counter terrorist tactics and strategies.  

Section 2 revisits briefly the well-worn history of US kill lists and assassinations in Latin American countries, followed by the somewhat less-well-known history of US kill lists and assassinations in countries on other continents. 

Section 3 traces the direct legacy of Phoenix, even its explicit resurrection by the key architects of the US targeted killing programs in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in a growing number of “countries we are not at war with.”...

The heightened public attention paid to drone killing might very well, in time, lead to some welcome success in curtailing their use. 

But too narrow a focus on the US deployment of Predator and Reaper drones might also distract us from other forms of Phoenix-derived targeted killing still being perpetrated globally – and covertly – by our Assassination Nation."



Doug Noble is an activist with Occupy Rochester NY and Rochester Against War.



[It is true that the USA has been an 'Assassination Nation' for much more than 50 years; in fact, since the very beginning.  - Bruce]   

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