Drones, Kill Lists, And The Phoenix Program

Written by: Thor Benson

Last revised by: Michael Caldwell

The Allegant

The use of drones and President Obama’s “Kill List” have dominated military related news for many months now, and it has begun to shed light on what the American public deems as the proper way to achieve the military’s goals. During the Iraq War there was significant controversy over the use of water boarding and other torture techniques being used to get information about the enemy. In early 2004 the United States learned of abuses and torture committed in the Abu Ghraib prison, cases including sexual abuse and murder.

Under the guise of “counter-terror” the Obama administration has implemented acts like the NDAA, which gives the executive branch the power to have the military arrest and indefinitely detain any American citizen suspected of being associated with terrorists or groups that support terrorists. President Obama enacted an administrative policy against the indefinite detention clause of the NDAA, which stays in effect as long as he is president, but there is no guarantee future presidents will not seek to support it to further their counterterrorism goals.

We mark these acts as deplorable, but when people like Julian Assange reveal information about such atrocities they are crucified. Assange recently exposed 1.7 million classified files from the US government, including files that show: “the Vatican may have collaborated with the US in supporting the Pinochet coup in Chile, which saw in a regime of bloodshed and disappearances,” according to RT. Assange is currently held up in an Ecuadorian embassy in London to avoid arrest.

These political moves appear to be a wave of paranoia rooted in the effects of the September 11th terrorist attacks, but you don’t have to look too far into the history books to realize that we’ve been pulling this shit for a long time now, and we’ve gotten pretty good at it. One program that stands out as comparable to these issues is the Phoenix Program, which was used during the Vietnam War. There is a lot of controversy over this program because much of the information about it is still classified, and because a lot of contradictory things have been said about it over the years. Some information about this program is evident, and it mirrors our current behavior all too markedly.

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Reposted with permission.