Mass Assassinations Lie at the Heart of America's Military Strategy in the Muslim World

[unhappycamper]

Mass Assassinations Lie at the Heart of America's Military Strategy in the Muslim World
AlterNet / By Fred Branfman

August 24, 2010 | " for every innocent person you kill, you create 10 new enemies." -- "The Runaway General," Rolling Stone, 6/22/10

The truth that many Americans find hard to take is that that mass U.S. assassination on a scale unequaled in world history lies at the heart of America's military strategy in the Muslim world, a policy both illegal and never seriously debated by Congress or the American people. Conducting assassination operations throughout the 1.3 billon-strong Muslim world will inevitably increase the murder of civilians and thus create exponentially more "enemies," as Gen. McChrystal suggests -- posing a major long-term threat to U.S. national security. This mass assassination program, sold as defending Americans, is actually endangering us all. Those responsible for it, primarily General Petraeus, are recklessly seeking short-term tactical advantage while making an enormous long-term strategic error that could lead to countless American deaths in the years and decades to come. General Petraeus must be replaced, and the U.S. military's policy of direct and mass assassination of Muslims ended.

The U.S. has conducted assassination programs in the Third World for decades, but the actual killing -- though directed and financed by the C.I.A. -- has been largely left to local paramilitary and police forces. This has now has changed dramatically.

What is unprecedented today is the vast number of Americans directly assassinating Muslims -- through greatly expanded U.S. military Special Operations teams, U.S. drone strikes and private espionage networks run by former CIA assassins and torturers. Most significant is the expanding geographic scope of their killing. While CENTCOM Commander from October 2008 until July 2010, General Petraeus received secret and unprecedented permission to unilaterally engage in operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Iran, former Russian Republics, Yemen, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Kenya, the Horn of Africa, and wherever else he deems necessary.

Never before has a nation unleashed so many assassins in so many foreign nations around the world (9,000 Special Operations soldiers are based in Iraq and Afghanistan alone) as well as implemented a policy that can be best described as unprecedented, remote-control, large-scale "mechanized assassination." As the N.Y. Times noted in December 2009: "For the first time in history, a civilian intelligence agency is using robots to carry out a military mission, selecting people for killing in a country where the United States is not officially at war."

[NNN0LHI]

1. rec

[T Wolf]

2. The government and the military believe that as long as the cost (casualties) of the wars

stays insignificant, they will be able to continue it with little objection from the public.

Seems that they are correct in that assumption.

This tactic minimizes US losses, so it is the tactic of choice.

[gazeteere]

3. I think it's time to give peace a chance.

Wasn't John Lennon absolutely right?

[T Wolf]

4. Where's the profit in that? Peace will have a chance once the warmongers are dead and buried. nt

[Octafish]

5. This is not America.

This is the America of stolen elections, of Secret Government, and of tax-evading warmongers.

"For the first time in history, a civilian intelligence agency is using robots to carry out a military mission, selecting people for killing in a country where the United States is not officially at war."

Thanks for the heads-up, UnhappyCamper. Great article!