During the 1980s, the CIA sponsored the Contras, a terrorist group fighting the democratically elected government of Nicaragua, and also involved in drug trafficking [16]. The Contras regularly murdered people, including teachers, farm workers, nurses and nuns. The US government also supported many vicious governments in other Latin American countries, such as the Pinochet regime in Chile [17], and the Argentine dictatorships [18].
Global dominationAfter the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991 the US became the world's sole superpower. Since then it has been engaged in unending conflicts, not only in the Middle East, but all over the world. The generic enemy is now the "terrorist". Somehow this war against terrorists has allied us with the most undemocratic, brutal, nations, such as Saudi Arabia. This crusade was accelerated by the 9/11 outrage. Fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 killers were citizens of Saudi Arabia, 2 of the United Arab Emirates, 1 of Egypt, and 1 of Lebanon. None came from any of the countries we have been attacking ever since (including Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, and Pakistan).
The 2017 US military budget is over $580 billion ($825 billion if we include related items such as Veterans Affairs, and Homeland Security, which are not in the Department of Defense budget.) [19]. Our war related expenditures exceed the sum of the military budgets of the next 11 highest spenders: in descending order, China, Saudi Arabia, India, Great Britain, Russia, Japan, South Korea, Germany, France, Italy, Brazil [20]. (The 2017 North Korean military budget of $7.5 billion places it way down, in position-26, but this understates their military power significantly [21].)
Currently, there are a little under 200,000 US troops stationed in bases all over the world: 39,000 in Japan, 35,000 in Germany, 24,000 in South Korea, 12,000 in Italy, 8400 in Great Britain, 5800 in Kuwait, 5500 in Bahrain, 2200 in Turkey, etc. [22]. Why? Who, for example, are we protecting Great Britain or Italy from?
Since the demise of the Soviet Union, we have been, and continue to be, involved in wars and other military actions in countries all over the world.
TortureAfter the 9/11 attack, the US, under the Bush administration, used torture on a significant scale, at Guantanamo Bay prison and elsewhere. President Obama, tho claiming to have ended this practice, said that he would not support an investigation of torture under his predecessor's administration [23]. In the absence of a thoro investigation, we have no way of knowing if torture is still going on more secretly, and, in any event, secrecy and the failure to punish those responsible makes it more likely that the present, or a future, president will resume the use of torture on an even larger scale.
Murder by presidential decreeIn 2010, President Obama initiated a new type of action in the war on terror. This entailed a committee meeting weekly at the White House to present the President with a list of people, which might include American citizens, considered to be "Senior Operational Leaders of Al-Qa'ida or An Associated Force". The President decides which of these people should, without any legal due process, be executed [24].
This procedure was used to authorize the killing of American born citizen Anwar Awlaki. The execution was carried out via a drone strike in Yemen in September of 2011. Two weeks later, Awlaki's 16-year old son was killed in another drone strike, and his 8-year old daughter was among those killed in a January 2017 US commando attack in Yemen [25].
Under any reasonable interpretation of the US constitution, the killing of Awlaki by the US government grossly violated provisions of the fifth and sixth amendments. Several other Americans have been killed this way. More broadly, drone strikes have been used to kill thousands of other people outside of combat zones. So now there are precedents that the present, or any future, president can use to justify killing Americans (and others) on a larger scale, without due process.
What can we do?It is indeed tragic that the country founded by people such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Paine, is now in what appears to be a perpetual state of war, ruthlessly killing people all over the world. And there is no easy way to turn things around.
Perhaps, recognizing that we are on a disastrous path, enough people might organize nonviolently to consider fundamental changes in our political system. One conceivable approach that would, among other advantages, greatly reduce the role of money in politics, would be to replace elections for public office by random choices, analogous to the way jurors are selected. Such a system was used successfully in Greece two thousand years ago [26]. Doubtless, there are other ways to address this very difficult problem.
References[1] Wikipedia, "Bombing of Guernica"
[2] Wikipedia, "Bombing of Hamburg in World War II"
[3] Wikipedia, "Bombing of Tokyo"
[4] Sherwood Ross, " How The US Reversed Its Policy On Civilian Bombing", Top Scoops, August 4, 2008
[5] David Buckingham, "Effect of the North American P-51 Mustang On the Air War in Europe", 8/27/1999
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