Assassination: A Permanent Foreign Policy?
By Bridget Moix on 11/02/2012 @ 05:37 PM
The title of the article alone should have sent us all straight to FCNL’s legislative action center to write a letter of protest to our members of Congress. “Plan for hunting terrorists signals U.S. intends to keep adding names to kill lists,” the October 23, Washington Post headline read, the latest in its “Permanent War” series. My stomach turned as I read. “Hunting”? “Kill lists”? Is this really how far our foreign policy has fallen?
No. It’s worse actually.
The article, which should be required reading for every member of Congress, goes on to describe how the U.S. government is developing a new “disposition matrix”, a high-tech database designed to go beyond current kill lists and drone strikes to more deeply institutionalize the policy and practice of targeted killing “for the long haul”, with little to no accountability or transparency.
There was a time when such a report would have led to public outrage and congressional hearings, when assassination was not publicly acceptable as a tool of U.S. foreign policy (even if it was still covertly practiced), and when the thought of it violated our fundamental understanding of democracy and rule of law, as well as our national moral conscience.
But no longer. The global war on terror begun by the Bush administration and fervently pursued in modified form under Obama has permeated nearly every aspect of our national life and, according to the Post article, is only reaching its “midpoint.” So, never mind Iraq and Afghanistan, we’ve got at least 10 more years of killing ahead of us, and now we’ve got a fancy global database to make it easier. Thank you, U.S. taxpayers.
In fact, the policies and practices now being institutionalized as core parts of U.S. foreign policy – from kill lists to drone strikes to this new, all-too Hollywoodesque “matrix” – would have once turned the stomachs of most Americans and sparked at least congressional debate if not legislative restraining action. Governments that practiced assassination were once shunned because voters and decision-makers alike understood that such policies threaten national and global security, fuel violence and attacks, waste enormous amounts of taxpayer dollars, undermine the rule of law, and violate our moral conscience. If one government, no matter how powerful, decides it can kill who it wants, where and when it wants, what’s to stop other countries from deciding they can as well?
Unfortunately, policymakers and the public seem to be forgetting that history, replacing it with a new “all war, all the time” mentality that is driving U.S. foreign policy – straight into the ground. Assassination as foreign policy has become not only acceptable, but largely accepted by the U.S. public and Congress. Permanent war is becoming the norm. U.S. government officials pride themselves on how many “terrorists” have been killed on their watch; presidential candidates argue over who will be the best at targeted killing. Most worrisome, few in the public and even fewer in Congress stand up in protest.
So what’s the antidote to permanent war mentality and high-tech matrix assassination? Forgive me for repeating myself, but, we are. Concerned citizens like us who still become disgusted and outraged by articles that tell us our government is engaging in such immoral and ineffective policies, and who write letters, visit our members of Congress, and urge policymakers to institutionalize peaceful prevention of deadly conflict, not permanent war. No database, drone, or kill list can yet compete with the power of individual conscience and human relationship.
And after all, if we don’t do it, who will?
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