The examples are abundant: in Iraq, which received over a billion dollars in security aid from the United States last year, security forces killed over 500 civilians and injured 20,000 during protests last October. In Burkina Faso, which received $15 million in security aid, government forces recently murdered 200 people and left their bodies in mass graves. And in the Philippines, security forces have killed 27,000 people since 2016, yet in 2018, the United States spent $78 million to provide these same security forces with weapons and training.
U.S. government officials argue that foreign civilian casualties are a necessary evil, a side effect of arming foreign governments to combat terrorism. But these are the same arguments used for decades to justify the murder of Black Americans by police officers; that in the name of “security” our government somehow has the authority to extrajudicially execute people of color at home and abroad. The common thread between these phenomena is that our federal government is deeply invested in violent and coercive means to achieve its ends both at home and abroad.
The Direct Line From Portland To Authoritarian Crackdowns Around the World
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