Letter: U.S. hides assassinations with counter-terrorism excuse

Editor,

The clandestine war being waged by the U.S. in Somalia is but yet another example, with all the secret “Special Ops” forces spread out and killing extra-judicially in so many countries, of the secrecy being maintained in consolidating the American Empire with our prima facie excuse of counter-terrorism.

This is why it is not surprising that even Hillary Clinton has, in a closed-door, now-hacked speech to Wall Street, promoted the use of covert operations.

So the world which is now America’s playground needs to fear a worldwide secret police force whose members are American. Already, thanks to the NSA’s worldwide reach, the world is America’s surveillance oyster.

A lot of this arrogant moving up in clandestine activity was begun when the CIA, not our military, began and now continues to conduct drone strikes on merely “suspected” terrorists in the remote tribal regions between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Now, with hundreds of military bases “projecting power” — to use a Powellism — all over the world, including from Australia, nobody elsewhere in the world is immune from America’s neocolonial installations, such as black sites with “extraordinary rendition” — another euphemism masking secret torture.

Already we have no qualms about kidnapping criminal nationals of other countries and jailing them here and forcing them to face our own judicial system. That’s what empires do.

For even longer, secret assassinations of world leaders either directly or indirectly by the CIA have put the rest of the world, especially the third world, in mortal fear of the USA.

And Trump might become the world’s cruel emperor secretly disappearing his enemies on the “list,” not just radical Islamic terrorists of even American citizenry.

Arun Ahuja

UNM student