impunity

We don’t have to go all the way to Colombia or Gaza to see executions of civilians using US tax dollars, we know that. But it is rare that a video of a killing by white police of a black man lying facing down on the ground brings that killing into our own experience. For some, it brings back their own experiences of police brutality.

On New Years Eve, the trains ran late into the night in San Francisco and Oakland. At Fruitvale station in Oakland, transit police pulled people off a train after reports of a fight. Those still on the train caught what happened next on cell phone video footage. Three cops have young men sitting on the platform, their hands behind their backs, possibly handcuffed. They take one of the men, Oscar Grant, and get him face down on the pavement. One of the cops has his knee on Grant’s back. Another stands up, takes his gun from his holster, and fires it into Grant’s back. Grant died that night in the hospital. The video shows the cops then moving other detained young men away from the bleeding body of Grant. Not long after, according to several reports, the police went onto the train and confiscated cell phones from passengers, in what clearly appears to be an attempt to hide or destroy evidence.

Colombian Army commander Mario Montoya resigned Tuesday, in the wake of a scandal over army killings of civilians that a United Nations official on Saturday called “widespread and systematic.” A protégé of the United States, Montoya was an architect of the “body count” counterinsurgency strategy that many analysts believe led to the systematic civilian killings. His record is full of reports of collaboration with paramilitary units, from the 1970s into the 2000s. 

The Fellowship of Reconciliation believes General Montoya’s departure because of criticism of his human rights record reflects an important step in the effort to make human rights a central measure for military officers’ performance. We urge Colombian authorities to pursue all relevant investigations of crimes committed under General Montoya’s command.

This essay of mine was recently included in a collection by the magazine Mother Jones called "Mission Creep: US Military Presence Worldwide."

What impresses about the sprawl of US bases and its reconstitution since 2001 is the lack of accountability. The US military presence overseas serves as an implicit threat of intervention to host countries and neighbors, and so enables the United States to defy international law and other obligations to the global community. The bases are also themselves unaccountable, especially as polluters, purveyors of sexual violence, and sites for torture. For most nations, it is an exercise in frustration to use political, diplomatic, or judicial channels to address the United States' abuses or extralegal demands, because Washington's military stands ready for aggression.