Researchers on Atrocity Prevention Warn: US on Path to Widespread Political Violence

[Midnightwalk]

Article at:
[link:https://www.justsecurity.org/70665/researchers-on-atrocity-prevention-warn-us-on-path-to-widespread-political-violence/|]

As scholars of armed conflict and human rights with a combined five decades of experience, we are deeply troubled by recent developments. Our motivation for writing this article is to voice our concern that recent events in the United States, such as Trump’s repeated endorsements and approval of violence against peaceful demonstrators, are strikingly similar to those that preceded eruptions of large-scale political violence elsewhere. This is not a theoretical exercise – it is happening in real time before our eyes. We are by no means alone in holding this view. In its June 3 “Atrocity Alert” which “highlight[s] situations where populations are at risk of, or are enduring, mass atrocity crimes,” the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect included the United States, alongside Iraq, Syria, and Sudan as places of serious concern.

Last week, the U.S. government deployed active-duty military units in Washington. Soldiers in combat uniforms, without identifying insignia, fired smoke canisters and rubber bullets at protestors in front of the White House – all so President Trump could walk to St. John’s Episcopal Church and pose for photographs while using religion as a political prop. Earlier that same day, Trump threatened to invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act and assume federal control of the National Guard to “dominate” protestors, against the will of many state governors. The day after, the White House announced that 1,600 additional active-duty quick-reaction troops were being deployed from Fort Bragg and Fort Drum to the capital region.

The constitutionality of Trump’s response to the protests, following the murder of George Floyd, an African-American man, by a white police officer, have been hotly debated by legal scholars. Whatever their legal status, conventional norms about the proper role of the military in securing domestic public order have been shredded. Few would disagree that the images of military professionals being mobilized against fellow citizens is an unsettling one – even for a country that is by now well acquainted with the increasing militarization of our police forces, especially in African-American communities. Nonetheless, recent developments represent only one among many troubling telltale signs of a growing atrocity risk in the United States.

We do not suggest that the commission of mass atrocities within the United States is imminent or inevitable, and we hope that our concern is misplaced. The United States possesses robust civil and political institutions, and since the Civil War at least, instances of large-scale violence, such as the 1921 Tulsa race massacre, did not engulf the country. However, it is clear to us that recent events on domestic soil have moved us down a well-trodden path that has led other countries to widespread and systematic violence. The risk of this outcome will be heightened in the coming months under certain circumstances – for instance, if Trump declares a federal state of emergency; if the general election is cancelled or postponed; or if Trump’s encouragement of far-right militias, whether tacit or otherwise, leads to actual armed confrontation.

Interesting article.

[DENVERPOPS]

1. Thank you MW

your commentary prompted me to look up the definition of three words:

Insurrection......an act of revolting against civil authority or an established government.

Sedition.......incitement of resistance to or insurrection against lawful authority.

Cabal.....the contrived schemes of a group of persons secretly united in a plot.

The three words seemed to epitomize Trump/RepubliCONs actions.......