Since World War II, the United States has repeatedly supported governments that have been committing mass atrocities, which are defined by genocide scholar Scott Straus as “large-scale, systematic violence against civilian populations.”
This includes U.S. support for Israel, which has remained consistent despite President Donald Trump’s recent disagreement with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over whether Palestinians are being starved in Gaza.
We are scholars of genocide and other mass atrocities, as well as international security. In our research for a forthcoming article in the Journal of Genocide Research, we analyzed official statements, declassified documents and media reports across four cases that involve U.S. support for governments as they were committing atrocities: Indonesia in East Timor from 1975 to 1999, Guatemala from 1981 to 1983, the Saudi-led coalition – known as the “Coalition” – in Yemen since 2015, and Israel in Gaza since October 2023.
We identified six rhetorical strategies, which are ways of talking about something, used by U.S. officials to publicly distance the U.S. from atrocities committed by those who receive its support.
This is significant because when Americans, as well as others around the world, accept such rhetoric at face value, the U.S. can maintain impunity for its role in global violence.
Feigned ignorance
When U.S. officials deny any knowledge of atrocities perpetrated by parties receiving U.S. support, we call that feigned ignorance.
For example, after the Coalition bombed a school bus in Yemen, killing dozens of children, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren asked Gen. Joseph Votel whether the U.S. Central Command tracks the purpose of the missions it is refueling.
His response: “Senator, we do not.”
This proclaimed ignorance stands in stark contrast with well-documented Coalition war crimes since 2015. As Yemen expert Scott Paul put it, “No one can feign surprise when lots of civilians are killed anymore.”
Obfuscation
When evidence of atrocities can no longer be ignored, obfuscation is used by U.S. officials, who muddle the facts.
When Indonesian forces carried out massacres in 1983, killing hundreds of civilians, the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta sent a telegram to the secretary of state and multiple U.S. embassies, consulates and missions questioning the reports because they had “not received substantiation from other sources.”
Similarly, during the genocide in Guatemala, following Efraín Ríos Montt’s successful coup, U.S. officials skewed reports of violence perpetrated by the government, instead blaming the guerrillas.
In its 1982 report on human rights in Guatemala, for example, the State Department claimed, “Where it has been possible to assign responsibility [for killings in Guatemala] it appears more likely that in the majority of cases the insurgents … have been guilty.”
Yet U.S. intelligence said the contrary.
Reports of state atrocities and abuses in Guatemala can be found in U.S. intelligence documents from the 1960s onward. One 1992 CIA cable explicitly noted that “several villages have been burned to the ground” and that the “army can be expected to give no quarter to combatants and noncombatants alike.”
Negation
As evidence of atrocities continue to mount, as well as evidence of who is responsible, U.S. officials have often turned to negation. They don’t deny that U.S. aid is being provided, but rather argue that it was not directly used in the commission of atrocities.
For example, during Indonesia’s atrocities in East Timor, the U.S. was actively training members of Indonesia’s officer corps. When Indonesian security forces massacred as many as 100 people at a cemetery in Dili in 1991, the George H.W. Bush administration’s reaction was simply to say that “none of the Indonesian military officers present at Santa Cruz had received U.S. training.”
Diversion
When public scrutiny of U.S. support reaches levels no longer easily dismissed, U.S. officials may turn to diversion.
These are highly publicized policy adjustments that rarely involve significant changes. They often include a form of bait-and-switch. This is because the aim of diversion is not to change the behavior of the recipient of U.S. aid; it is merely a political tactic used to placate critics.
In 1996, when the Clinton administration bowed to pressure from activists by suspending small arms sales to Indonesia, it still sold Indonesia US$470 million in advanced weaponry, including nine F-16 jets.
More recently, responding to both congressional and public criticism, the Biden administration paused the delivery of 2,000-pound and 500-pound bombs to Israel in May 2024 – but only briefly. All its other extensive weapons transfers remained unchanged.
As exemplified by U.S. support for Israel, diversion also includes perfunctory U.S. investigations that signal concern with abuses, without consequence, as well as support for self-investigation, with similarly foreseeable exculpatory results.
Aggrandizement
When atrocities committed by recipients of U.S. support are highly visible, U.S. officials also use aggrandizement to praise their leaders and paint them as worthy of assistance.
President Ronald Reagan in 1982 praised President Suharto, the dictator responsible for the deaths of more than 700,000 people in Indonesia and East Timor between 1965 and 1999, for his “responsible” leadership. Meanwhile, Clinton officials deemed him “our kind of guy.”
Similarly, Guatemala’s leader Ríos Montt was portrayed by Reagan in the early 1980s as “a man of great personal integrity and commitment,” being forced to confront “a brutal challenge from guerrillas armed and supported by others outside Guatemala.”
These leaders are thus presented as using force either for a just cause or only because they are faced with an existential threat. This was the case for Israel, with the Biden administration stating Israel was “in the throes of an existential battle.”
This aggrandizement not only morally elevates leaders but also justifies the violence they commit.
Quiet diplomacy
Finally, U.S. officials also often claim to be engaging in a form of quiet diplomacy, working behind the scenes to rein in recipients of U.S. support.
Importantly, according to U.S. officials, for quiet diplomacy to succeed, continued U.S. support remains necessary. Therefore, continued support for those committing atrocities becomes legitimized precisely because it is this relationship that allows the U.S. to influence their behavior.
In East Timor, the Pentagon argued that training increased “Indonesian troops’ respect for human rights.” When a U.S.-trained Indonesian military unit massacred about 1,200 people in 1998, the Defense Department said that “even if American-trained soldiers had committed some of the murders,” the U.S. should continue training to “maintain influence over what happens next.”
U.S. officials also implied in 2020 that Yemenis under attack from the Coalition, led by Saudi Arabia, are advantaged by U.S. arms support to the Coalition because the support gave the U.S. influence over how the arms are used.
In the case of Gaza, U.S. officials have repeatedly referenced quiet diplomacy as promoting restraint, while seeking to block other systems of accountability.
For example, the United States has vetoed six United Nations Security Council resolutions on Gaza since October 2023 and has imposed sanctions on five International Criminal Court judges and prosecutors because of arrest warrants issued against Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
Distancing and minimizing
U.S. officials have long used a variety of rhetorical strategies to distance the country from, and minimize its contributions to, atrocities committed by others with U.S. support.
With these strategies in mind, Trump’s acknowledgment of “real starvation” in Gaza can be viewed as a diversion from unchanged U.S. support for Israel as famine conditions in Gaza worsen and Palestinians are killed while waiting for food.
From feigning ignorance to minimizing violence and praising its perpetrators, U.S. governments and presidents have long used deceptive rhetoric to legitimize the violence of leaders and countries the U.S. supports.
But there are two necessary elements that allow this framing to continue to work: One is the language of the U.S. government; the other is the credulity and apathy of the public.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
