Dirty Hands and Vicious Deeds: The US Government's Complicity in Crimes against Humanity and Genocide

by Samuel Totten

Overview

These original essays show how the US government repeatedly aided certain regimes as they planned and then carried out crimes against humanity and genocide. What makes the collection unique—and chilling—is the inclusion of declassified documents generated by the US government at the time: memoranda, telegrams, letters, talking points, cables, discussion papers, and situation reports.

In his introduction, Totten offers a critical assessment of US foreign policy as it pertains to genocide and crimes against humanity, and discusses the differences between those two terms. In the chapters that follow, each author presents a detailed analysis of a particular case of crimes against humanity or genocide by a foreign government against its own citizens, and discusses why and how the United States government was complicit.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442635258
Publisher:	University of Toronto Press
Publication date:	01/10/2018
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	512
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Samuel Totten is a scholar of genocide studies and professor emeritus at the University of Arkansas.

Table of Contents

Introduction by Samuel Totten

1. US Action and Inaction in the Massacre of Communists and Alleged Communists in Indonesia (1965–1966) by Kai M. Thaler
Essay
Documents

2. The Bangladesh Genocide and the Nixon–Kissinger "Tilt" (1971) by Salim Mansur
Essay
Documents

3. "Our Hand Doesn’t Show": The United States and the Consolidation of the Pinochet Regime in Chile (1973–1977) by Christopher Dietrich
Essay
Documents

4. Mass Killing at a Distance: US Complicity in the East Timor Genocide and International Structural Violence (1975–1999) by Joseph Nevins
Essay
Documents

5. The US Role in Argentina’s "Dirty War" (1976–1983) by Natasha Zaretsky
Essay
Documents

6. The United States Government’s Relationship with Guatemala During the Genocide of the Maya (1981–1983) by Samuel Totten
Essay
Documents

7. Calculated Avoidance: The Clinton Administration and the 100-Day Genocide in Rwanda (1994) by Samuel Totten and Gerry Caplan
Essay
Documents

Afterword by Samuel Totten
Appendices
List of Crimes Against Humanity
United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
Index

What People are Saying About This

Maureen S. Hiebert

"Totten and his co-authors confront an issue long present in genocide studies literature but rarely addressed on its own: the role of the US in some of the worst atrocities of the twentieth century. In cogent analytical essays followed by illustrative, sometimes shocking, primary documents, Dirty Hands and Vicious Deeds lays bare the ways in which America's geopolitical and ideological self-interest led the world's superpower to support or simply turn a blind eye to the murderous plans of some of the worst regimes in recent history."

John Hubbel Weiss

"I know of no other work like Dirty Hands and Vicious Deeds. The book inclides a series of compelling essays that examine US complicity in the genocide and crimes against humanity perpetrated by other nations' governments. This is a book I shall definitely require in my course on international humanitarianism and human rights."

Mukesh Kapila

"How can this happen in our time? These chilling accounts of how a democratically elected government gets away with aiding and abetting the mass murder of foreigners should outrage every decent citizen. What is our duty when our rulers betray the moral basis of the consent we give them to govern us?"

Editorial Reviews

"How can this happen in our time? These chilling accounts of how a democratically elected government gets away with aiding and abetting the mass murder of foreigners should outrage every decent citizen. What is our duty when our rulers betray the moral basis of the consent we give them to govern us?"

—Mukesh Kapila, former United Nations resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for the Sudan and author of Against a Tide of Evil

"I know of no other work like Dirty Hands and Vicious Deeds. The book inclides a series of compelling essays that examine US complicity in the genocide and crimes against humanity perpetrated by other nations' governments. This is a book I shall definitely require in my course on international humanitarianism and human rights."

—John Hubbel Weiss, Cornell University

"Totten and his co-authors confront an issue long present in genocide studies literature but rarely addressed on its own: the role of the US in some of the worst atrocities of the twentieth century. In cogent analytical essays followed by illustrative, sometimes shocking, primary documents, Dirty Hands and Vicious Deeds lays bare the ways in which America's geopolitical and ideological self-interest led the world's superpower to support or simply turn a blind eye to the murderous plans of some of the worst regimes in recent history."

—Maureen S. Hiebert, University of Calgary

From the Publisher