Modernizing Repression: Police Training and Nation Building in the American Century

Description

As American troops became bogged down first in Iraq and then Afghanistan, a key component of US strategy was to build up local police and security forces in an attempt to establish law and order. This approach is consistant with practices honed over more than a century in developing nations within the orbit of the American empire. The first operation phoenix: U.S. colonial policing in the Philippines and the blood of empire -- "Popping off" Sandinistas and Cacos: police training in occupied Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Nicaragua -- "Their goal was nothing less than total knowledge": policing in occupied Japan and the rise of the national security doctrine -- "Law in whose name, order for whose benefit?" police training, "nation-building" and political repression in postcolonial South Korea -- "Free government cannot exist without safeguards against subversion": the clandestine cold war in Southeast Asia I -- The secret war in Laos and other Vietnam sideshows: the clandestine cold war in Southeast Asia II -- "As I recall the many tortures": Michigan State University, Operation Phoenix, and the making of a police state in south Vietnam -- Arming tyrants I: American police training and the postcolonial nightmare in Africa -- Arming tyrants II: police training and neocolonialism in the Mediterranean and Middle East -- The dark side of the alliance for progress: police training and state terror in Latin America during the Cold War -- Conclusion : The violence comes full circle--From the Cold War to the War on Terror.