Obama’s secret war – continued
In 1991, the United States Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency assisted the Colombian government with the integration of staffs between the Colombian Army and the murderous right-wing paramilitary. I commented some years later on the obvious: if the staffs are integrated, they are the same organizaiton. This development went overwhelmingly unremarked in the US press, which both failed to see the signficance of this and purposely complied with officialdom’s silence about it.
It seems we’ll hear little about the fact that this kind of integration has taken place in the United States between the US armed forces – special operations in particular – and the international criminal enterprise formerly named Blackwater, a highly-paid DOD contractor that employs – much as Colombia did with the paramilitaries – these mercenaries, many of them veterans of special operations who figured out where the big paychecks are, to do the wet work that would create a firewall of plausible deniability for the government’s forces.
The Af-Pak War, which Obama has just escalated in his obsequious deference to the torture general, Stanley McChrystal, is only conventional and marginally accountable on the Afghan side of the border. In Pakistan, it is an old fashioned, albeit newly technologized, secret war, run primarily by the CIA, and involving chronic violations of international law, human rights, and Pakistani sovereignty. It is also, as the following article details, a joint operation between the military and corporate paramilitaries.
I will suggest, as I forward this story through the blog, that the story be forwarded to as many Pakistanis as possible, in the hope that the popular resistance to US predations in Pakistan itself will increase pressure on the Pakistani government to expel the United States military from all operations in Pakistan. I offer – small as it is – my own best wishes and endorsement to Pakistan’s people in this effort, and encourage any and all peaceful means to accomplish this expulsion.
To the people of Pakistan, my country’s government is bullying your government to flagrantly violate your sovereignty, and using your land – as well as killing, maiming, and displacing Pakistanis – to expand a desperate and doomed imperial adventure, treating your country and people as pawns. We citizens of the United States are not synonymous with the government of the United States, and half of us, according to recent polls, are opposed to this war. Non-violent resistance changed the character of our country, and is part of your historical legacy as well. I hope one day soon we can act together in peaceful and sustained solidarity – as fellow children of God – to end the war that my government has brought to your land.
Here is the story from Jeremy Scahill:
At a covert forward operating base run by the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, members of an elite division of Blackwater are at the center of a secret program in which they plan targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives, “snatch and grabs” of high-value targets and other sensitive action inside and outside Pakistan, an investigation by The Nation has found. The Blackwater operatives also assist in gathering intelligence and help direct a secret US military drone bombing campaign that runs parallel to the well-documented CIA predator strikes, according to a well-placed source within the US military intelligence apparatus.
The source, who has worked on covert US military programs for years, including in Afghanistan and Pakistan, has direct knowledge of Blackwater’s involvement. He spoke to The Nation on condition of anonymity because the program is classified. The source said that the program is so “compartmentalized” that senior figures within the Obama administration and the US military chain of command may not be aware of its existence.
The White House did not return calls or email messages seeking comment for this story. Capt. John Kirby, the spokesperson for Adm. Michael Mullen, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told The Nation, “We do not discuss current operations one way or the other, regardless of their …
Kim Sky:
There was an inevitability that a union of the Army and the paramilitary would manifest itself in this country (USA). The thing that amazes me is that they have accomplished this in such an open way. The announcement of this union broadcast far and wide. And, that they’ve introduced a new factor, the corporate paramilitary.
See stories beginning with “Blackwater USA is pleased to announce…”
Lot’s of integration taking place here as well …
California: Iraq vets oversee anti-gang “surge” in Salinas
http://ww4report.com/node/7974
Quote: “Since February, combat veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, acting in an ostensibly civilian and volunteer capacity, have been advising police in Salinas, Calif. …”, “”It’s a little laboratory,” said retired Col. Hy Rothstein, the former Army Special Forces career officer who heads the team of 15 faculty members and students from the Navy school. Rothstein, a veteran of counterinsurgency efforts in Colombia and Central America, notes the “significant overlap with how you deal with insurgencies and how you deal with cities that are under siege from gangs.”"
10 December 2009, 2:11 pmDa Buffalo Amongst wolves:
Additionally, PakAlert Press called the recent spate of bombing an “Operation Gladio-style war against Pakistan”
“Sources said that during the meeting of CIA chief Leon E. Panetta, who is on an unannounced visit to Pakistan, Director General Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha said that CIA officials were assisting the terrorist elements who were carrying out terror attacks on Pakistan and asked him to shun such practices. “Sources said that ISI chief told him that Pakistani intelligence agencies had incriminating evidence about the CIA officials’ involvement in providing assistance to perpetrators of some terrorist activities within Pakistan, which had negative impact on Pakistan’s efforts towards war on terror.” (Your men helping terrorists, Shuja tells CIA chief) “In one story, Kayani (Army Chief of Staff Ashfaq Parvez Kayani) presented Clinton with ‘evidence’ of a conspiracy involving the CIA, Israel’s Mossad and India’s intelligence agency, RAW. According to the story, the three agencies had been responsible for some of the terrorist attacks that have killed hundreds in Pakistani cities.
In Full: http://pakalert.wordpress.com/2009/12/08/operation-gladio-style-war-against-pakistan/
10 December 2009, 6:23 pm(Boer) Tom:
Many of the Blackwater terrorists belong to my ethnic group, and participated in the so-called ‘border war’ (‘grens oorlog’). It may be useful to point out that any use of these thugs constitutes moral (no pun intended) support for the Apartheid regime. Oh, and this is what dirty-bomb terrorism (use of DU) looks like in Afghanistan (I think the site is Thai) – the same thing is happening in Pakistan, according to some of my friends there.
10 December 2009, 8:44 pmGuy Montag:
I just read a novel,”Army of the Republic” by Stuart Cohen, which dealt with this topic of the integration of the military and para-military private forces. AOR was set in the near future with the country cracking down on “terrorist” groups and activists in the US using a group obviously modeled on Blackwater. A well-researched and thoughtful novel. You can tell the author researched the history of the 70′s and 80′s crackdowns in Argentina, Brazil, etc. as well as the crackdowns in this country on ELF and the “tree-hugggers” in the Northwest, and the assassinations of Black Panthers. Cohen didn’t have any easy answers as to “what works.” For what it’s worth, Naomi Klein (author of “The Shock Doctrine”) gave the book a thumbs up.
11 December 2009, 10:56 amStan:
This one from my friend Mary “Dannie” Tillman:
Here is the combined three part series on Pat’s death.
I am putting this here to remind folks of Stanley McChrystal, now the martial darling of the press and Congress, and the one who seems to be dictating Obama’s military policy for him.
There is now a very lucrative revolving door between Special Operations, epitomized by McChrystal, and the mercenary industry.
@ Kim Sky: You have broken the code. The name for the now moribund, but hopefully soon to be resuscitated site, Insurgent American, came from this Vietnam-era development that equated counter-insurgency with domestic urban police work. We are “insurgents” whether we want to be or not once we suggest that the state has only power and no legitimacy.
11 December 2009, 12:46 pmm.c.:
Hitler did the same thing with the SS & Gestapo. Not only were they the Party bodyguards, the SS did combat & other dirty work the regular army wouldn’t do. Same with the Gestapo. Regular police & military intelligence officers weren’t ruthless enough for the plans he had in mind for Europe.
11 December 2009, 2:12 pmMichael Anderson:
A link from Real News on Sheik Khalid Mohamed’s trial, and the cost to our legal system. War on the home front—against the people. A medieval form of justice realized for Corpos, codified by precedent.
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=4576
11 December 2009, 10:32 pmMichael Anderson:
And another from William Engdahl on Afghanistan…lays it out pretty well, as has been laid out here for a long time.
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=4564&updaterx=2009-12-11+15%3A54%3A56
11 December 2009, 10:47 pmCurt Kastens:
I have always found northern Europeans a bit strange because of their love for their Monarchs. Yet I have a similar weakness. Although I can intellectually imagine a country without an army, there are a few, I can not emotionally accept a country without an army. Some weeks ago I was toying with the idea that it really made more sense for political parities to have armies rather than countries. Armies seem to always fall under the control of a political faction anyways. Yet allowing political parties to have their own armies (or militias) is clearly a bad ides. It is a recipe for civil war. Even sending children to be educated in separate school systems, one for one religion or political party and another for other religions or political parties is a recipe for eventual civil war.
12 December 2009, 7:37 amIn Germany a small percent of the children do go to Catholic schools. The vast majority are educated in government run schools though. I do not know for sure but I would bet the government oversees the Catholic schools as well. But there does come a point in the class schedule that the children are broken for religious training, in to Catholic and Protestant groups in most areas of the country. In larger cities some thing called secular ethics is often available. In small towns if some one is a Communist or a Muslim they can have their children excused from religious education. IT IS THE GOVERNMENT THAT DECIDES WHAT IS TAUGHT IN THESE CLASSES. They try to teach to the lowest common denominator. Things that will not offend anyone. This can work in Germany because Germany is not as diverse as the US in religious and political outlooks.
The government is now considering adding Islamic courses to the curriculum of its government schools. But it has to decide who gets to decide what to teach. The goal is to combat the Wahhabi strain of Islam. This is kind of a deceleration of spiritual warfare. Those Muslims who are Wahhabis will now see anyone who collaborates with the government run program as enemies of GOD. But what is the alternative. Not to confront the Wahhabis and hope everything works out for the best?
There is something that every politcal party should have however and that is its own intelligence organization.
A political party without an intelligence organization would be like a rabbit in a wolf’s den. Perhaps like religions every political party should also have its own formal education program.
I mention this because I recently read a recommended reading list for an intelligence course being offered a FT. Hwhatever I condemned this list and therefore the course as being a program for turning people to be useful idiots. This is related to the idea of the state having power but not legitimacy. I argue that a state can have legitimacy when the rulers are attempting to rule in a just manner. The thing is the US government does not want the people attending that course to leave a reservation of the mind. It seems to me and would to many others as well they do that for the purpose of being able to carry out an imperialistic foreign policy. But if the purpose of keeping people on a reservation of the mind is to ensure domestic tranquility and harmony then would the ends not justify the means.
But the catch to keeping people on a reservation of the mind to ensure domestic harmony means that good ideas can be kept off the reservation as easily as bad ideas. If people are being educated by several different independent, not dependent, institutions it seems to me a balance can be struck between domestic harmony and avoiding the pitfalls of orthodoxy. I think that this idea would have implications for both Christian and Islamic societies.
m.c.:
Take a hypothetical Army Ranger battalion. Now say a platoon or two of para-military “specialty” soldiers under the command of a [captain] or [major] are attached to them. The battalion CO theoretically has overall command & responsibility, but the PMs have their own communications, directives, and orders. This is inefficient but done purposefully. They don’t interface with battalion headquarters formally & there is little or no paperwork/paper trail. The battalion CO & XO are left out in the dark.
12 December 2009, 1:18 pmGuy Montag:
For the past month, I’ve been engaged in a bit of a blogging war (cnas.org Abu Maqawama blog) with Andrew Exum (fellow at CNAS pushing for the Afghan “surge” and close to McChrystal). In fact, Exum happened to write the Washington Post book review dismissing Krakauer’s “conspiracy theories” about the Army’s cover-up.
For anyone interested in learning more, I’ve recently posted several documents I’ve written over the past few years at http://feralfirefighter.blogspot.com
1. “Where Men Win Glory” — Andrew Exum, The Center for a New American Security, and the Whitewash of General McChrystal’s Role in the Cover-Up of Pat Tillman’s Death (Nov. 2009)
2. “Lies … Born Out by Facts, If Not the Truth” — Thom Shanker, the New York Times and their Whitewash of General McChrystal’s Role in the Aftermath of Pat Tillman’s Death (Sept. 2009)
3. “Did They Teach You How to Lie Yet?” — Senator James Webb, General McChrystal & the Betrayal of Pat Tillman (May 2009)
4. “Battle for the Truth — Iddo Netanyahu, Kevin Tillman, and the Cover-Up of Their Brother’s Deaths (February 2008)
5. “A Sense of Honor” — Senator James Webb and Pat Tillman (February 2008)
6. “Remember the Iconclast, Not the Icon” — Pat Tillman 1976 — 1976 (March 2008)
12 December 2009, 10:28 pmStan:
The cry of conspiracy theory was not helped by the fact that many conspiracy theorists jumped on Pat’s death as an assassination – a claim once the facts were understood that was worthy of ridicule. Now the more pedestrian and clumsy serial cover-ups are more easily dismissed using guilt by association. These assassination theorists have muddied the water – which is what Exum is doing, too – and created greater obstacles to understanding through their narcissistic ranting; but that’s why they persist.
Neither Pat’s family nor I have ever sought either to idealize Pat, or to turn him into an anti-war icon. The fact that he read a book by Chomsky or called the war in Iraq illegal does not make him a revolutionary. He was a person. His fame – which grew out of this atheletic gift – was what the DOD (1) feared and (2) tried to use to flip fratricide into a recruiting pitch when the war was going sour on every front.
McChrystal’s role was minor in this. He realized that a cover-up might cause the POTUS embarrassment if he repeated the lie in the Silver Star narrative, so he gave his commander-in-chief a heads-up. And of course, he followed orders as the whole jugfuk evolved.
McChrystal needs to be held accountable for running torture camps and directing covert killings, as part of operations that Obama, the Democrats, and the US can no longer fob off on Bush II.
The article from Dannie demonstrates the brutality of day-to-day operations, where soldiers roll into a village and beat the hell out of people they detain without cause. My mention of McChrystal was tangential to this. but directly relevant to the original post, because Obama selected this well-spoken thug to run OBAMA’s war in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The Exum’s of the world will continue to apologize for power in predictable ways, because they see muddying the waters as part of their responsibility to the empire.
I’d be more interested – speakingonly for me – in unpacking the title of anything called “Where Men Win Glory.” Exum doesn’t have the capacity to debate a deconstruction of this, because it goes underneath Exum’s Axioms. (:
13 December 2009, 8:18 amGuy Montag:
Stan,
I’m also been chagrined at the number of folks on the web who keep saying that Pat Tilllman was “fragged’ or assassinated because because he was killed by 3 5.56 bullets to his head (as you’ve pointed out before,the simple explanation is he was shot from only 35m by the SAW which fires about 600 – 800 rounds per minute. No mystery there).
I agree that McChrystal’s role was minor (although he was the General officer on the ground who made it happen after getting his orders from Rumsfeld, etc.) I’ve been picking on him partly because he is one of the few Army Generals involved that’s not retired (except Nixon)and his fingerprints are on the Silver Star and he’s perjured himself in his testimony. A target of opportunity. He certainly didn’t act alone; I also pointed out the involvement of President Obama, Senator Webb, Congressman Waxman,etc. in my documents.
Unpacking the title… “Where Men Win Glory” is intended to be an ironic jab at Exum & company. It’s the title of Jon Krakauer’s book about Pat Tillman and is a phrase from The Illiad at the front of that book. Afghanistan is the “where.” All three men on the cover of my document were in Afghanistan: Exum was in Afghanistan as a 10th Mountain Div. LT in 2002 and with the Ranger QRF in 2004. Nathaniel Fick was a Marine LT in Afghanistan in 2002; then in Iraq (he was LT Fick of “Generation Kill” fame; excellent book and HBO series. Now, he’s Exum’s boss and the CEO of CNAS that’s spearheaded the Afghan “surge.”) And, of course, McChrystal’s been involved in the AfghanPak war for many years. I guess I was trying to imply that none of them have actually won any glory with their involvement in the Tillman story.
13 December 2009, 9:12 amStan:
They not only perjured themselves, every member of the committee tied themselves in knots to help them perjure themselves. You can attack churches and children in this country with fewer repercussions than attacking a general. That’s how far our idolatry has gone with militarism.
I’ve quoted Hartsock before, but recommend her canonical Money, Sex, and Power here again, particularly now because you refer to the Iliad, one of her citations in analyzing the warrior-hero archetype as our cultural erotic ideal.
No one can run for office and say, for example, “The average housewife makes a more useful and positive contribution to society than the best soldier,” or “The only good left in soldiers after they are trained as soliders is incidental to and in spite of that training.” Or how about, “The greatest contribution the United States could make to humanity would be to unilaterally and totally disarm.”
This is a key reason we can’t rely on politics – as most people see it – to change anything fo r the better. They are not repeating lies; they are part of a vast lie, and exposure of the lie would cause them to self-destruct.
13 December 2009, 2:13 pmGuy Montag:
“This is a key reason we can’t rely on politics – as most people see it – to change anything for the better.”
Yep. Same conclusion that Dwight MacDonald (editor “Politics”) came to shortly after WWII. He introduced the French writer Simone Weil (Philospher, Marxist,then anarchist, then Christian mystic)to the US. Speaking of the Illiad, Simone Weil wrote her 1939 essay “The Illiad or the Poem of Force” that might be of interest.
14 December 2009, 7:29 amStan:
Thanks Guy. From “The Illiad, or the Poem of Force”…
-Simone Weil
***
-from Money, Sex, and Power – Toward a Feminist Historical Materialism, by Nancy C. M. Hartsock
This is so interesting, that I am going to repost this as an independent thread.
14 December 2009, 8:41 amMichael Anderson:
And now—WAR Bonds! Will they be summarily taken out of poorer employees paychecks, like they were in WW1? What sort of patriotic psychobabble will we hear now, exhorting us to pay for this monstrous thing?
Scott Nearing wrote of this in “The Great Madness”.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/v-print/story/80756.html
War bonds proposed to pay for Afghanistan, Iraq conflicts
Lesley Clark | McClatchy Newspapers
last updated: December 16, 2009 02:33:45 PM
WASHINGTON — Lawmakers in both houses of Congress have introduced legislation to pay for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq by using a method that’s a throwback to prior U.S. conflicts: war bonds.
Saying that it would “promote national shared sacrifice and responsibility,” Rep. Kendrick Meek, D-Fla., introduced a bill Wednesday in the House of Representatives that would authorize the treasury secretary to issue and sell war bonds to Americans to fund the wars.
Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., filed companion legislation in the Senate earlier this week.
“At a time of tremendous sacrifice for our military families, we need to promote shared sacrifice and shoulder collective responsibility as a nation as we fight two wars halfway across the globe,” Meek said, calling war bonds a “cost-effective way” to reduce dependence on foreign creditors.
16 December 2009, 4:57 pmStan:
Expanding into Yemen to support a Saudi war on Shia.
FULL
Last report: 68 civilian dead, including 28 children.
I am speechless.
19 December 2009, 7:05 pmKim Sky:
Yemen o Yemen, my heart aches!
According to the Angry Arab, “The US has been playing war games in Yemen for a week now in support of Yemen’s fight against the Houthi militants, including the sending in of US Special Forces to help quell the “crisis” and “ensure regional stability.” So what if a few villages get bombed in the process?”"
Following one of his links: http://www.presstv.ir/
“Yemen’s Houthi fighters say the US fighter jets have launched 28 attacks on the northwestern province of Sa’ada. The US has used modern fighter jets and bombers in its offensive against the Yemen fighters.”
Sarcastic as it can get!!! The combined ABC-news report itself, and the beginning advertisement almost seem intentional? Video opens with “all you need is love”
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/cruise-missiles-strike-yemen/story?id=9375236
Angry Arab also refers to the President of Ali the Republic of Yemen, Abdullah Saleh, as a dictator.
20 December 2009, 4:08 pmm.c.:
I hope this generates debate. The full text in on Wikipedia’s Norman Mailer page, footnote #14.
In 2003, in a speech to the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, just before the invasion of Iraq, Mailer said: “Fascism is more of a natural state than democracy. To assume blithely that we can export democracy into any country we choose can serve paradoxically to encourage more fascism at home and abroad. Democracy is a state of grace that is attained only by those countries who have a host of individuals not only ready to enjoy freedom but to undergo the heavy labor of maintaining it.”[14]
22 December 2009, 9:31 am(Boer) Tom:
@Stan
28 December 2009, 1:52 amCould you post a reference to the Colombia piece regarding integration, possibly with references to the fact of integration? It would be most useful.