Some of you may find the following article that Jeremy Scahill wrote for The Nation interesting: Blackwater’s Secret War in Pakistan (November 23, 2009).
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.
You can read the rest of the article here.
Happy Thanksgiving!!!
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Even if things are carefully compartmentalized - if The Nation can find out what's happening, why can't the White House?
ReplyDeleteThe strongest article I read recently about the war in Afghanistan was the one that compared what the Soviet Union was saying after seven years of conflict there with what we are saying now - that they would only stay until the central government was stable and the provinces were lined up behind it. First goal was easy, second goal was impossible. A "central government" just didn't compute in a tribal society. And so the Soviet Union continued the war and ended up demoralized and bankrupt.
Sorry to go on and on, Elaine. A report like this one in The Nation just drives me crazy.
Julie,
ReplyDeleteSometimes my husband gets so disgusted with the news that he turns off the TV or throws aside the newspaper.
This kind of stuff drives me crazy too!