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Cheers!

Stephen Colbert

Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert took on Attorney General Eric Holder's legal justification for killing American citizens abroad suspected of terrorism, particularly Holder's argument that "due process and judicial process are not one and the same."

"Trial by jury, trial by fire, rock, paper scissors, who cares? Due process just means that there is a process that you do," Colbert said. "The current process is apparently, first the president meets with his advisers and decides who he can kill. Then he kills them."

Pretty much.

WikiLeaks

Discover the truth

of the unjust, illegitimate war in Iraq and Afghanistan: WikiLeaks releases hundreds of thousands of military records revealing thousands of civilian deaths, execution squads,
other war crimes.

The Guantánamo Files

documenting torture, abuse, and years of unjust imprisonment.

Watch "Collateral Murder"

The military's own video documenting the killing of 12 Iraqis from a helicopter circling above

Help Stop these Crimes: Collateral Murder Video Showings and more...

Support Bradley Manning

The young soldier accused of releasing the US military records.
Find out more.

NATO Summit Protests

Chicago Spring:
Protest the War Criminal (NATO) Summit!

The "North Atlantic Treaty Organization" (NATO) promotes its mission as “security, cooperation among nations, and peace keeping.”
In fact,it is an organization led and dominated by the world's best-armed war criminals, led by the United States.
Join us in protesting NATO
in Chicago May 20/21!

Stop the Drones

Drone Wars

The use of Predator drones (unmanned flying vehicles
that are often armed with video-guided missiles) by the
US military and CIA is a largely untold story of the "Global
War on Terror / Global Contingency Operation" - yet has caused thousands of deaths in Pakistan and Afghanistan, many of whom are women and children.
Find out more and take action to stop the drones.

Obama and Petraeus: Expanding, Extending the U.S. War of Terror via “Special Operations”

Wednesday, 26 May 2010 20:27

By Kenneth J. Theisen

The New York Times recently reported that General David Petraeus issued a secret order in September 2009 which authorizes the expansion of secret military operations to areas under his command.

Petraeus is the commander of U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations from the Middle East to Central Asia to the Horn of Africa and he directs the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The directive, entitled, the “Joint Unconventional Warfare Task Force Execute Order” may result in the sending of special ops forces into countries friendly to the U.S. imperialists, such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, etc. and also into those nations that the U.S. considers enemies, such as Iran and Syria. Essentially the order officially expands the U.S. war of terror battlefield to the area under CentCom command. It is not known if other such orders exist under other military commands as well.

But the Times reports that the order was “drafted in close coordination with Admiral Eric T. Olson, the officer in charge of the United States Special Operations Command which operates across the entire globe. According to Special Operations Command’s 2010 Posture Statement, “On an average day, in excess of 12,000 Special Operations Forces (SOF) and SOF support personnel are deployed in more than 75 countries across the globe ….Currently, 86 percent of deployed SOF are in U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM)’s area of responsibility under the operational control of General Petraeus Yes, you read that correctly. These military forces are in 75 countries, according to their commander.

Under Petraeus’ order these U.S. military forces may gather intelligence (spy) and build ties with local forces (seek out collaborators willing to work with the U.S. imperialists). The order also includes reconnaissance for future military strikes. Under the Bush regime such clandestine missions were also approved, but Petraeus’ directive is intended to make these covert ops more systematic and useful for U.S. imperialism. According to the New York Times, where reporters received a leaked copy of the document, the stated “goals are to build networks that could ‘penetrate, disrupt, defeat or destroy’ Al Qaeda and other militant groups, as well as to ‘prepare the environment’ for future attacks by American or local military forces, the document said.”

As an example of what will happen now that this order has been issued, three months after the Petraeus order U.S. special operations troops officially began working in Yemen, greatly expanding the U.S. war of terror into that nation. Numerous missile strikes from U.S. Naval ships wrecked havoc and killed an unknown number of people. The U.S. also equipped Yemeni forces with more than $155 million worth of military weapons and equipment, thus ensuring more casualties in Yemen in the future.

One advantage of clandestine activity by special ops military troops is that it does not require the president’s approval or regular reports to Congress. This makes it easier to keep the operations from the public and provides plausible deniability to the President even if he gave the orders for operations. According to the Times report, “Special operations troops have already been sent into a number of countries to carry out reconnaissance missions, including operations to gather intelligence about airstrips and bridges.” None of these operations have been reported in the media due to their covert nature. These airstrips and bridges and other facilities can be targets for destruction or aid invading U.S. forces.

It is not clear how special operations forces interact with CIA and other intelligence service operations. At times they collaborate and at other times they are rivals, especially for resources. The military and intelligence services operate Predator, Vulture, (perfect names for imperialist war machines) and other robotic aircraft and these aircraft have been used to regularly carry out assassinations and other crimes throughout the world, particularly in areas like Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and the Sudan. Will the Petraeus directive increase assassinations and other murders by special ops forces?

The section of the directive about building ties with local forces will undoubtedly mean that special ops forces will work with dissident groups to foment rebellion in places like Iran and Syria. This has been going on for decades with the Kurds and other ethnic groups in various countries being used by the imperialists for their own purposes. Then when local forces no longer serve these purposes they are abandoned. This often resulted in genocide for the Kurds at the hands of dictators such as Saddam Hussein. [The U.S. had supported the Kurds through the Shah of Iran against Saddam in the early 1970s. In 1975 a deal was cut and the Shah withdrew his support for the Kurds, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of Kurds. When questioned about the abandonment of the Kurds by the U.S. and the Shah, Henry Kissinger told a Congressional committee, “One should not confuse undercover action with social work.”]

Over the last few years, there have been reports that special ops forces have been working with various groups in and around Iran. It is likely that the Petraeus directive has increased this activity. The intent is to not only destabilize the regime, but to use these forces in preparation for actual military operations in the event that attacks against Iran are launched by U.S. forces in the future. This goes to the “prepare the environment” for future attacks piece of the directive.

For many years, special operations have been the stepchild within the military. Regular army officers viewed the work of special ops as a sideshow. But beginning in the Bush regime, special ops has been elbowing its way to the forefront. General Stanley McChrystal, who is now in charge of the U.S. war in Afghanistan, was the Commander of the Joint Special Operations Command from 2003 to 2008. He oversaw many crimes and murders. This year in Afghanistan he brought all special operation in that area under his direct command as well. In Iraq he and Petraeus put special emphasis on the use of special ops. They often used special ops forces to conduct assassinations of insurgents and other enemies of the U.S. occupation forces. This also happens routinely in Afghanistan.

While the use of special ops forces in the war zones is fairly well known, the new order in essence expands the “war zones” to scores of other countries outside of Iraq and Afghanistan. The actions of the U.S. imperialists within Iraq and Afghanistan are already war crimes and crimes against humanity. But this directive will increase these crimes and spread them to many other countries. People in Pakistan, the Sudan, Yemen, Somalia, etc. have all been regular targets of U.S. military attacks. The murders committed in these attacks, whether on the ground or from the air, have been in the thousands since the U.S. launched its war of terror in 2001. But how many more victims will be added to the roster with this expansion of special ops.

The open warfare of the U.S. imperialists is bad enough and the true extent of the atrocities and crimes of these wars are kept hidden from the general public. But covert war will even further hide these crimes from the public. A good example is the war being conducted in Pakistan by the U.S. The U.S. regularly launches missile strikes into Pakistan allegedly at “terrorists,” but women and children are all too often the “collateral damage” of these attacks. But the U.S. refuses to admit that the attacks are conducted by U.S. forces even when it is obvious that only the U.S. has the drones that are the platforms for the attacks.

But the frequent missile attacks are only part of the war being conducted by the U.S. in Pakistan. The U.S. also has special forces on the ground in that country. In February of this year 3 of those troops were killed in a bombing of a military convoy. U.S. special forces troops are in Pakistan training Pakistani members of the Pakistan Frontier Corps. (see video)

The Corps are just some of the Pakistani forces engaged in a civil war within Pakistan at the behest of the U.S. which has given billions of dollars in aid (aka known as bribes) to the Pakistani government and military since the beginning of the U.S. war of terror. Thousands of Pakistanis have become casualties of that war and many more have become refugees in their own nation.

As mentioned above U.S. special forces are heavily involved in Yemen, as well. How many civil wars will these special forces start or become involved in? Just because the civil wars involving U.S. imperialism do not take the form of direct invasion such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan does not mean that the victims will not be in the millions as they are in those two countries. But the U.S. imperialists can more easily hide their crimes in these other nations because of the covert nature of the wars and the obvious inattention of the mainstream media in this country. This is one of the reasons that covert ops are so appealing to U.S. imperialist leaders.

The use of covert ops and special forces also hides preparations for actual invasions or overt military attacks from the public as well. This is particularly useful in relation to Iran. According to the Times story, “The seven-page directive appears to authorize specific operations in Iran, most likely to gather intelligence about the country’s nuclear program or identify dissident groups that might be useful for a future military offensive.”

The intelligence gathering authorized by the directive would be useful in identifying targets within Iran should an actual attack be ordered by Commander-in-Chief Obama. But all this takes place outside of public view and is rarely reported in the media, except by reporters such as Seymour Hersh. And as I have reported here before, a war against Iran is very unlikely to take the same forms as those against Iraq or Afghanistan.

t will not involve a lengthy buildup of ground troops and military resources in the area. It is more likely to take the form of airstrikes and special operations, with limited use of regular ground troops, probably in the area of Iran’s oil fields and facilities. It may involve the uses of dissident forces or ethnic groups to some extent as well. The Petraeus directive fits well with this scenario.

Since the beginning of the U.S. war of terror, the entire world has been negatively impacted. In some nations such as Iraq and Afghanistan the entire population has suffered as a result of direct invasion. In other nations where the war is more covert but just as deadly, such as Pakistan and Yemen, the casualties are spreading.

Covert war under imperialism is intended to hide the truth of imperialist crimes, but it can only do so if we fail to open our eyes. The crimes of U.S. imperialism are so vast that even when conducted by special operations forces they can not be forever hidden. We know of the numerous missile attacks conducted throughout the world. We know about targeted killings which are nothing more than cold-blooded murders. We know the imperialists conduct massive surveillance while denying it. We know that the U.S. imperialists operate torture prisons on a vast scale. They may try to hide these and other crimes, but it is our duty to shed light on them and demand that they be held accountable.