American Military and black operations: Where is the red line?

By LUIS MIRANDA | THE REAL AGENDA | DECEMBER 11, 2012

Just as public and corporate partnerships have merged over the past two decades, so has the connection between the worlds most corrupt terrorist agency – the CIA – and the United States Department of Defense. Given the unsuccessful operations in Iraq and Afghanistan after declaring war on both nations to hunt those ghost organizations that the United States itself created and managed, the White House agreed to give the CIA even more power to carry out so-called anti-terrorist operations abroad, which are terrorist operations against non-aligned regimes.

Recent examples of these terror operations are the actions taken by the CIA previous and during the Arab Spring in Egypt, Libya and now in Syria, where western forces including NATO and CIA operatives launched attacks from Turkey into the kingdom of Bashar al-Assad. The new powers given to the CIA include enhancing its operations with the latest surveillance technology, for example unmanned armed remotely controlled drones which are operated by the Pentagon under CIA direction.

It is not a surprise that the U.S. Government decided to switch the head of the CIA and the commander of military operations in the Middle East last year in an attempt to homogenize the operations of both government organizations. The White House has also increased the spy network that works directly with the Pentagon to exercise a greater control over terrorist plots in the Arab Peninsula, Africa and Asia.

The move to inadvertently combine the power of both the CIA and the Pentagon began more actively under the George W. Bush administration, but rapidly accelerated under the presidency of Barack Hussein Obama. The CIA has grown its operations over territories supposedly taken over yihadists, but not to combat their operations.

The U.S. Government managed to buy off terrorists groups as it did in Afghanistan back in the 1970s with a group known today as al-Qaeda. The flow of drug money and other funds laundered by large banking corporations fuel the bribery system that allows the CIA to keep certain key terrorist groups working for them, as supposed to against U.S. Interest in some of the most volatile regions of the planet.

The merge of the CIA and the Pentagon was completed after the 2011 summer directive issued by Barack H. Obama to have the then CIA Director, Leon Panetta, take over the United States Department of Defense, while David Petraeus, the most influential ground operations commander in Iraq and Afghanistan was named the head of the Central Intelligence Agency.

General David Petraeus left the CIA last november after he allegedly admitted to have had an extramarital affair with his biographer. Of course, it is unlikely such an affair was the real reason Petraeus left the spy agency. Former intelligence insiders believe it was Petraeus opposition to America’s way of conducting military and intelligence operations what made him leave his post as the top spy chief.

Petraeus is not the first top General to exit U.S. military entities. Two or three other strong men inside the military were fired or asked to be relieved of their duties due to their disagreements with the way combat missions were being conducted.

“There is an increased trend from the part of the CIA and the U.S. military to use remotely controlled drones to carry out attacks in the Middle East, North Africa and other regions and a diminishing trend to use heavy military power. The new way to wage war includes the use of special operations commandos as well as special forces which carry out attacks from land and sea positions.

Both of these operational groups rely more often than not on CIA assets in the region along with a higher number of military analysts”, explains professor Paul Rogers, a specialist on international security from Bradford University. “I think we won’t see the U.S. Government sending large numbers of troops to war-torn regions as it happened in Iraq and Afghanistan. Long are the days when the Army needed to send 100,000 soldiers to the battlefield,” he adds.

The so-called presidential kill list has never been more relevant, as the CIA becomes more militarized with its own drone flotilla and presidential authorization to people who the president believes represent a threat to the United States. Who and why are on that list is known by just a few people. In September 2011, the U.S. government carried out a terrorist attack on a former CIA asset, Anwar al-Awlaki, who had dined at the Pentagon weeks after the 9/11 terror attacks on New York and Washington.

After al-Awlaki, the U.S. has carried out even more drone attacks against targets who are thought to be heads of terrorist organizations that intend to attack America or its interests in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. However, neither the Pentagon nor the CIA have shown proof that such a threat exists. Anwar al-Awlaki’s involvement with al-Qaeda or any other terrorist organizations was never proven while the U.S. government always denied he had ever dined with members of the Pentagon’s leadership. Al-Awlaki was a United States citizen.

Besides the kill list in the hands of the CIA, the U.S. Army also has its own note pad full of names of people who need to be put down. This list is updated on a weekly basis in a meeting held by military analysts. Those analysts supposedly make recommendations to the president to add or remove names from the list during an intelligence briefing known as “terror Tuesday”.

Attacks such as the one that killed Awlaki are carried out by unmanned drones which are controlled by trained assassins in various military based around the world. Since 2002, the U.S. military and the CIA have launched almost 500 kill missions in countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia. Many of those attacks raised tensions last year between the U.S. and Pakistan who in several occasions asked the U.S. to vacate bases on Pakistani soil and to stop killing its citizens.

The person directly responsible for the drone attacks is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, whomever this person may be. Barack H. Obama himself has authorized attacks on both Yemen and Somalia, but according to intelligence officials Obama is kept in the dark about most drone attacks launched in Pakistan. The U.S. military also employs drone attacks against supposed targets in Afghanistan, even after major murder operations concluded.

Those attacks which are not supposedly authorized by Obama, are jointly organized and managed by the Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon’s Special Operations Command. Although the White House denies the existence of an official military program where drones are used, it is well-known that both the CIA and the Department of Defense carry out continuous surveillance operations both inside and outside the United States.

Despite the secrecy, which the American government justifies with the classic “it is a matter of national security” many of the attacks are known to be based on false intelligence. “They don’t know what they’re doing,” says Professor Clive Stafford, the head of REPRIEVE, a Human Rights organization. “For example, in the case of the information provided by Pakistani sources, such intelligence information comes from people who are paid to seek and pass the information. But this same people are also paid by sources on the other side to provide false information to the Americans. That is why the CIA has now asked the U.S. government to support the recruitment of 1,600 new intelligence assets, which according to the spook agency will help improve the quality of the information received by the military and the CIA itself.

Another problem with the terrorist air attacks, says Stafford, is that the attacks always take the lives of people who have nothing to do with the supposed terrorists. But both for the military and the CIA, these casualties of war are worthwhile if it means that their operations will continue to have funding from the U.S. tax payers and drug money with which a terrorist organization such as the CIA finances most of its operations.

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