[Peace-discuss] Even liberals are shocked at America's clandestine murders

[C. G. Estabrook]

[Dreyfuss is a quite conventional liberal - e.g., I doubt that "the Times broke 
this story fearlessly," as he says, although I admit that it's not clear who's 
more pleased by its appearance, the Petraeus faction in the Pentagon or the 
White House.  Dreyfuss may just be right that the story is bound up with Blair's 
departure. There's a story that Blair as CINCPAC worked to continue the Timorese 
massacres a decade ago (which of course the WH had supported) even after his 
superiors had told him to draw them down.  Maybe something similar is going on 
here.  Thirty years ago the Reagan administration's murder and terror in Central 
America was forced underground - "clandestine" - because of the "Vietnam 
syndrome." Maybe some or all of the criminal Obama administration is worried 
about the rise of a new "syndrome" - i.e., that the public will catch on. Obama 
understood perfectly well that his job was to restore "the bond of trust between 
the American people and their government" (as he wrote in The Audacity of Hope) 
while pursuing traditional US foreign policy goals, notably the domination of 
Mideast energy resources, by any means necessary.  --CGE]


"...the president will stand revealed as an aggressive, militaristic liberal 
interventionist [or] a feckless incompetent."

	General Petraeus's Secret Ops
	Robert Dreyfuss
	May 25, 2010

A secret military directive signed last September 30 by General David Petraeus, 
the Centcom commander, authorizes a vast expansion of secret US military special 
ops from the Horn of Africa to the Middle East to Central Asia and “appears to 
authorize specific operations in Iran,” according to the New York Times.

If President Obama knew about this, authorized it and still supports it, then 
Obama has crossed a red line, and the president will stand revealed as an 
aggressive, militaristic liberal interventionist who bears a closer resemblance 
to the president he succeeded than to the ephemeral reformer that he pretended 
to be in 2008, when he ran for office. If he didn’t know, if he didn’t 
understand the order, and if he’s unwilling to cancel it now that it’s been 
publicized, then Obama is a feckless incompetent. Take your pick.

If Congress has any guts at all, it will convene immediate investigative 
hearings into a power grab by Petraeus, a politically ambitious general, and the 
Pentagon’s arrogant Special Operations team, led by Admiral Eric T. Olson, who 
collaborated with Petraeus. And Congress needs to ask the White House, What did 
you know, and when did you know it?

Drop what you’re doing and read the whole piece, by Mark Mazzetti, in the Times, 
which ran it on page 1 as the lead story in today’s paper. (Critics of the 
“mainstream media” take note: the Times broke this story fearlessly, even though 
it apparently redacted certain operational details at the behest of the 
administration.)

Here’s the Cliff’s Notes version: In September, Petraeus signed the Joint 
Unconventional Warfare Task Force Execute Order providing for a “broad expansion 
of clandestine military activity” in the region of Centcom’s responsibility, the 
Middle East and South Asia. Reports Mazzetti:

     The secret directive, signed in September by Gen. David H. Petraeus, 
authorizes the sending of American Special Operations troops to both friendly 
and hostile nations in the Middle East, Central Asia and the Horn of Africa to 
gather intelligence and build ties with local forces. Officials said the order 
also permits reconnaissance that could pave the way for possible military 
strikes in Iran if tensions over its nuclear ambitions escalate.…

     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.

And:

     Officials said that many top commanders, General Petraeus among them, have 
advocated an expansive interpretation of the military’s role around the world, 
arguing that troops need to operate beyond Iraq and Afghanistan to better fight 
militant groups.

The Times story raises a million questions: Is this how the United States 
intends to carry out the order to assassinate Anwar al-Awlaqi, the Yemen-based 
US citizen who is reportedly an Al Qaeda operative? Does the revelation of this 
order have anything to do with the abrupt resignation of Dennis Blair, the 
departed Director of National Intelligence? What sorts of “dissident groups” in 
Iran might the military connect with, and might they include paramilitary forces 
associated with rebellious Kurds in western Iran, several of whom were just put 
to death by Tehran, or the Pakistan-linked Baluchistan rebels in southeast Iran?

For decades, the military has tried to elbow the Central Intelligence Agency 
into a subordinate role. Even as the intelligence budget ballooned (since the 
1990s) to enormous proportions, the Pentagon has gobbled up most of it and tried 
to force the civilian CIA into a subordinate role. (According to Mazzetti, the 
CIA supports the Petraeus directive, even though it is explicitly aimed at 
“break[ing] its dependence on the Central Intelligence Agency,” but we’ll see.) 
The gung-ho Special Ops folks at the Pentagon have been pushing hard to become a 
kind of uniformed covert operations unit of the US government, even though 
military operations aren’t governed by the same sort of restrictive 
Congressional oversight that the CIA operates under. And, according to Mazzetti, 
the Petraeus order is intended to accomplish things that the CIA “will not” do:

     The order, which an official said was drafted in close coordination with 
Adm. Eric T. Olson, the officer in charge of the United States Special 
Operations Command, calls for clandestine activities that “cannot or will not be 
accomplished“ by conventional military operations or “interagency activities,” a 
reference to American spy agencies.

Petraeus, along with General McChrystal, should have been fired long ago by 
Obama, if for no other reason because of their insubordination in 2009 is trying 
to force Obama's hand in pushing for a series of escalations of the Afghanistan 
war. Obama can still redeem himself by firing them now.

http://www.thenation.com/blog/general-petraeus-secret-ops

-- 
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
believed to be clean.