[Peace-discuss] Was Michael Hastings killed by people from JSOC?

[C. G. Estabrook]

The Joint Special Operations Command is a 25,000-member assassination squad under the direction of the President (without Congressional oversight). Their spokesperson claims that they are active in more than 100 countries around the world. 

Gen. Stanley McChrystal was head of JSOC from 2003 to 2008; he was running the US occupation of Afghanistan when Hastings' reporting exposed him to ridicule and caused him to lose his job. 

Talking of shootings of locals by US troops at checkpoints in Afghanistan, McChrystal said that during his time as commander in Afghanistan, “We’ve shot an amazing number of people and killed a number and, to my knowledge, none has proven to have been a real threat to the force.” (McChrystal was apparently involved in covering up the killing of Pat Tillman as well.)

Jeremy Scahill writes in "Dirty Wars," that Special Operations Forces were used to "go in and capture or kill people who were supposedly linked to extremist organizations around the world, in some cases allied countries ... The world is a battlefield and we are at war. Therefore the military can go wherever they please and do whatever it is that they want to do, in order to achieve the national security objectives of whichever administration happens to be in power."

Shortly after Barack Obama took office in January 2009, Scahill writes, he gave "carte blanche to JSOC and the CIA to wage a global manhunt. Capture was option two."

<http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/202411/michael-hastings-may-have-been-killed-by-the-us-government/>.