General Petraeus' Secret Ops

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

The Dreyfuss Report

General Petraeus' 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 U.S. 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:




And:

They've been doing that since the Romans were wandering around.....

:shrug:

it into something sinister.

"those with dishonest agendas"

that is not honest discussion

to protect our nation and its people into something sinister. That is neither honest nor helpful. I grow weary of coming on to the DEMOCRATIC Underground and seeing this happening day in and day out. You would think there would be enough dishonest attacks from the right, that there will be little need to pile on.

Yes, that was necessary.

Are you dishonest, or have their spin just worked on you?

...gathering good intel is something the last administration had no interest in doing.

were given the veil of secrecy, people wound up tortured and killed. What's changed since then?

...instead of looking for conspiracies in every order they issue. Not saying there aren't conspiracies, but it's more productive to get some new, better leaders in place.

...but the issue here was the new order.

Looking at their records, I call for their replacements.

that did a lot of good, didn't it?

Honduras, Chile, Laos, and a whole list of other nations we benignly sought "intelligence" in, subverted, assassinated, tortured, and left graveyards full of people.

My 6th grader just finished the book "Tree Girl" for a book competition she was in. The story is based on the facts of a Mayan peasant girl who survived the genocide that occurred in Guatemala in the 1980s, aided by American training & weapons. :(

has a checkered past.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-mitchell/gen-petraeus-and-a-high-l_b_94458.html

Thanks for posting.

What if Iran started planning attacks on US nuclear facilities and scientific personnel? What the f-ck gives us any more moral authority than Osama bin Laden to do the same to them?

or whatever they call it...