Painting by Anthony Freda.
Previously-leaked documents showed that the CIA warned Obama that funding rebels doesn’t work … but Obama decided to fund the Syrian rebels anyway for cynical political gain.
Top CIA officers say that drone strikes increase terrorism (and see this). Indeed, virtually all aspects of the American “war on terror” strategy creates more terrorists and weakens our national security. And see this.
Now, a leaked internal CIA memo shows that the Agency told Obama that drone strikes might be counter-productive. The Sydney Morning Herald reports today:
According to a leaked document by the CIA’s Directorate of Intelligence, “high value targeting” (HVT) involving air strikes and special forces operations against insurgent leaders can be effective, but can also have negative effects including increasing violence and greater popular support for extremist groups.
The leaked document is classified secret and “NoForn” (meaning not to be distributed to non-US nationals) and reviews attacks by the United States and other countries engaged in counter-insurgency operations over the past 50 years.
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The 2009 CIA study lends support to critics of US drone strikes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen by warning that such operations “may increase support for the insurgents, particularly if these strikes enhance insurgent leaders’ lore, if non-combatants are killed in the attacks, if legitimate or semi-legitimate politicians aligned with the insurgents are targeted, or if the government is already seen as overly repressive or violent”.
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The CIA also warns that targeting insurgent leaders “may, by eroding the rules of the game between the government and insurgents, escalate the level of violence in a conflict, which may or may not be in a government’s interest.”
“Israeli HVT efforts from 2000 to 2002 strengthened solidarity between terrorist groups and bolstered popular support for hard-line militant leaders, according to US Embassy officials in Jerusalem and clandestine reporting,” the study says.
Common Dreams notes:
Here’s a link to the document, titled Best Practices in Counterinsurgency: Making High-Value Targeting Operations an Effective Counterinsurgency Toolocument (pdf).
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Wikileaks points out that this internal prediction “has been proven right” in the years since the internal review was conducted near the outset of President Obama’s first term. And despite those internal warnings—which have been loudly shared by human rights and foreign policy experts critical of the CIA’s drone and assassination programs—Wikileaks also notes that after the internal review was prepared, “US drone strike killings rose to an all-time high.”
***
According to a statement released by Wikileaks:
The report discusses assassination operations (by various states) against the Taliban, al-Qa’ida, the FARC, Hizbullah, the PLO, HAMAS, Peru’s Shining Path, the Tamil’s LTTE, the IRA and Algeria’s FLN. Case studies are drawn from Chechnya, Libya, Pakistan and Thailand.
The assessment was prepared by the CIA’s Office of Transnational Issues (OTI). Its role is to provide “the most senior US policymakers, military planners, and law enforcement with analysis, warning, and crisis support”. The report is dated 7 July 2009, six months into Leon Panetta’s term as CIA chief ….
Heck of a job, boyz ...
Confirmation Bias
So the logic here is the use of drones creates more terrorists. By that logic, shooting the enemy on the battlefield creates more enemies. That is just rediculous!
And like Hillary wants us to do, we should have compassion and empathy too. Next, the progressives will want us to surrender to avoid killing the bad guys all together.
When you kill a terrorist with a bullet or a drone, he/she is DEAD. Mission accomplished. More will enlist to fight, sure, they were going to do that anyway.....
BS article!
To manage and expand the empire, America must constantly pick fights to maintain its fighting trim and fighting edge. America is the bully who is constantly poking its finger into the world's ribs. Bringing democracy - the stated goal - is in reality a policy of securing control of resources and markets for its corporations - the unstated goal.
Blowback - the "oops" excuse - is bullshit.
Blowforward - provocation - is the policy.
-- When he muffs a putt he bombs a hut.
and when Bush sliced a drive
thousands of Iraqi died
The people dont elect anyone in America.
Two puppets are hoisted up by the monolithic ziomedia, the votes are tallied by machines owned by the same money with no audit trail, and the donkeys wonder why their puppet leaders make nothing but bad decisions for Americans.
This of course explains a decade long single digit approval rating for congress and a 96 percent incumbent re election rate.
Time to get wise.
when the newsheeple have been all over this democracy for Cuba. there are empty store shelves in Cuba they say (though no one seems to be starving) the pictures look quaintly like the US in the 50s, (same cars actually) Cuba is the progressives dream, but the 50s in this country were about the last time the people had anything to say. as soon as we started protesting and demanding more of our rights we had none. (the only rights Obama wants is for black kids to be able to rob liquor stores and get away with it, has he been studying his banker friends) the vote is a joke, although maybe a full on electronic (bitpolitical direct representation amendment would change things, they still control the servers, so not likely) if anything Cuba has had a policy of protecting its people from the poisonous political charade that goes on in America, here look Democractic for the rest of the world to see, so we can conquer them in the name of your false freedoms. time to get wise has come and gone
The CIA, IRS and the NSA.
They are creations used ostensibly to protect the citizenry and yet they are nothing more then lying criminals who suppress Americans and protect the business and political elites.
Why haven't these murderers been hunted down and convicted of the crimes that they have committed? Why haven't the buildings where they congregate and work been razed to the ground ?
They murder (US and abroad) Michael Hasting, Gary Webb,
They over throw duly elected governments (Musaddiq in Iran just as 1 ex.)
They import drugs and sell them in the US to fund their overseas operations. (Mena Arkansas), admitted selling crack in the inner cities
They torture creating more enemies for the US.(Recently released report)
They spy on people
They drone strike people
They set people up
Isn't it time to stop the madness, investigate and hold accountable these
Thieves,murders, usurpers, and two-bit gutless fucking thugs?
We've done some folks wrong
Look at my shocked face!
Somebody/group must have advised him contrary - someone/group he trusts.....or gets cashola from
Obama's drones have made him a lot of enemies in this country, not just overseas.
Everything he has done/does makes him more enemies every day! It's not just the drones, it's HIM!!!!!
FU Washington
And then the CIA analysts and covert "professionals" who furnished that report kept their jobs and if they didn't keep them worked as advisor(s) on project(s) to Boeing, GD, Lockheed or Raytheon...
And the American people just kept indulging the President with their indifference to do more of the same ANYWAY!...
If we don't make new terrorists who are we going to fight?
I wonder what Lord Acton would have said about giving someone the capability to target and kill anyone on earth without any need to leave his oval-shaped office.
The purpose of using drones is to support the drone industry. They need to spend money on drones, get some operational experience in the field with them, in order to continue to improve the technology. When drones become cheaper and cheaper, and can be operated by almost anyone, like, input a grid to continuously monitor and the drone software splits up the grid into squares and goes to work - then drones' true purpose will be revealed - to oppress Americans.
Clearly, ILikeBoats is addressing the big question: what ARE they for? Given the massive push forward of the drone programs and drone usage globally, in the face of multiple lines of evidence that they don't work for their stated objectives, that is the question we need to face and answer.
Mr. Boats points to two sides. On one sode, it is clearely true drones are a growth industry for those desperate for higher rates of profit. For the other side, what use are they, he may be on the right track when he writes: " ... drones' true purpose will be revealed - to oppress Americans." Like many ZH readers however he is still under the illusion that Americans are in some way special, other than as funders and abetters of the military arm of the global kleptocracy and as world exemplars of hypocrisy and self delusion.
When I meet people from countries where drone warfare is being used - Pakistan and Palestine in particular - I ask what effect does it have on regular people. Their answer is that it terrifies them, especially the children, who have nightmares and grow up to be afraid of the sky.
Terror. Mass terror. As we dig through leaked documents and whistleblowers' revelations of what is going on in the minds of the Peace-Prize winning criminals who rule us and the banksters they take their orders from, that may be what it will boil down to. Drones as instruments of mass terror, collateral damage as central to their purpose. Those who have lived in terror all their lives, who have had it seared into their consciousness from their earliest days, will have no compunctions about fighting terror with terror, and then we who have never experienced this will be led to say "you see, those are terrible evil people who deserve to die."
Perhaps then, as all our claims to having built a better civilization crumble around us, what still makes us Americans special as a people is only that we are being saved for last in this war of terror agaist the people of the world - to preserve our illusions and our sense of self-righteousness so that we can be used as gendarmes against the rest, and so we can provide the globalists with a safe haven. But Boats is right in fearing that our day too will come, sooner than we'd like to think.
"...we who have never experienced this..."
But terror is creeping into our American world already. In the borderlands, the ghettos, the pot-growing hinterlands the children are already growing up in terror. And the "Black Lives Matter" movement sweeping the land is drawing a lot of support from young "white folk" who sense this reign of terror creeping toward the rest of us and urgently feel the need to act to stop it.
Let's get one thing straight; Obama doesn't know Jack Shit. Ok.
He's the Yoda of Bull Shit and Lies.
Drones benefit his image as a powerful leader. Appearances trumps reality in a world where media creates alternate realities.
CIA under Brennan is nothing but an obama HAND PUPPET....
When BamBam Barry and the other NeoCon FILTH don the orange jump suit and ankle braclets in a Gitmo type facility i'll know we're in the healing process.
PROGRESSIVE filth. Progressives are in charge, progressives dictate policy. Neocons are followers.
But yeah, GITMO would be perfect for them all.
Grimaldus
Neoconservatives = Neoliberals = Neonazis.
Edit
Cleaning drone blood with dollars!
"for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples"
Roughly translated as "Elect a tyrant we like and hand over your resources or we'll bomb the shit out of you"
Didn't work then, doesn't work now and won't work tomorrow.
Bush tortured and Obama murders. Congratulations Amerika on your choices! Merry Christmas.
He must be going for a second Nobel Peace Prize?
I am SHOCKED !