Note: I have noticed that many people appear to be rereading this article. So, I think it likely that around 2010 was when the U.S. and other nations decided a secret assault on terrorism with drones with hellfire missiles and Seal Assault teams and other secret assault teams worldwide secretly began to occur. This reduced public soldiers fighting against terrorism and began a secret worldwide war by many countries fighting terrorism together. By doing this (out of the limelight of the news for the most part) it remains hidden for the most part even today 4 years later. Whether this hidden nature is a good thing or a bad thing is for you to judge. However, it is important to note that no free nation likely can continue to long exist if certain kinds of terrorism are allowed to exist unchecked worldwide. So, it is possible that this secret war will continue ongoing for 25, 50, or 100 years on into the future.
Though for now it is mostly waged against terrorists who might be drug dealers or human traffickers riding in the guise of extreme religious principles like Al Qaeda does, it is important to note that maybe seeing these terrorists as criminals rather than religious radicals might be more appropriate if one studies these kinds of things and actually talks to people who have been in these situations like I have. Because Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations have to commit crimes like drug running and human trafficking and other crimes in order to finance their activities ongoing. So, there is no way really to separate criminal activities from the terrorists in any way, shape or form in any realistic way. So, unless you subscribe to the saying, "Any means justify the ends" which is a Warlord credo there is no way at all to justify what Terrorists are actually doing on the ground around the world.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
The Secret Assault on Terrorism
Secret Assault on Terrorism Widens on Two Continents
to read this article click on "Two Continents" above or read it at the bottom of this page.
It talks about how public wars like in Iraq and Afghanistan cause more problems than solutions as far as publicity worldwide goes. So, there is a new attempt to use the CIA and soldiers in clandestine operations with the secret agreement of local governments and drones and hellfire missiles are now used on two continents, Asia (including middle east as in Yemen) and in Africa specifically in Somalia. It says the main problem with these kinds of operations is that American soldiers used in this way could be treated as spies if captured and this could interfere with them being treated correctly by the Geneva Conventions. It also leads to private armies (mercenaries worldwide) being hired as private contractors to assassinate terrorists anyway they can, and anyway they can manage it.
However, dealing with Al Qaeda in Yemen is problematic as evidenced by the following quote from the same New York Times article:
The tribes there tend to regularly switch sides, making it difficult to depend on them for information about Al Qaeda. “My state is anyone who fills my pocket with money,” goes one old tribal motto. end quote.
The following is a definition for Salafi Jihadism that is mentioned on page 4 of the NY Times article. The definition is from from Wikipedia:
Salafist jihadism (also Salafi jihadism) is a school of thought of Salafi Muslims who support violent jihad. The term was coined by scholar Gilles Kepel[1][2] to describe Salafi who began developing an interest in violent jihad during the mid-1990s. Practitioners are often referred to as Salafi jihadis or Salafi jihadists. Journalist Bruce Livesey estimates Salafi jihadists constitute less than 1 percent of the world's 1.4 billion Muslims (c. 10 million). [1]
end quote from wikipedia on Salafi jihadists.
If there are presently 10 million adherents worldwide to the concept of violent jihad and some or most of them have kids this jihad terrorism thing is likely to go on for hundreds of years the way things are presently going here on earth.
Secret Assault on Terrorism Widens on Two Continents
By SCOTT SHANE, MARK MAZZETTI and ROBERT F. WORTH
Published: August 14, 2010
This article is by Scott Shane, Mark Mazzetti and Robert F. Worth.
Khaled Abdullah/Reuters
White House officials worked to win support for their
efforts in Yemen from President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Articles in this series will examine the secret expansion of the war against Al Qaeda and its allies.
Related
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U.S. Is Said to Expand Secret Actions in Mideast (May 25, 2010)
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U.S. Is Still Using Private Spy Ring, Despite Doubts (May 16, 2010)
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Imam’s Path From Condemning Terror to Preaching Jihad (May 9, 2010)
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Contractors Tied to Effort to Track and Kill Militants (March 15, 2010)
Times Topic: Al Qaeda
Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Yemeni tribesmen blew up a pipeline in June in Marib Province in retaliation for an attack.
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But the strike, it turned out, had also killed the province’s deputy governor, a respected local leader who Yemeni officials said had been trying to talk Qaeda members into giving up their fight. Yemen’s president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, accepted responsibility for the death and paid blood money to the offended tribes.
The strike, though, was not the work of Mr. Saleh’s decrepit Soviet-era air force. It was a secret mission by the United States military, according to American officials, at least the fourth such assault on Al Qaeda in the arid mountains and deserts of Yemen since December.
The attack offered a glimpse of the Obama administration’s shadow war against Al Qaeda and its allies. In roughly a dozen countries — from the deserts of North Africa, to the mountains of Pakistan, to former Soviet republics crippled by ethnic and religious strife — the United States has significantly increased military and intelligence operations, pursuing the enemy using robotic drones and commando teams, paying contractors to spy and training local operatives to chase terrorists.
The White House has intensified the Central Intelligence Agency’s drone missile campaign in Pakistan, approved raids against Qaeda operatives in Somalia and launched clandestine operations from Kenya. The administration has worked with European allies to dismantle terrorist groups in North Africa, efforts that include a recent French and Mauritanian strike near the border between Mauritania and Mali. And the Pentagon tapped a network of private contractors to gather intelligence about things like militant hide-outs in Pakistan and the location of an American soldier currently in Taliban hands.
While the stealth war began in the Bush administration, it has expanded under President Obama, who rose to prominence in part for his early opposition to the invasion of Iraq. Virtually none of the newly aggressive steps undertaken by the United States government have been publicly acknowledged. In contrast with the troop buildup in Afghanistan, which came after months of robust debate, for example, the American military campaign in Yemen began without notice in December and has never been officially confirmed.
Obama administration officials point to the benefits of bringing the fight against Al Qaeda and other militants into the shadows. Afghanistan and Iraq, they said, have sobered American politicians and voters about the staggering costs of big wars that topple governments, require years of occupation and can be a catalyst for further radicalization throughout the Muslim world.
Instead of “the hammer,” in the words of John O. Brennan, President Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser, America will rely on the “scalpel.” In a speech in May, Mr. Brennan, an architect of the White House strategy, used this analogy while pledging a “multigenerational” campaign against Al Qaeda and its extremist affiliates.
Yet such wars come with many risks: the potential for botched operations that fuel anti-American rage; a blurring of the lines between soldiers and spies that could put troops at risk of being denied Geneva Convention protections; a weakening of the Congressional oversight system put in place to prevent abuses by America’s secret operatives; and a reliance on authoritarian foreign leaders and surrogates with sometimes murky loyalties.
The May strike in Yemen, for example, provoked a revenge attack on an oil pipeline by local tribesmen and produced a propaganda bonanza for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. It also left President Saleh privately furious about the death of the provincial official, Jabir al-Shabwani, and scrambling to prevent an anti-American backlash, according to Yemeni officials.
The administration’s demands have accelerated a transformation of the C.I.A. into a paramilitary organization as much as a spying agency, which some critics worry could lower the threshold for future quasi-military operations. In Pakistan’s mountains, the agency had broadened its drone campaign beyond selective strikes against Qaeda leaders and now regularly obliterates suspected enemy compounds and logistics convoys, just as the military would grind down an enemy force.
For its part, the Pentagon is becoming more like the C.I.A. Across the Middle East and elsewhere, Special Operations troops under secret “Execute Orders” have conducted spying missions that were once the preserve of civilian intelligence agencies. With code names like Eager Pawn and Indigo Spade, such programs typically operate with even less transparency and Congressional oversight than traditional covert actions by the C.I.A.
And, as American counterterrorism operations spread beyond war zones into territory hostile to the military, private contractors have taken on a prominent role, raising concerns that the United States has outsourced some of its most important missions to a sometimes unaccountable private army.
A Proving Ground
end quote from:
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