- home -
Notes from Elias: I found an article on this U.S. Army document at a website named "wikileaks" dot com. I began looking for the document itself, and finally found it at the Federated American Scientists website, (fas.org) where you can go to download the document itself. The website url for the FAS article is here: http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2008/11/unconventional.html
This is about "black ops", "psychological warfare", and the use of "surrogates" in the execution of "unconventional warfare" objectives. After you read this document, you will not have any difficulty seeing how the alleged 19 "hijackers" of 9/11/2001 could have been used as "surrogates" by special operations emanating from highly secretive compartments inside our own military and Intelligence communities, so read carefully. This is about the Army's use of the media to influence public perception of such unconventional warfare events. This is about secrecy. This is about illicit use of the U.S. government's agencies by criminal-minded executives in seats of high governmental power to control the American people under the guise of legitimate governance. This is about "how" the coming military-industrial complex military-police state is to be installed in America, and it is about how the U.S. Army shall play a compartmentalized role in that police-state, alongside the U.S. Intelligence community, the Department of Homeland Security, FEMA, and countless other Federal government agencies.
The pdf downloadable file for this document is here:
http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm3-05-130.pdf
I recommend that each reader here download your own copy of this U.S. Army field manual on unconventional warfare for future reference, and save it to a removable disc of your choice. This should be spread around at grassroots levels. You, and all Americans, will want to know what's in store for we citizens in the aftermath of the deliberate tanking of the U.S. economy, after our manufacturing base has been shipped overseas, after our middle-class jobs have been swamped by millions of illegal aliens, after the SPP.gov's North American Union is activated, and after the U.S. government has declared a world-wide War on Terrorism. In other words, this is in part how the mighty nation named America is being dismantled silently, secretly, from the "inside" and is being prepared in the public perception to accept America's assimilation into a North American Union, which is prelude, by plans laid out by the CFR and the Trilateral Commission, for the coming one-world government.
The article below is from wikileaks dot com, and I'm placing it here as an introductory summation of several key factors in the Army's document. The article below is not a substitute for reading the US Army document itself.
If you are in law enforcement, are in any unit of the military Reserves, are currently on active duty in the U.S. Military, or are a veteran of the U.S. military, I urge you to recall your oath of service. You swore to support and defend the U.S. Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. Why would I ask you to recall that oath? Because the American people now, more than ever, need men of honor in uniform (and veterans also) to stand with the free American people to oppose what is being deliberately done to this nation from within. You do not have to obey illegal or unconstitutional orders, no matter how high up those illegal or unconstitutional orders originate. Find out more:
http://www.oath-keepers.blogspot.com/
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By Tom Burghardt
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On December 13, the whistleblowing site
Wikileaks
did investigative- and citizen- journalists a great service by releas[ing] the
US Army Special Operations Forces FM 3-05.130, titled Unconventional
Warfare.
Published in September 2008, the 248-page document though unclassified, is
restricted "to U.S. Government agencies and their contractors only to protect
technical or operational information from automatic dissemination under the
International Exchange Program or by other means." The Department of the Army
urges recipients to "destroy by any method that will prevent disclosure of
contents or reconstruction of the document." Wikileaks has guaranteed
that the disappearance of this critical primary source into the bowels of the
Pentagon will not occur.
Special Warfare's Nazi Provenance
Since the end of World War II, the United States has acted through proxies
either to defeat leftist insurgencies or to subvert "hostile" governments, e.g.
those states viewed by Washington and the multinational corporations they serve
as ideological competitors.
Historically, U.S. unconventional warfare (UW) doctrine was derived from Nazi
experiences in countering "partisan warfare" across Europe during World War II.
As analyst and scholar Michael McClintock detailed in his essential study on the
topic,
American special warfare doctrine would draw considerably on Wehrmacht and SS methods of terrorizing civilian populations and, perhaps more importantly, of co-opting local factions to combat partisan resistance. The Department of the Army's A Study of Special and Subversive Operations (November 1947) was an early assessment of the lessons learned from World War II in the context of Cold War imperatives. (Instruments of Statecraft: U.S. Guerrilla Warfare, Counterinsurgency, Counterterrorism, 1940-1990, New York: Pantheon Books, 1992, p. 59)
But the United States did more than translate captured Wehrmacht and SS
documents: they recruited many Waffen SS veterans, often with an assist from
high Vatican officials. Tens of thousands of war criminals were spirited out of
Europe along "ratlines" into U.S. hands for clandestine war against the new
enemy: the Soviet Union and the international left.
Pathological killers such as SS veteran Klaus Barbie, the Butcher of Lyons, was
instrumental when the CIA and the Argentine death-squad generals launched their
1980 "cocaine coup" in Bolivia. Barbie, along with operatives linked to the CIA,
Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church and preexisting Nazi networks, "reorganized"
Bolivia's intelligence services to reflect the Southern Cone's "changing
realities." (For background, see Robert Parry's excellent
series, Dark Side of Rev. Moon, The Consortium for Independent
Journalism)
Even when the "competition" was peaceful and confined to the political-economic
spheres, once the U.S. intervened, violence, civil war and chaos followed. This
scenario was played out in Chile during the 1970s, Afghanistan, Angola,
Mozambique, Nicaragua and El Salvador throughout the 1980s, in Yugoslavia and
the Balkans generally during the 1990s, today in Bolivia and Venezuela and on a
planetary scale under the rubric of the "global war on terrorism" (GWOT). The
lesson for those who buck the global hegemon? U.S. political subversion and
state terror will wreck havoc and halt independent development in its tracks.
And when the global Godfather's military forces directly intervene? Although the
U.S. was defeated in Southeast Asia, target countries such as Vietnam, Laos and
Cambodia were destroyed by the United States in the process. Devastated
economically and socially, decades later these nations have yet to fully recover
from the depredations wrought by their American "liberators." However, the U.S.
military did learn certain unique skills, not least of which was the application
of selective violence against the communist National Liberation Front's civilian
infrastructure.
The Phoenix Program, meticulously
analyzed in researcher Douglas Valentine's definitive account, was launched
in 1967 by the CIA and U.S. Special Forces as a means to win "hearts and minds."
But from its inception, Phoenix operators worked in tandem with drug-linked
South Vietnamese and Laotian "allies" and morphed into an assassination and
torture program that killed thousands. Long after the U.S. withdrew from
Southeast Asia, lessons learned through Phoenix and related programs such as
Condor and Gladio, were "refined" during the 1970s-1980s in Afghanistan, Italy,
Turkey and Central America, and now constitute the bedrock on which the
Pentagon's unconventional warfare doctrine operates today.
Throughout the Cold War, U.S. power in proxy states was exercised through
repressive police, intelligence agencies and by far-right civilian allies
(referred to as "foreign internal defense," FID). Such forces, trained and
funded by the U.S., combined a neofascist political outlook with organized
criminal activities generally, though certainly not limited to, the
international narcotics trade.
NATO's infamous "stay-behind" Operation Gladio networks in Italy and Turkey for
example, worked directly with international narcotics syndicates and pro-fascist
political parties such as the Italian Avanguardia Nazionale (National Vanguard)
founded by the terrorist drug trafficker Stefano delle Chiaie and the Turkish
Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi (National Action Party, MHP) and the drug-linked
terror gang, the Grey Wolves, founded by Alparslan Türkeş, a German sympathizer
during World War II.
With links to those nations' intelligence services, the CIA and the Pentagon,
these organizations waged a relentless war against the left through terrorist
bombings, murders and assassinations in a bid to destabilize their governments
and spark a full-fledged military takeover. Along with the CIA, the United
States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) have been instrumental in organizing
and waging unconventional warfare with the express purpose of maintaining the
economic-political status quo in target countries.
As long-time readers of Antifascist Calling are aware, among the more
critical issues explored here are those relating to the intersection of
corporate and military power and how those interactions play out on the
contemporary political plane to subvert democracy and movements for social
justice.
Indeed, reference is frequently made to what I have identified, following Peter
Dale Scott and other analysts, as the corporatist
deep state: that is, the objective interface amongst political
elites, multinational corporations, the military, intelligence agencies and
organized crime. Unlike Scott however, I contend these linkages do not
"transcend" the left-right continuum, but rather are part and parcel of
Washington's decades-long war against the left, social justice movements
generally and in particular, democratic socialist movements from below.
As we will see in my analysis of FM 3-05.130, USSOCOM make these links explicit,
arguing that "UW must be conducted by, with, or through surrogates; and such
surrogates must be irregular forces."
As I averred, proxy forces, often aligned with far-right groups and organized
crime-linked assets (for the most part interchangeable players) are the
preferred "irregular forces" employed by Washington. USSOCOM states that this
definition "is consistent with the historical reasons that the United States has
conducted UW" and goes on to cite its "support of both an insurgency, such as
the Contras in 1980s Nicaragua, and resistance movements to defeat an occupying
power, such as the Mujahideen in 1980s Afghanistan." It doesn't get any more
explicit than this!
Ideologically Coherent
The authors of FM 3-05.130, far from being militarist troglodytes are
knowledgeable and erudite, presenting a broad and ideologically coherent
narrative that is both informative and historically intriguing in its
transparency and methodological purpose. In other words, unlike their political
masters, they don't pull any punches.
Right up front they inform the reader that UW establishes a "litmus test" which
is warfare conducted "by, with or through surrogates" and that their preferred
assets are irregular forces:
Irregulars, or irregular forces, are individuals or groups of individuals who are not members of a regular armed force, police, or other internal security force. They are usually nonstate-sponsored and unconstrained by sovereign nation legalities and boundaries. These forces may include, but are not limited to, specific paramilitary forces, contractors, individuals, businesses, foreign political organizations, resistance or insurgent organizations, expatriates, transnational terrorism adversaries, disillusioned transnational terrorism members, black marketers, and other social or political "undesirables." (Unconventional Warfare, p. 1-3)
While "conventional warfare" is viewed as a conflict between states, Irregular
Warfare (IW) and UW according to FM 3-05.130 is "about people not platforms."
Irregular and unconventional warfare "does not depend on military prowess
alone."
It also relies on the understanding of such social dynamics as tribal politics, social networks, religious influences, and cultural mores. Although IW is a violent struggle, not all participating irregulars or irregular forces are necessarily armed. People, more so than weaponry, platforms, and advanced technology, will be the key to success in IW. Successful IW relies on building relationships and partnerships at the local level. It takes patient, persistent, and culturally savvy people within the joint force to execute IW. (Unconventional Warfare, p. 1-5)
Indeed, FM 3-05.130 explicitly states that its "strategic purpose [is] to gain
or maintain control or influence over the population and to support that
population through political, psychological, and economic methods." While both
IW and UW seek to influence "relevant populations," UW in contrast to IW, "is
always conducted by, with, or through irregular forces." In other words, local
surrogates drawn from relevant far-right and/or organized crime-linked assets
are the means of eliciting "influence" over "relevant populations."
In Bosnia and Kosovo during the 1990s, "irregular forces" deployed during
U.S./NATO destabilization operations in the former Yugoslavia included elements
of the Afghan-Arab database of disposable intelligence assets, e.g. al-Qaeda,
which have been linked to the CIA, Britain's MI6, Germany's
Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) and Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence agency
(ISI), as well as long-established drug, arms and human trafficking networks
aligned with the Albanian and Turkish Mafias. Indeed, "irregular forces" such as
the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) demonstrated
all of these relationships in spades.
According to FM 3-05.130, the constituent elements of contemporary IW theory
include: Insurgency; COIN (counterinsurgency); UW; Terrorism; CT
(counterterrorism); FID (foreign internal defense); Stability, security,
transition, and reconstruction (SSTR) operations; Strategic communication (SC);
PSYOP; Civil-military operations (CMO); Information operations (IO);
Intelligence and counterintelligence (CI) activities; Transnational criminal
activities, including narco-trafficking, illicit arms dealing, and illegal
financial transactions that support or sustain IW; and Law enforcement
activities focused on countering irregular adversaries. (Unconventional
Warfare, p. 1-5)
Its but a short step as far as it goes, from citing the elements of UW to
deploying the most dubious players as strategic assets in planetary-wide U.S.
destabilization operations.
The Media's Role
Explicitly stated is the media's role in advancing the goals of United States
national power. As recent exposés in The New York Times and elsewhere
have
documented, "message force multipliers" such as retired Pentagon officials
and former high-ranking officers, often linked to corporate defense firms that
rely heavily on Pentagon largesse, have leveraged their expertise and conducted
illegal domestic psychological operations (PSYOPS) and information warfare, with
the complicity and full knowledge of the giant media firms.
It is important for the official agencies of government, including the armed forces, to recognize the fundamental role of the media as a conduit of information. The USG uses SC to provide top-down guidance for using the informational instrument of national power through coordinated information, themes, messages, and products synchronized with the other instruments of national power. The armed forces support SC themes and messages through IO, public affairs (PA), and defense support to public diplomacy (DSPD). The armed forces must assure media access consistent with classification requirements, operations security, legal restrictions, and individual privacy. The armed forces must also provide timely and accurate information to the public. Success in military operations depends on acquiring and integrating essential information and denying it to the adversary. The armed forces are responsible for conducting IO, protecting what should not be disclosed, and aggressively attacking adversary information systems. IO may involve complex legal and policy issues that require approval, review, and coordination at the national level. (Unconventional Warfare, p. 2-2)
Indeed, as the authors aver, since UW consists of operations conducted "by, with
or through irregular forces," engagement with the "human terrain" is
"fundamentally a conflict of ideas"! In a nutshell, the "human terrain"
explicitly includes the American public who are also the targets of Pentagon
propagandistic "information operations." This is stated explicitly:
By contrast, USG-controlled specific instruments of informational power, while narrower in scope, can achieve specific and measurable results useful to prosecuting UW. ARSOF [Army Special Operations Forces] can work with DOS [Department of State] counterparts to identify and engage select TAs [target audiences] that are able to influence behavior within a UWOA [unconventional warfare operating area]. Such TAs may be inside the UWOA itself or outside but able to influence the UWOA. The USG can then subject these TAs, directly or indirectly, to a DOS public diplomacy (PD) campaign coordinated to support the UW effort. Similarly, since UW may be a long-duration or politically sensitive effort, ARSOF and its DOS partner, the Bureau of Public Affairs, can craft a PA campaign intended to keep the U.S. domestic audience informed of the truth in a manner supportive of USG goals and the effective prosecution of UW. (Unconventional Warfare, p. 2-3)
Economic Subversion
For the authors of FM 3-05.130, "properly integrated manipulation of economic
power can and should be a component of UW." Never mind that such "manipulation"
can and did result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of human beings in
Iraq prior to the 2003 U.S. invasion and occupation as well as in a score of
other nations that have defied the U.S.
The cases of Chile and Nicaragua are instructive in this regard, where the
disgraced president, Richard Nixon, vowed to "make the economy scream," prior to
the 1973 coup, or the crippling sanctions and economic embargo imposed on
Nicaragua's Sandinista government. Various sanctions regimes unambiguously "can
build and sustain international coalitions waging or supporting U.S. UW
campaigns." A similar methodology is being applied today against Iran as
"punishment" for its legal development of civilian nuclear power.
Like all other instruments of U.S. national power, the use and effects of economic "weapons" are interrelated and they must be coordinated carefully. Once again, ARSOF must work carefully with the DOS and intelligence community (IC) to determine which elements of the human terrain in the UWOA are most susceptible to economic engagement and what second- and third-order effects are likely from such engagement. The United States Agency for International Development's (USAID's) placement abroad and its mission to engage human groups provide one channel for leveraging economic incentives. The DOC's can similarly leverage its routine influence with U.S. corporations active abroad. Moreover, the IO effects of economic promises kept (or ignored) can prove critical to the legitimacy of U.S. UW efforts. UW practitioners must plan for these effects. (Unconventional Warfare, p. 2-7)
Indeed, ARSOF plans for waging UW take an integrated approach and assert that
they "can and should exploit the active and analytical capabilities existing in
the financial instruments of U.S. power." The application of financial warfare
however, including the "persuasive influence" of state and nonstate "actors"
regarding the availability and terms "of loans, grants, or other financial
assistance" is predicated on towing the U.S. line. The authors aver that "such
application of financial power must be part of a circumspect, integrated, and
consistent UW plan." In other words, threats, bribery and economic subversion
generally can work wonders in getting the attention of recalcitrant states not
"on board" with the U.S.
Narcotrafficking Networks and the "Global War on Terror"
For decades, investigative journalists, researchers and analysts have noted the
symbiotic relationship amongst international narcotrafficking syndicates,
neofascist political groups, U.S. intelligence agencies and U.S. Special Forces
in the war against leftist adversaries.
Dozens of books and hundreds of articles by journalists and writers such as
Alfred W. McCoy, Peter Dale Scott, Henrik Krüger, Robert Parry, Gary Webb,
Jonathan Marshall, Douglas Valentine, Daniel Hopsicker, Bill Conroy as well as
exposés by former DEA investigators such as Michael Levine and Celerino Castillo
III, have documented the long and bloody history of U.S. complicity in the
global drugs trade.
While the United States has pumped billions of dollars into so-called drug
eradication programs in target countries such as Colombia, Peru, Bolivia,
Afghanistan and Mexico through ill-conceived projects such as Plan Colombia and
the Mérida Initiative, also know as Plan Mexico, recent reports, most notably by
The Narco News Bulletin, have documented the close interrelationships
amongst narcotraffickers, rightist extremists, political elites and U.S.
intelligence agencies.
Indeed, investigative journalist Bill Conroy recently
documented how a U.S. trained and equipped special operations group within
the Mexican army (the Zetas) "is now assisting the Mexican military in its narco-trafficking
operations along the border."
None of this however, phases the authors of Unconventional Warfare. And
why should it. As they themselves describe the doctrine, unconventional warfare
is "conducted by, with, or through surrogates; and such surrogates must be
irregular forces," the next logical step in the equation is the utilization of
transnational criminal networks to advance U.S. national power. The section,
"Law Enforcement Instrument of United States National Power and Unconventional
Warfare," states this explicitly: no tinfoil hat needed here!
Actors engaged in supporting elements in the UWOA may rely on criminal activities, such as smuggling, narcotics, or human trafficking. Political and military adversaries in the UWOA will exhibit the same sensitivity to official exposure and engagement because criminal entities routinely seek to avoid law enforcement. Sometimes, political and military adversaries are simultaneously criminal adversaries, which ARSOF UW planners must consider a threat. At other times, the methods and networks of real or perceived criminal entities can be useful as supporting elements of a U.S.-sponsored UW effort. In either case, ARSOF understand the importance of coordinating military intelligence preparation of the battlefield (IPB) for specific UW campaigns with the routine intelligence activities conducted by U.S. law enforcement agencies. (Unconventional Warfare, p. 2-7)
During subversive operations by U.S. ARSOF soldiers in target areas, indigenous
networks, many of whom are linked to far-right and narcotrafficking groups
(Nicaragua, Bosnia, Kosovo), including "former" allies such as al-Qaeda, are
referred to as "The Underground" and "The Auxiliary" in FM 3-05.130. Details
however, are few and far between and the authors state unambiguously:
There is more SF participation in developing and advising underground [and auxiliary] elements than is widely understood or acknowledged. Most such participation is classified and inappropriate for inclusion in this manual. (Unconventional Warfare, p. 5-5)
Preparing the ground for U.S. attacks and/or subversive operations by proxy
forces aligned with American goals are a key component of UW theory. Whether a
population is "on-board" with U.S. geostrategic goals or the tactical modalities
employed in such campaigns is irrelevant to the new cold warriors of the GWOT.
When "persuasion" fails the muscle moves in to get the attention on the
"natives."
Organization of the larger indigenous population from which the irregular forces are drawn--the mass base--must likewise be conducted primarily by the irregular organization itself under indirect guidance of SF. The primary value of the mass base to UW operations is less a matter of formal organization than of marshaling population groups to act in specific ways that support the overall UW campaign. The mass base, or general population and society at large, is recognized as an operational rather than a structural effort for ARSOF in UW. Elements of the mass base are divided into three distinct groups in relation to the cause or movement--pro, anti/con, and those who are uncommitted, undecided, or ambivalent. ARSOF, the underground, and the auxiliary then conduct irregular activities to influence or leverage these groups. These groups may be witting or unwitting of the UW nature of the operations or activities in which they are utilized. (Unconventional Warfare, p. 5-5)
In Colombia for example, U.S. "counterdrug" assistance to the corrupt Uribe
government flowed directly to the narcotrafficking far-right death squad, the
Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, or AUC. Though designated a Foreign Terrorist
Organization by the U.S. State Department, the Uribe government's military high
command, directly advised by the Pentagon, funneled weapons and intelligence
that was used by the narcofascists to murder union organizers, often after
payment by U.S. multinational corporations such as Chiquita Brands
International, of anyone the group identified as a "guerrilla."
In ARSOF parlance, AUC "influence"--dragging unsuspecting citizens off a bus and
beheading them in front of their children, for example--is what is meant when
corporate- or drug-linked death squads "conduct irregular activities" to
"leverage these groups." But the international community has another term to
describe these activities: state terrorism.
In 2004, as part of broad U.S. efforts to unseat Venezuela's socialist President
Hugo Chávez, Venezuelan authorities arrested some 100 AUC fighters who were
planning to attack specially-selected targets in Caracas. According to published
reports, several high-ranking American and Colombian military officers were
implicated in the operation.
The parapolitical scandal which continues to rock Bogotá, revealed high-level
involvement by Colombia's political and military elite with the narcofascist AUC.
But the scandal also revealed the involvement of the U.S. 7th Special Forces
Group and the 1st Psychological Operations Battalion in directly training and
advising Colombian military units responsible for the worst human rights abuses.
Numerous reports have emerged that detail these linkages, including the 2007
disclosure by the National Security Archive that Colombian Army commander
General Mario Montoya "engaged in a joint operation with a Medellín-based
paramilitary group. 'Operation Orion' was part of a larger military offensive in
the city during 2002-03 to attack urban guerrilla networks. The sweep resulted
in at least 14 deaths and dozens of disappearances. The classified intelligence
report confirmed 'information provided by a proven source,' according to
comments from the U.S. defense attaché included in the document."
This is but the tip of the proverbial iceberg, however.
In Afghanistan, the world's number one producer and processor of opium and its
finished "product" heroin, bound for European and U.S. markets, drug trafficking
according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNDOC) in their
2008 World Drug Report, is "out of control." According to UNDOC, drug
money is used as "a lubricant for corruption, and a source of terrorist
financing: in turn, corrupt officials and terrorists make drug production and
trafficking easier."
Indeed, since the 2001 U.S. invasion and occupation, opium production has
skyrocketed some 1,000% and accounts for a large percentage of the country's
gross domestic product. Tellingly, some of the staunchest U.S. allies in the
area are directly tied to international narcotics organizations. According to
UNDOC, the global increase in opium production "was almost entirely due to the
17% expansion of cultivation in Afghanistan, which is now 193,000 ha [hectares]"
reaching 8,700 metric tons in 2007, accounting for a staggering 92% of global
opium production!
Despite these horrendous statistics, the authors of FM 3-05.130 can asset that
"the methods and networks of real or perceived criminal entities can be useful"!
Indeed they can, as a seemingly limitless source of black funds earmarked for
U.S. planetary subversion in the interest of expanding American corporate power.
According to a June 2008 report by
The Times, after last year's bumper crop sent the price of opium
spiraling downwards, the Taliban and U.S.-connected drug lords linked to Hamid
Karzai's government, are stockpiling vast quantities of opium in order to induce
a rise in world prices. And Time Magazine
reported in October that the value of hoarded opium may be as much as $3.2
billion.
Celebrated by the Pentagon and the U.S. media as a "splendid victory," the 2001
invasion and occupation of Afghanistan quickly spiraled out of control and the
country now faces a resurgent Taliban, a new base of operations for al-Qaeda in
the tribal areas of Pakistan and evidence of Pakistani ISI involvement in aiding
the fundamentalist insurgents and the global drugs trade. But for American
unconventional warriors, a full accounting of war crimes that ARSOF supervised
and their Northern Alliance "allies" carried out have yet to be answered.
As Peter Dale Scott
noted in 2002,
It's a bitter irony: The largely successful U.S. campaign against the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan is resulting in an increase of funds for terrorists around the globe.
It is true, as President Bush has insisted, that global terrorism is financed by the flow of illicit drugs. Yet by installing and rewarding a coalition of drug-financed warlords in Kabul, the United States has itself helped restore the flow of Afghan heroin to terrorist groups, from the Balkans and Chechnya to Tajikistan, Pakistan and Kashmir. ("Poppy Paradox: U.S. War in Afghanistan Boosts Terror Funds," Dissident Voice, August 3, 2002)
Indeed, among the staunchest U.S. allies in the region, characters such as
Hazrat Ali and Gul Agha, "have been 'bought off' with millions in deals brokered
by U.S. and British intelligence." But while America was happy to endorse a
drug-linked status quo that relied on its so-called "warlord strategy" to
"stabilize" Afghanistan, part of the blowback from these dubious alliances
included allowing bin Laden to escape into Pakistan in 2001 after the "battle"
of Tora Bora.
But for Pentagon proponents of unconventional warfare, the "price is always
right" when it comes to strategic and tactical alliances with narcotraffickers
and international terrorists. After all, since "UW must be conducted by, with,
or through surrogates; and such surrogates must be irregular forces," everything
is permitted.
end
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