A „diplomatic embarrassment“ has arisen following the refusal of Pope Francis I to meet with Israel‘s prime minister at short notice. Benjamin Netanyahu‘s office had already announced that a meeting would take place during his visit to Italy, reported Haaretz, but the pope has no plans in this regard.

On October 26th, the anniversary of the PATRIOT Act, a coalition of more than 100 groups will hold a Rally Against Mass Surveillance in Washington, DC.
We need your help to make this historic protest a huge success!

Obwohl es einige Anstrengungen gegeben hat, den Präsidenten Francois Hollande zumindest so weit zu beruhigen, dass er mit seinen Beschwerden keine Schlagzeilen macht, so hat doch die Obama-Administration klar gemacht, dass sie die flächendeckende Bespitzelung französischer Bürger und Politiker durch die NSA, die kürzlich bekannt worden ist, in keiner Weise bereut.

(15.03.2010) Michael D. Furlong ist nicht irgendwer. Im Bericht der “New York Times” steht sehr wenig über den Hintergrund seiner Militärkarriere. Es wird lediglich erwähnt, der heutige “zivile Angestellte” des Militärs sei ein ehemaliger Offizier der Air Force.

Furlong ist hochdekorierter Spezialist für “strategische Kommunikation” und psychologische Kriegführung (“psychological operations”). U.a. war er Projektmanager für den Aufbau von drei durch die US-Regierung bezahlten Fernseh- und Radiostationen in Bosnien, Kosovo und Irak und war weltweit in Kriegsgebieten im Einsatz. Furlong arbeitete u.a. für den Vereinigten Generalstab des US-Militärs (“Joint Chiefs of Staff”), den Generalstab der US-Army, das Europa-Kommando (Eucom), in der Abteilung für Weltraum-Politik der US-Luftwaffe sowie dem Kommando für Sonderoperationen (Socom). Teil des Socom ist übrigens das “Joint Special Operations Command” (Jsoc), aber dazu später.

Mitte 2008 war Furlong der strategische Planer und Berater für technologische Integration des “Joint Information Operations Warfare Command“, welches Teil des Strategischen Kommandos Stratcom ist. Es ist anzunehmen, dass er bis heute diesen Posten innehat, da Stratcom in der New York Times als sein Vorgesetzter aufgeführt wird. Zu Stratcom gehört auch das ab Juni 2009 eingerichtete “Cyber Command” mit dem “Verantwortungsbereich” Internet.

United States officials are on the trail of a successful Afghan businessman they believe has channelled millions of dollars in aid to the al Qaeda-linked Haqqani network, one of the deadliest insurgent groups in Afghanistan.

It is believed that the suspected businessman still has donor-funded reconstruction contracts around the country.

Q. In your last book, “Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military,” you wrote about the ties between Islamist movements and Pakistan’s U.S.-backed military and intelligence. To what extent is religious extremism in Pakistan an American creation?

The Americans inadvertently expanded religious extremism in Pakistan. But if you go back in history, Pakistan was already involved in supporting religious extremism in Afghanistan when the Americans launched their massive aid program for Afghan mujahedeen after the Soviet invasion in 1979. Religious extremist groups have been in Pakistan since 1947. And some of them have been embraced by the state as a means of nation-building.

(29.09.) The CIA-operated, remotely piloted Predators or the more deadly Reapers fired a pair of missiles at a compound in the village of Darga Mandi in the Ghulam Khan area of North Waziristan, Pakistani security officials told AFP. The identities of the fighters who were killed have not been disclosed.

(26.09.) The U.S. Treasury Department quietly said Thursday that Badruddin Haqqani, an operational leader of the Haqqani Network, was removed from a State Department blacklist.

Mr. Haqqani, who was confirmed killed in August 2012, was also delisted this week by a United Nations Security Council sanctions committee. The U.S. State Department branded him a “global terrorist” in 2011.

(25.01.2012) McRaven had long been revered inside the special-operations community, but he was hardly known outside of military circles. In fact, immediately after finishing with Panetta, Lehrer felt obliged to inform viewers that McRaven was in charge of Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC (McRaven has since received his fourth star and been promoted to commander of Special Operations Command, of which JSOC is one component.) Last August, I wrote in detail about McRaven’s role overseeing the bin Laden mission.

(7.Dezember 2009) At a covert forward operating base run by the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, members of an elite division of Blackwater are at the center of a secret program in which they plan targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives, „snatch and grabs“ of high-value targets and other sensitive action inside and outside Pakistan, an investigation by The Nation has found. The Blackwater operatives also assist in gathering intelligence and help direct a secret US military drone bombing campaign that runs parallel to the well-documented CIA predator strikes, according to a well-placed source within the US military intelligence apparatus.

(08.02.2010) US-Geheimdienst CIA und die Söldnerfirma Blackwater haben vor vier Jahren in Hamburg die Ermordung des deutsch-syrischen Geschäftsmanns Mamoun Darkazanli geplant und praktisch vorbereitet. Das berichtet die US-Zeitschrift Vanity Fair in ihrer Januar-Ausgabe. Der Bericht hat in deutschen politischen Kreisen erhebliche Unruhe ausgelöst.

(Januar 2010) Among the team’s targets, according to a source familiar with the program, was Mamoun Darkazanli, an al-Qaeda financier living in Hamburg who had been on the agency’s radar for years because of his ties to three of the 9/11 hijackers and to operatives convicted of the 1998 bombings of U.S. Embassies in East Africa. The C.I.A. team supposedly went in “dark,” meaning they did not notify their own station—much less the German government—of their presence; they then followed Darkazanli for weeks and worked through the logistics of how and where they would take him down.

2010 wurden die Special Forces in 75 Staaten eingesetzt, darunter zu 86 Prozent im Verantwortungsbereich des United States Central Command. (..)

Das SOCOM verfügt gemäß dem Nunn-Cohen Amendment als einziges Verbundkommando über eine eigene Finanzierungsquelle, die sich unabhängig von der Entscheidung des Vorsitzenden der Vereinigten Stabschefs und der Haushaltsplanung der übrigen Streitkräfte aus einem Sonderfond des Verteidigungsministeriums speist.

Dadurch ist es den Mutterteilstreitkräften nicht mehr möglich „über die Hintertür“ die Finanzierung ihrer zum Teil immer noch ungeliebten (weil kostenintensiven) Spezialeinsatzkräfte zu kontrollieren.

Das SOCOM ist dadurch de facto eine fünfte Teilstreitkraft.

Im Fiskaljahr 2002 betrug das Budget 4,9 Mrd. US-Dollar. Aufgrund einer neuen Direktive des amerikanischen Verteidigungsministers Donald Rumsfeld an das USSOCOM, Terroristen rund um den Globus aufzuspüren und festzunehmen, wurde das Jahresbudget mehr als verdoppelt.

(11.Oktober) Title 10 is “a preferred way to do things when we can. And I think we should strive to make Title 10 the principle method of conducting these operations,” he said.

Some members of Congress pushed to have a debate over the AUMF as part of the fiscal year 2014 budget discussions, and former defense secretary Leon Panetta and CIA chief John Brennan have called for moving away from the AUMF and reverting back to Title 10 authorities.

(19.Oktober) Ideally, Obama would like to do away with the Authorization for the Use of Military Force, a law passed within days of the 9/11 attacks, and replace it with more targeted versions to allow action against new al-Qaeda related groups in the Middle East and Africa and other threats as they arise. His goal, the president said in a May speech, is to ”refine, and ultimately repeal” the existing authority.

Repeal of the AUMF could allow other detainees imprisoned under its terms to refile habeas corpus petitions that the government had successfully quashed.

Auch die Menschenrechtler von Human Rights Watch (HRW) werden einen Drohnenreport in Washington vorlegen. Der beschäftigt sich mit der Situation im Jemen und stützt sich auf 90 Interviews, darunter Gespräche mit Verwandten der Getöteten, Augenzeugen, Regierungsoffiziellen, Anwälten.

(08.Oktober) In a statement citing the Authorization to Use Military Force, which was passed by Congress after the 9/11 attacks on America, the US military yesterday justified the Oct. 5 raid by US Navy SEALs that targeted a senior Shabaab leader in Somalia. But just four months ago, President Barack Obama called for the repeal of the AUMF, claiming that the law will „continue to grant presidents unbound powers more suited for traditional armed conflicts between nation states.“

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U.S. inspectors are on the trail of a successful Afghan businessman they believe has channeled millions of dollars in aid to the al Qaeda-linked Haqqani network, one of the deadliest insurgent groups in Afghanistan, but still has donor-funded reconstruction contracts around the country.