/us

Il est tellement convaincu que les moyens (Free Market et autres Free Trade) qu’utiliseront les Etats-Unis pour « réduire l’extrémisme à la source » seront efficaces qu’il n’oublie pas la « formation des services de sécurité » alias « outsourcing »

For what we spent in a month in Iraq at the height of the war, we could be training security forces in Libya (...).

►http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-speech-drones-guantanamo-terror-national-defense-university-2

Quand son pays commencera à protéger ses propres citoyens de Wall-Street et autres ALEC il pourra avoir un minimum de crédibilité.

#oblabla

#drones

Obama’s Dodges Hard Truths About War on Terror in Major Speech- ▻http://antiwar.com/blog/2013/05/23/obamas-dodges-hard-truths-about-war-on-terror-in-major-speech

Merci @Kassem et @reka

Obama speech suggests possible expansion of drone killings | McClatchy
▻http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/05/23/192081/obama-promises-anew-to-transfer.html

But Obama’s speech appeared to expand those who are targeted in drone strikes and other undisclosed “lethal actions” in apparent anticipation of an overhaul of the 2001 congressional resolution authorizing the use of force against al Qaida and allied groups that supported the 9/11 attacks on the United States.

In every previous speech, interview and congressional testimony, Obama and his top aides have said that drone strikes are restricted to killing confirmed “senior operational leaders of al Qaida and associated forces” plotting imminent violent attacks against the United States.

But Obama dropped that wording Thursday, making no reference at all to senior operational leaders. While saying that the United States is at war with al Qaida and its associated forces, he used a variety of descriptions of potential targets, from “those who want to kill us” and “terrorists who pose a continuing and imminent threat” to “all potential terrorist targets.”

The previous wording also was absent from a fact sheet distributed by the White House. Targeted killings outside of “areas of active hostilities,” it said, could be used against “a senior operational leader of a terrorist organization or the forces that organization is using or intends to use to conduct terrorist attacks.”

Concernant le fait que le fameux transfert des frappes de drones de la CIA au Pentagone rendrait plus transparentes lesdites frappes, le New York Times écrivait en date du 21/03/2013 que c’est plutôt le contraire qui risque d’être vrai : ▻http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/22/us/influential-ex-aide-to-obama-voices-concern-on-drone-strikes.html?_r=1&page

While many experts argue that the military should be better than the C.I.A. at carrying out precise lethal operations, the strikes have not always played out that way. In Yemen, for example, Mr. Obama brought the C.I.A. into the drone campaign in 2011 in part because several of the military’s strikes went awry, killing women and children and a popular deputy governor.

Some close observers of the drone program disputed the widely repeated notion that moving it entirely to the Defense Department would necessarily make it more open, particularly if it is to be operated by the Joint Special Operations Command, among the least transparent elements of the military.

“We know JSOC is far more secretive than the C.I.A., and that Congressional oversight is weaker,” said Naureen Shah, associate director of the Counterterrorism and Human Rights Project at Columbia Law School. She said that while units under the Joint Special Operations Command were accused of serious abuse of prisoners in Iraq, “it never had to face public scrutiny about it in the way the C.I.A. did.”

Merci @Kassem !

The tip of the spear : US Special Operations Forces- ▻http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/03/201332811912362162.html

Le JSOC est aussi la pierre angulaire de la stratégie du "entraînons les sauvages à combattre à notre place et se zigouiller entre eux pour préserver notre « intérêt national »", strategie qui ne peut qu’assurer le délitement du tissu social dans les pays concernés.

The rise of US Special Operations Forces engaging in kinetic operations and direct action or in using their extensive military, psychological operations and war-fighting skills to train proxy forces in all the places where the US projects its power is alarming.

The ascendance of an elite clique of ultra-warriors protected by the cloak of secrecy and pushing off responsibility for acts of violence to their proxies and allies, means that the tip of the imperial spear can tear through the social fabric of many a country without associated costs in blood and treasure and hidden from the view of the press and the public.

And because such special operations do not require the sacrifices of an expansive force, the special operators can largely act without public outrage or demand for accountability. The old/new military philosophy of a light footprint is useful precisely because it allows for the war in the shadows to continue unabated and with impunity.