JSOC Private Killing Machine of the US President

They’re known as “JSOC” — Joint Special Operations Command. They report directly to the president and, as National Journal reporter Marc Ambinder put it “operate worldwide based on the legal (or extra-legal) premises of classified presidential directive.” “Kill/capture” has been waged by the Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC, 3,000 operations in only the past […]

Al-Qaeda assassin in Guantánamo worked for MI6

An al-Qaeda operative accused of bombing two Christian churches and a luxury hotel in Pakistan in 2002 was at the same time working for British intelligence, according to secret files on detainees who were shipped to the US military’s Guantánamo Bay prison camp. Adil Hadi al Jazairi Bin Hamlili, an Algerian citizen described as a […]

Why the U.S. interest in Yemen? Hint: Yemen is an Oil Chokepoint

The strategic significance of the region between Yemen and Somalia is a point of geopolitical interest. It is the site of Bab el-Mandab, one of what the US Government lists as seven strategic world oil shipping chokepoints. The US Government Energy Information Agency states that “closure of the Bab el-Mandab could keep tankers from the […]

Yemen and its wily president know how to spin a war

Yemen desperately needs sustained international help. Getting governments to take the problem seriously, though, was a different matter until Umar Farouk Abdullmutallab lit his underpants on fire aboard Flight 253 last month. Suddenly, Yemen was on the map, and al-Qaida hysteria swept through the American media. All this must be music to the ears of […]

Overlooked questions about Umar Farouk Mutallab, the Christmas Underwear Bomber

Paul Craig Roberts questions: How realistic is it that al-Qaida, an organization that allegedly pulled off the most fantastic terror attack in world history, would in these days of heightened security choose for an attack on an airliner a person who is the most conspicuous of all? Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab had a one-way ticket, […]

Afghanistan War of Absurdity

Every once in a while, a statistic just jumps out at you in a way that makes everything else you hear on a subject seem beside the point, if not downright absurd. That was my reaction to the recent statement of the president’s national security adviser, former Marine Gen. James Jones, concerning the size of […]

Torture has probably resulted in more American deaths than 9/11

The use of torture by the US has proved so counter-productive that it may have led to the death of as many US soldiers as civilians killed in 9/11, says the leader of a crack US interrogation team in Iraq. “The reason why foreign fighters joined al-Qa’ida in Iraq was overwhelmingly because of abuses at […]