Investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill, the author of "Blackwater", delves into America's covert wars in this full length documentary. Not sure how long this may stay up on YouTube, but it was fascinating. And very, very disturbing.
WARNING: Some graphic scenes.
Absolute must watch for those that have any interest whatsoever in world events and the war on terrorism.
Mods, I didn't want to bury this in the entertainment section as it is more involving current events, but if you have to move it I understand.
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One of the things that separates terrorism and terrorist states from the others is the rule of law. If a state does not follow the rule of law and performs extrajudicial killings how will it be seen.
One of the things that separates terrorism and terrorist states from the others is the rule of law. If a state does not follow the rule of law and performs extrajudicial killings how will it be seen.
Then again, if a state creates laws that allow it to do what ever it wants, the difference between the terrorist and the terrorist state becomes rhetorical.
Here's the basic message of the documentary in quotes, for those who want the short version. (As I see it anyway.)
Quote:
Awlaki seemed to have embraced the very identity he had once opposed. The military jacket, the black flag. The unequivocal call for armed jihad. The all-american boy was gone, and so was the moderate imam, but why?
Quote:
"We are against evil, and America as a whole has turned into a nation of evil."
- Anwar Al-Awlaki
Quote:
"The American people would be extraordinarly surprised if they could see the difference between what they believe a law says, and how it has actually been interpreted in secret."
You're not prepared to disclose that difference publicly?
"That's correct."
- Senator Ron Wyde, senate intelligence committee
Quote:
"The Joint Special Operatives Command handles all of the sensitive counterterrorism missions as the US government directs. And over time that has perverted into doing things that are far outside of it's mandate."
"Airstrikes, targeted killings... The world is a battlefield, and we are at war. Therefore the Joint Special Operations Command can go wherever they please, and do whatever it is they want to do, in order to achieve the national security objectives of which ever administration happens to be in power."
"There was a lot of trepidation about what we were asked to do and where, and for what purpose. A lot of it was of questionable legality, and most of it was outside of any stated battlefield."
"We're now seeing the effects of covert intervention in countries on multiple continents, without any thought to future repercussions. And it has radically expanded. At one point it was 40 countries. It has now expanded to over 75, and there are dozends, if not hundreds, of concurrent operations."
In theory, congress is supposed to have oversight of these operations?
"They don't want to step into the dark and see what goes on behind the curtain. Joint Special Operations Command became a paramilitary arm of the administration, and billions upon billions of dollars was poured into JSOC. What we have essentially done is created one hell of a hammer. And for the rest of our generation, for the rest of my lifetime, this force will be continually searching for a nail."
- anonymous source inside JSOC
Quote:
"You start out with a target list, and maybe you got 50 guys or 200 guys on it, but you can work through those 50 guys or 200 guys. And then suddenly, at the end of that target list you've got a new target list that's got 3000 people on it and... how did this grow?"
- Cpt Andrew Exum, 75th Ranger Regiment [ret], part of JSOC Iraq Task Force
Quote:
After 9/11 there were 7 people on the kill list. In Iraq there were 55 people on the cards. By Afghanistan there were thousands. But now the list itself was changing. ... A target list was no longer needed... All boys over the age of 15, all men under the age of 70 were now fair game in targeted areas. Like a flywheel, the global war on terror was spinning out of control
Quote:
It seemed an impossible coincidence. They killed the father, and then the son. But maybe it was as simple as that. Like a tale from Greek mythology, Abduldrahman was not killed for what he'd done, but for who he'd might one day become. A twisted logic, a logic without end.
Dirty Wars (2013)
