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Yves right here. Sadly it goes with the terrain of being an awesome energy to have thugs like our JSOC. For sticklers, the etymology of thug:
Additionally thugee, from the native Hindi title for the system of non secular assassination practiced by the thugs. thuggish (adj.) “ruffianly, brutal and forceful,”
Although the existence of those particular forces shouldn’t be a shock, the dimensions of their operation could be.
By Thomas Neuburger. Initially revealed at God’s Spies
Whereas the late scholar of militarism Chalmers Johnson used to seek advice from the CIA as “the president’s personal military“, at this time JSOC performs that position, appearing because the chief government’s personal assassination squad, and its dad or mum, SOCOM, features as a brand new Pentagon power-elite, a secret army throughout the army possessing home energy and international attain.—Nick Turse
“[JSOC is] the ace within the gap. In the event you want somebody that may sky dive from thirty miles away, go down the chimney of a fortress, and blow it up from the within — these are the fellows you need to name on.—Normal Hugh Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Employees underneath President Clinton
I’m engaged on a sequence of novels set within the close to future. However one side of those novels that’s decidedly not futuristic, close to or in any other case, is U.S. authorities kill groups. That is an introduction to how JSOC (the Joint Particular Operations Command) and the way it operates. It’s drawn from the work of investigative reporter Nick Turse, now with The Intercept.
The President’s Personal Military
Let’s begin right here, with this 2011 piece by Turse revealed in Aljazeera.
The US army’s secret army
Particular US commandos are deployed in about 75 international locations around the globe – and that quantity is anticipated to develop
Someplace on this planet a US commando is finishing up a mission. Now, say that 70 occasions and also you’re performed … for the day. With out the information of a lot of the final American public, a secret drive throughout the US army is enterprise operations in a majority of the world’s international locations. This Pentagon energy elite is waging a worldwide conflict whose dimension and scope has usually been ignored by the mainstream media, and deserves additional consideration.
After a US Navy SEAL put a bullet in Osama bin Laden’s chest and one other in his head, probably the most secretive black-ops models within the US army all of the sudden discovered its mission within the public highlight. It was atypical. Whereas it’s well-known that US Particular Operations forces are deployed within the conflict zones of Afghanistan and Iraq, and it’s more and more obvious that such models function in murkier battle zones like Yemen and Somalia, the complete extent of their worldwide conflict has typically remained out of the general public scrutiny.
Take note, that is 2011.
Final 12 months, Karen DeYoung and Greg Jaffe of the Washington Submit reported that US Particular Operations forces have been deployed in 75 international locations, up from 60 on the finish of the Bush presidency. By the top of this 12 months, US Particular Operations Command spokesman Colonel Tim Nye advised me, that quantity will probably attain 120. “We do numerous travelling – much more than Afghanistan or Iraq,” he mentioned lately. This international presence – in about 60 per cent of the world’s nations and much bigger than beforehand acknowledged – is proof of a rising clandestine Pentagon energy elite waging a secret conflict in all corners of the world.
Turse particulars the creation and rise of SOCOM (the Particular Operations Command), certainly one of eleven “unified combatant instructions” run by the Pentagon. Others embody CENTCOM (Central Command, answerable for the Center East), NORTHCOM (answerable for home surveillance in North America) and others.
What does SOCOM do?
SOCOM carries out the US’ most specialised and secret missions. These embody assassinations, counterterrorist raids, long-range reconnaissance, intelligence evaluation, international troop coaching, and weapons of mass destruction counter-proliferation operations[.]
SOCOM comprises a sub-command referred to as JSOC:
Considered one of [SOCOM’s] key parts is the Joint Particular Operations Command, or JSOC, a clandestine sub-command whose major mission is monitoring and killing suspected terrorists. Reporting to the president and appearing underneath his authority, JSOC maintains a worldwide hit record that features US residents. It has been working an extra-legal “kill/seize” marketing campaign that John Nagl, a previous counterinsurgency adviser to four-star normal and soon-to-be CIA Director David Petraeus, calls “an virtually industrial-scale counterterrorism killing machine”. […]
As well as, the command operates a community of secret prisons, maybe as many as 20 black websites in Afghanistan alone, used for interrogating high-value targets.
Once more, that is 2011, three years into Barack Obama’s presidency. However the backside line is as putting now because it was then:
Whereas the late scholar of militarism Chalmers Johnson used to seek advice from the CIA as “the president’s personal military“, at this time JSOC performs that position, appearing because the chief government’s personal assassination squad, and its dad or mum, SOCOM, features as a brand new Pentagon power-elite, a secret army throughout the army possessing home energy and international attain.
Extra on JSOC’s Earlier Days
Different articles from this era supply extra context.
After Sept. 11, 2001, the Bush administration started waging a worldwide conflict on terrorism each overtly and on the “darkish facet.” […] Directed by Vice President Dick Cheney and Protection Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the White Home expanded the Joint Particular Operations Command (JSOC) into a worldwide capturing and killing machine.
In March 2009, investigative reporter for the New Yorker Seymour Hersh induced a minor controversy by telling an viewers in Minnesota that he had uncovered “an government assassination ring” that the Bush administration operated overseas. “It’s a particular wing of our particular operations neighborhood that’s arrange independently,” he mentioned of the Joint Particular Operations Command (JSOC). “They don’t report back to anyone, besides within the Bush-Cheney days, they reported on to the Cheney workplace.”
“Their actual days of glory … actually solely began after 9/11,” Colonel Walter Patrick Lang, who spent a lot of his profession in covert operations, advised [writer Jeremy] Scahill. “They didn’t do numerous preventing earlier than that.”
Recognized throughout the covert ops neighborhood as ninjas or “snake eaters,” JSOC operators prepare to trace a goal, repair his place, after which end him off with out being detected.
“They’re the ace within the gap,” Normal Hugh Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Employees underneath President Clinton, advised Scahill. “In the event you want somebody that may sky dive from thirty miles away, go down the chimney of a fortress, and blow it up from the within — these are the fellows you need to name on.”
The true-life stuff of flicks, straight out of your creativeness.
First, observe Dick Cheney’s position within the JSOC story. They operated at his command.
Subsequent, about “the top of the kills squads,” maintain onto the salt shaker as you learn that piece. Hersh has mentioned many occasions that Obama modified little about Bush insurance policies.
And as to “displacing the CIA,” don’t depend on it. Since nobody is aware of what the CIA does — maybe even the CIA — displacement appears extremely unlikely. Are there CIA kill groups at this time? In line with my learn of this, there was. Why would they need to cease?
JSOC In the present day
The place are we now? One other Nick Turse piece, this one from 2019, brings us principally updated. (See map at high.)
Revealed: The U.S. army’s 36 code-named operations in Africa
Between 2013 and 2017, U.S. particular operations forces noticed fight in at the least 13 African international locations, in line with retired Military Brig. Gen. Don Bolduc, who served at U.S. Africa Command from 2013 to 2015 after which headed Particular Operations Command Africa till 2017. These international locations, in line with Bolduc, are Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Somalia, South Sudan and Tunisia. He added that U.S. troops have been killed or wounded in motion in at the least six of them: Kenya, Libya, Niger, Somalia, South Sudan and Tunisia.
Yahoo Information has put collectively an inventory of three dozen such operations throughout the continent.
The code-named operations cowl a wide range of totally different army missions, starting from psychological operations to counterterrorism. Eight of the named actions, together with Obsidian Nomad, are so-called 127e packages, named for the budgetary authority that enables U.S. particular operations forces to make use of sure host-nation army models as surrogates in counterterrorism missions.
Used extensively throughout Africa, 127e packages might be run both by Joint Particular Operations Command (JSOC), the secretive group that controls the Navy’s SEAL Crew 6, the Military’s Delta Power and different particular mission models, or by “theater particular operations forces.” These packages are “particularly designed for us to work with our host nation companions to develop small — anyplace between 80 and 120 personnel — counterterrorism forces that we’re partnered with,” mentioned Bolduc. “They’re specifically chosen partner-nation forces that undergo intensive coaching, with the identical tools we have now, to particularly go after counterterrorism targets, particularly high-value targets.”
Not all the operations listed within the Yahoo report are homicide squads. However Jupiter Nimbus in Nigeria (working a army operation towards Boko Haram), or Paladin Hunter and Final Hunter working in Somalia, don’t seem like groups of crossing guards.
“Final Hunter”? Actually?
As you peruse the record of operations within the Yahoo article, observe additionally what number of are “psychological” in nature. All the ops named “Octave” seem like doing info warfare.
This implies, or calls for, a number of questions.
In the actual world, it’s exhausting to think about the dystopia this represents. We’re constrained by our assumptions. In fiction, nevertheless, creativeness is plentiful, and lots of writers will problem these assumptions by portray these footage for you.
So what do you suppose is probably — that the President and/or Pentagon murders solely overseas, and is content material to shine the furnishings at residence? Or one thing nearer to what you’d suppose a self-important normal, or Dick Cheney, would possibly do?
I can’t reply any of these questions. However the questions are scary sufficient.
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