As the future of warfare looks to become more monetized, privatized and commodified, ensuring that civilians’ rights are protected risks becoming nearly impossible if there remains a lack of enforceable regulations on private military firms.
Read more . . .Run from secret operations centers in Turkey and Jordan, a CIA program pumped many hundreds of millions of dollars to many dozens of militia groups in Syria. This was revealed now by the Washington Post. The rise and fall of the Syria covert action program conveys some useful lessons about this most delicate weapon in the United States’ arsenal, writes the Washington Post, acknowledging the US major role in destabilizing Syria.
Read more . . .Efraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, in August 2016:
“The West should seek the further weakening of Islamic State, but not its destruction… Allowing bad guys to kill bad guys sounds very cynical, but it is useful and even moral to do so if it keeps the bad guys busy and less able to harm the good guys… Moreover, instability and crises sometimes contain portents of positive change… The American administration does not appear capable of recognizing the fact that IS can be a useful tool in undermining Tehran’s ambitious plan for domination of the Middle East.”
Read more . . .Where does ISIS get its technical equipment and the know-how to produce videos and run Internet sites? These are not qualities commonly found among fanatical fundamentalists anywhere; indeed most true radical fundamentalists tend to eschew technology. A supply of advice, technical assistance, and equipment comes from somewhere. Where does ISIS get the money for food, gasoline, clothes, ammunition, and Japanese pick-up trucks? And I wonder, did one of those wild-looking jihadi types just show up one day at an Iraqi car dealership and order a fleet of Japanese pick-ups? Were they delivered out on the desert or did a gang of jihadists march in, waving their Kalashnikovs, to drive them away?
Read more . . .The invocation of religious analogies unwittingly helps to provide religious — not political — legitimacy to ISIS. No matter what anti-Islam bigots maintain — and this is reflected in the recent ISIS article in the Atlantic Monthly — one should insist that ISIS not be analyzed or discussed within the framework of Islam, even if the intention is to absolve Islam from responsibility for ISIS.
Read more . . .The deadliest conflict in the world since the Second World War and still raging is happening in Congo and the Western elite and its media couldn’t care less. That alone shows that military interventions are not intended to save lives. To understand why the media focuses on Boko Haram, we need to know what it is and who is behind it. What is the underlying context, what interests are being served?
Read more . . .Was Turkey behind last year’s Syrian chemical weapons attack? That is the question raised in a new exposé by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh on the intelligence debate over the deaths of hundreds of Syrians in Ghouta last year. The United States, and much of the international community, blamed forces loyal to the Assad government, almost leading to a U.S. attack on Syria. But Hersh reveals the U.S. intelligence community feared Turkey was supplying sarin gas to Syrian rebels in the months before the attack took place — information never made public as President Obama made the case for launching a strike. Hersh joins us to discuss his findings.
Read more . . .Prince Bandar went on to say that Chechens operating in Syria were a pressure tool that could be switched on an off. “These groups do not scare us. We use them in the face of the Syrian regime but they will have no role in Syria’s political future.”
Read more . . .ISIS constitutes NATO’s mercenary expeditionary force, ravaging its enemies by proxy from Libya in North Africa to Lebanon and Syria in the Levant, to Iraq and even to the borders of Iran. Its seemingly inexhaustible supply of weapons, cash, and fighters can only be explained by multinational state sponsorship and safe havens provided by NATO ISIS’ enemies – primarily Syria, Hezbollah, Iran, and Iraq – cannot strike. DW’s report specifically notes how ISIS terrorists regularly flee certain demise in Syria by seeking safe haven in Turkey.
Read more . . .CIA hired a private company to carry out assassinations According to the International Herald Tribune of August 21, 2009, the CIA hired Blackwater, which changed its name to Xe Services, to conduct extra-judicial assassinations of individuals disliked by the United … Read more . . .
On Fiji, a crop of soldiers fuels economy A. Craig Copetas, The New York Times, October 30, 2007 SUVA, Fiji — Since the 1970s, this impoverished and remote remnant of the British Empire has positioned itself as a discount-soldier surplus … Read more . . .
Are Private Military Firms The Answer To The Expanding Global Crisis? Benjamin A. Neil, Towson University, USABenjamin A. Neil, II, Towson University, USA International Business & Economics Research Journal – February 2011 Volume 10, Number 2 ABSTRACT For the first … Read more . . .
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/15/world/middleeast/15prince.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha2&pagewanted=all Secret Desert Force Set Up by Blackwater’s Founder By MARK MAZZETTI and EMILY B. HAGERMay 15, 2011, New York Times ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — Late one night last November, a plane carrying dozens of Colombian men touched … Read more . . .
Iraq Contractors Tap Latin America's Needy By Patrick J. McDonnell The Los Angeles Times http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/012808E.shtml 28 January 2008 Thousands with limited opportunities at home are lured by pay; but for some who are injured or disabled, the cost his high. … Read more . . .
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1103566,00.html The privatisation of war $30bn goes to private military Ian Traynor Wednesday December 10, 2003 The Guardian Private corporations have penetrated western warfare so deeply that they are now the second biggest contributor to coalition forces in Iraq after … Read more . . .
The first privatised war Private contractors are carving up defence procurement. Nick Mathiason reports on a military coup Sunday March 2, 2003 The Observer More than 40,000 British troops are bracing themselves for action in the Gulf. 'Our Boys' are … Read more . . .