by Prof. William A. Jacobson
Legal Insurrection
Monday, November 23, 2009
The Nation magazine has an extensive article detailing a classified operation in Pakistan by Blackwater, acting expressly under U.S. authority and coordination, to fight al-Qaeda:
At a covert forward operating base run by the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, members of an elite division of Blackwater are at the center of a secret program in which they plan targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives, “snatch and grabs” of high-value targets and other sensitive action inside and outside Pakistan, an investigation by The Nation has found. The Blackwater operatives also assist in gathering intelligence and help run a secret US military drone bombing campaign that runs parallel to the well-documented CIA predator strikes, according to a well-placed source within the US military intelligence apparatus.
Thank you for disclosing this program to make the nation less safe. The thank you comes not from me, but from the al-Qaeda operatives who will read your article and use the information to avoid capture, so they can kill Americans in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Read the article. It is clear that the agenda is to get back at Donald Rumsfeld and other Bush administration personnel who helped organize covert efforts in Pakistan, and to play on the left-wing Blackwater Derangement Syndrome.
This is pathetic. There is no evidence in the article that anything illegal is taking place. This is nothing more or less than a deliberate attempt to harm the United States in its war against al-Qaeda.
