Tag: Jeremy Scahill

Blackwater’s Secret War in Pakistan

Jeremy Scahill

From The Nation’s press release (You can watch Democracy Now’s interview with Jeremy Scahill here):

In a stunning investigation just posted at TheNation.com, Jeremy Scahill reveals a covert military operation being run almost entirely by Blackwater, USA, a military contractor embroiled in controversy for their actions in Iraq and the Middle East. Key points from the piece:

  • An elite division of Blackwater, USA is running a covert, US Military operation that includes planning targeted assassinations, “snatch and grabs” and other sensitive actions inside and outside Pakistan. This is a program that not even some Senior Level Obama Administration and Pentagon officials are aware of.
  • Blackwater operatives are assisting in gathering intelligence to help run a secret, second and heretofore unreported, US military drone bombing campaign that runs parallel to the well-documented CIA predator strikes.
  • Sources for The Nation report that some non-military Blackwater employees, outside of the US Military chain of command, have obtained rolling security clearances above their approved clearances, and higher than even members of the US Congress.

    • Continue reading “Blackwater’s Secret War in Pakistan”

Torture Continues at Guantánamo Bay

Steve Bell on Military Commissions
Steve Bell on Military Commissions

An important piece of investigative journalism by Jeremy Scahill exposing the brutal practices of the ‘Immediate Reaction Force’ – better known to the prisoners as the ‘Extreme Repression Force’ – at Guantanamo. Based on new evidence obtained by the Spanish court which initiated criminal proceedings against John Yoo, Jay Bybee, David Addington, Alberto Gonzales, William Haynes and Douglas Feith several weeks ago, prisoners speak of routine terror which include breaking bones, gouging eyes, squeezing testicles, and “dousing” them with chemicals. The repression is said to have only intensified since Obama got into office, who reinstated the use of  ‘military commissions‘ last week, deemed unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court.

As the Obama administration continues to fight the release of some 2,000 photos that graphically document U.S. military abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan, an ongoing Spanish investigation is adding harrowing details to the ever-emerging portrait of the torture inside and outside Guantánamo. Among them: “blows to [the] testicles;” “detention underground in total darkness for three weeks with deprivation of food and sleep;” being “inoculated … through injection with ‘a disease for dog cysts;'” the smearing of feces on prisoners; and waterboarding. The torture, according to the Spanish investigation, all occurred “under the authority of American military personnel” and was sometimes conducted in the presence of medical professionals.

More significantly, however, the investigation could for the first time place an intense focus on a notorious, but seldom discussed, thug squad deployed by the U.S. military to retaliate with excessive violence to the slightest resistance by prisoners at Guantánamo.

Continue reading “Torture Continues at Guantánamo Bay”