Two previous articles on this site (Innocently Informing State Terrorism: Journalism, Knowledge, and Counterinsurgency, and Human Terrain System Under Investigation: HTS Link to JIEDDO & US Death Squads) dealt with the figure of Michael Furlong and what some claim was a “rogue” program of extrajudicial execution.
Here, Ishtar Enana, an Iraqi writer (blog: غار عشتار, Twitter) has posted lengthy commentaries based on research concerning private military contractors and their operations, with a lot of it picking up on the trail of Mike Furlong, but telling a story that is much larger than that of a single individual. Anthropology readers should take note of section 4 below, for an Iraqi view of anthropologists as spies. Rather than leave this piece obscured in the comments section, I asked Ishtar for permission to post this on the front page of this site. The following is the guest article.

By: ishtarenana

1- In 2002, the Pentagon’s Defense Science Board (DSB) conducted a “Summer Study on Special Operations and Joint Forces in Support of Countering Terrorism,” portions of which were leaked to the Federation of American Scientists. According to the document, the “War on Terror” constitutes a “committed, resourceful and globally dispersed adversary with strategic reach,” which will require the US to engage in a “long, at times violent, and borderless war.” As the Asia Times described it, this document lays out a blueprint for the US to “fight fire with fire.” Many of the “proposals appear to push the military into territory that traditionally has been the domain of the CIA, raising questions about whether such missions would be subject to the same legal restraints imposed on CIA activities.” According to the Chairman of the DSB, “The CIA executes the plans but they use Department of Defense assets.” Specifically, the plan “recommends the creation of a super-Intelligence Support Activity, an organization it dubs the Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group (P2OG), to bring together CIA and military covert action, information warfare, intelligence and cover and deception. For example, the Pentagon and CIA would work together to increase human intelligence (HUMINT) forward/operational presence and to deploy new clandestine technical capabilities.” The purpose of P2OG would be in “stimulating reactions’ among terrorists and states possessing weapons of mass destruction, meaning it would prod terrorist cells into action, thus exposing them to ‘quick-response’ attacks by US forces. In other words, “commit terror to incite terror, in order to react to terror.” (*)
2- To implement this plan, the following were needed:
a- Disinformation and Psyops operatives. Among others: media and communications contractors;
b- An army of local informants (HUMINT); and,
c- Former Special Forces and CIA contractors or individuals.
3- Also to facilitate covert operations, they identified the need for hand-picked US ambassadors and military commanders “for the targeted country” who have links and experience in these “black,” shadowy operations. For example, in Iraq they sent special forces commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal(1) to work there from 2003-2008, with Negroponte (2) from 2004-2005 when hundreds of “unidentified” Iraqi slain bodies started to show up every day, also witnessing an escalation of false flag operations involving explosions in places crowded with civilians, i.e. markets, schools, hospitals etc. At that time, the Pentagon contracted the same companies and individuals of past scandals in Latin America, who worked along with Negroponte there. Men like Duane Claridge (3) and Furlong.
After it was said that Iraq had been pacified, the same people where transferred to Afghanistan minus Negroponte. McChrystal is now the General Commander there, with Furlong and Claridge.
Now during the 9 years of Afghan war, we have not heard of Afghan civilians being targeted by Taliban. But, astonishingly, as soon as MacChrystal arrived in 2009, we began to hear of such incidents.(4)
Patrick Martin wrote,
One significant fact referred to by the Times is that the operations directed by Furlong “seemed to accelerate in the summer of 2009,” the period when Gen. Stanley McChrystal arrived to take command of US and NATO military operations in Afghanistan. McChrystal was previously the head of all US military Special Operations, and ran the assassination squads in Iraq which played an enormous role in the so-called “surge” of 2007-2008, when hundreds of Iraqi nationalists and militants opposed to the US occupation were hunted down by US Special Forces and murdered.-http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/mar2010/hits-m16.shtml
4- Media corporations are very much involved in covert operations under the pretext of “information gathering”. In fact Furlong has been working thru his own company International Media Ventures (5). Here, Media is the other name for the simpler “spying”. Also anthropologists embedded with the army are better called “spies”. Remember, that colonialism, in our region, was always preceded by the so called “Orientalists” who were mostly social scientists and anthropologists.
5- Furlong worked in implementing his venture in Afghanistan with two corporations: one is his own IMV, the other is AISC (6) which has Claridge, a former CIA officer on its payroll. AISC’s director is Mike Taylor who is a former Special Forces officer.
6- Who is Claridge? He worked with Negroponte in Honduras, then worked with another shadowy former general of Special Forces, Wayne Downing (also was on the board of Committee for the Liberation of Iraq)(7), in training the troops of Ahmed Chalabi with the generous financing of the U.S. Congress’ “Iraq Liberation Act”. He collaborated with Chalabi, Michael Ledeen, and Alan Wolf (8) to produce the fake Nigerian document of alleged purchase of yellow cake. All of these men- minus Chalabi- were involved with Iran-contra.
7- Furlong also worked for SAIC (9)(10), a spying company, under the pretext of media, communications and information gathering. It was the contractor which was assigned to establish “independent” Iraqi TV and newspapers, financed by the Pentagon. Furlong was in charge of this operation. Before that, SAIC won a $282 million contract to supervise the last phase of the “trailblazer” program which is a “Digital Network Intelligence” system, intended to analyze data carried on computer networks. Project participants included Boeing, Computer Sciences Corporation, and Booz Allen Hamilton. SAIC was involved also in the “spate of hoax anthrax mailings.”
8- Before the invasion of Iraq, SAIC was in charge of the Iraqi puppets, Chalabi et al. The company won a $33 million contract with the Pentagon to “take care” of the 150 puppets who would form the new Iraqi government. They were put on the payroll of the company “to hide the direct Pentagon financing”. SAIC rented offices in a building called the “Taylor building” in Crystal City in Virginia, were they lived and “worked.” According to the contract, the company was to put the puppets on a plane and fly them to Iraq after the invasion. It did and they were installed in a “reconstruction” facade called the “IRDC”. (11)
9- In point “7″ there is mention of Booz Allen Hamilton (12). In 2003 Furlong, after he had failed in running SAIC’s project of the new Iraq TV and media, left the company and joined Booz Allen, part of what is otherwise called “the shadow intelligence community”. It has 1000 former CIA officers, and another 10,000 working for the company.
10- The head of BAH is James Woolsey, former director of CIA. He was also on the board of the “Committee for the Liberation of Iraq” formed after the Iraq Liberation Act, where Chalabi was the center of attraction.
Now you have all the threads connected: CIA-special forces- Mercenaries – information gathering- surveillance – spying – assassinations. And the same names reappear in this matrix: Woolsey, Furlong, Claridge, Negroponte, MacChrystal, Booz Allen Hamilton, SAIC.
11- Behind all those, the main players are the Special Forces. Why? This will lead to the training of death squads and false flag covert operations. What else will Special Forces do in a war? (13)
12- The media “meaning: disinformation” plays the second important role after the special forces. Disinformation is much needed to brainwash the people as to the real goals of these false flag operations.
Footnotes