How The Pentagon Uses A Secretive Program To Wage Proxy Wars

Nick Turse, Alice Speri, The Intercept, Jul 1 2022

Small teams of US SOF are involved in a low-profile proxy war program on a far greater scale than previously known, according to exclusive documents and interviews with more than a dozen current and former government officials. While The Intercept and other outlets have previously reported on the Pentagon’s use of the secretive 127e authority in multiple African countries, a new document obtained through the FoIA offers the first official confirmation that at least 14 127e programs were also active in the greater Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region as recently as 2020. In total, between 2017 and 2020, US commandos conducted at least 23 separate 127e programs across the world. Separately, Joseph Votel, a retired four-star Army general who headed both SOCOM & CENTCOM, which oversees US military efforts in the Middle East, confirmed the existence of previously unrevealed 127e “counter-terrorism” efforts in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen.

How The Pentagon Uses A Secretive Program To Wage Proxy Wars

Related:

America Is Quietly Expanding Its War in Tunisia

Advertisement

Ecuador: Lasso’s Masquerade vs. People’s Real Demands

Today marks 15 days since the beginning of the demonstrations against the neoliberal government of Guillermo Lasso. During that time over 15,000 indigenous people and representatives of social movements have joined the protests to demand urgent actions to stop the collapse of the living conditions of the poorest and the entire working class. However, the response has been violence and police repression, which has already caused six deaths, hundreds of wounded, and over 200 imprisonments.

Ecuador: Lasso’s Masquerade vs. People’s Real Demands

Related:

Ecuador’s Lasso survives impeachment vote, halts protest talks

Global refugee figure surpasses 100 million mark, over half directly caused by US-waged wars

Global refugee figure surpasses 100 million mark, over half directly caused by US-waged wars

Who will pay for Biden’s new “forever war”?

This week, the United States and its NATO allies pledged to increase their troop presence in Europe seven-fold, in order to prepare for what they called “warfighting against nuclear-armed peer-competitors”–that is, war against Russia and China.

Who will pay for Biden’s new “forever war”?

Related:

Glenn Hubbard’s WSJ Op-Ed: NATO Needs More Guns and Less Butter

Hubbard is a nonresident senior fellow at the right-wing think tank, American Enterprise Institute!

Biden aides seek to unlock Afghan reserves without enriching Taliban

AFTER EARTHQUAKE, AID GROUPS WARN OF HUMANITARIAN CRISIS IF THE U.S. KEEPS AFGHANISTAN CUT OFF FROM THE GLOBAL ECONOMY

Biden aides seek to unlock Afghan reserves without enriching Taliban