by starroute » Mon Jan 16, 2006 2:17 am
<!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.rotten.com/library/conspiracy/task-force-121/">www.rotten.com/library/co...force-121/</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Are your Special Forces just not special enough? Have your covert ops all gone overt? Is your "black bag" squad recycling last year's leather purse?<br><br>There's nothing to reinvigorate an ailing global conspiracy like a freshly named and numbered task force with virtually unlimited power. (Just ask Majestic-12.)<br><br>Task Force 121 may end up being the Bush Administration's major contribution to posterity. A division of the Army Special Forces, the force is made up of Delta Force commandos, Navy SEALs, Green Berets, a bunch of shady, well-armed guys from the CIA and miscellaneous action heroes from various countries. . . .<br><br>TF121 is the brainchild of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. After September 11, Rumsfeld jumped on the opportunity to elevate the status of the Pentagon by setting up an alternative Justice Department -- one with lots of prisons, but not so many pesky constitutional rights.<br><br>Military-run prisons like Camp X-Ray and Abu Ghraib represent the penal side of Rumsfeld's grand vision. Task Force 121 is the investigative arm, the FBI of the Defense Department. . . .<br><br>The head of Task Force 121 is Rear Admiral Bill McRaven, a former Navy SEAL with a name straight out of an action movie. According to Newsweek, a colleague of McRaven's described him thusly: "He is physically tough, compassionate and can drive a knife through your ribs in a nanosecond."<br><br>Most of the credible reporting on TF121 comes from just a very few sources -- mainly the New York Times, and the New Yorker's Seymour Hersh, who also helped break the story of prisoner torture at the Iraqi prison of Abu Ghraib. The latter connection is not coincidental. Part of Task Force 121's mission is to "take the gloves off" in dealing with the Pentagon's enemies.<br><br>Part of Rumsfeld's anti-terrorism policy, which later expanded to an anti-everything policy, was the practice of "snatch and grab" operations. In bureaucratese, a snatch is known as an "extraordinary rendition," which is a nice way to say "illegal kidnapping." . . .<br><br>After the September 11 attacks, the Bush administration quickly dispensed with any pretense of pondering the legality of snatch missions. Instead, it began to codify them as part of the standard response to security threats. . . .<br><br>Although it hasn't been definitely established yet, rumors have been flying thick that Task Force 121 may have been involved in directing interrogations at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere. TF121 has the particular misfortune to have been sponsored by the Defense Department's top spook, Stephen Cambone.<br><br>An Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, Cambone is more or less the top civilian exclusively responsible for military intelligence, including collection and covert operations. Cambone is an obvious choice to "take one for the team," and it looks like the Congressional overseers of the Defense Department are ready to take him as the first in a series of sacrificial lambs.<br><br>According to the New Yorker, Cambone's main qualification to lead a military intelligence service was apparently his ability to covertly infiltrate his nose extravagantly far up Rumsfeld's ass. His top aide was a general named Bill Boykin, who previously distinguished himself with public statements that "Satan wants to destroy (the United States)," that the U.S. was a "Christian army," that President Bush was "appointed by God," and that Boykin's personal message to the Muslim world was: "My god is bigger than your god."<br><br>Unfortunately, Cambone's talent for intelligence was responsible for such important tasks as justifying the claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, or that it was allied with al Qaeda. There were significant problems with his work in these areas, such as the fact that the information he provided was not true.<br><br>As the parents of Task Force 121, Cambone and Boykin aren't likely to provide the sort of stable home that a paramilitary hit squad needs in order to thrive. . . .<br><br>Meanwhile, the mandate for Task Force 121 just keeps on getting broader and broader. According to the New Yorker, the administration has been looking at expanding operations into Iran. Based on the same flimsy kind of intelligence that got the U.S. into Iraq in the first place, some in the Bush administration have now determined that Iran is the actual cause of all America's problems in Iraq.<br><br>One of the benefits of using a group like Task Force 121 as a secret army, carrying out the country's dirty work all over the world, is that Special Forces mission are not included under the War Powers Act.<br><br>The practical effect of that legal detail is that the president can launch Special Forces missions without having to notify Congress in advance, seek Congressional approval to continue or even disclose any details of the mission after its done, including the number of forces deployed, their appointed tasks, collateral damages along the way (like innocent civilians accidentally killed), any illegal or mistaken detentions... or whether Task Force members are stationed in specific locations, like Abu Ghraib, performing specific jobs, like beating confessions out of naked suspects wearing dog leashes.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--> <p></p><i></i>