It seems that something is happening lately, but because of its nature we really haven't been noticing it. We got a tiny glimpse into it the other day when a news article came out that said that there was a unit in the military that had been trained in psychological operations that was targeting senators and representatives and influencing their decisions on various bills that would benefit the military. This unit was supposedly based in Afghanistan and the reason that I know this is that the top US military commander for Afghanistan has ordered an investigation. This is a unit that was supposedly formed to influence Taliban and Afghan leaders, instead it is suspected that some or all of the people in that unit may have tried to influence important people such as Senator John McCain, Senator Joe Lieberman, Senator Jack Reed, Senator Al Franken, and Senator Carl Levin. Others was said to be Rep. Steve Israel of the House Appropriations Committee, the Czech ambassador to Afghanistan, the German interior minister and a group of think tank analysts that are said to be very influential. I think this answers the question, does the United States conduct psychological warfare?

President Obama
Photo Source: Public Domain

An article appeared in the British newspaper, “The Times”, in May of 2010 that stated that the United States had sanctioned a major expansion of clandestine military operations. This in itself would not have been so bad and maybe even useful, but the article went on to say that these clandestine military operations were against both hostile and friendly countries. I never had my head in the sand, and I have realized that for years friendly countries have been spying on us and even taking some of our technology, but are things so bad that we have to expand operations to include spying on almost every country in the world? The article went on to say that General Petraeus, commander of the US Central command, issued orders that now allow the Pentagon to conduct espionage reconnaissance across the Middle East and the Horn of Africa without approval by the White House and without congressional oversight. The article went on to say that the same order authorized them to conduct operations in Iran. Could it be that the recent unrest that seems to have its roots in the same area, was somehow caused or at least encouraged by the United States?

When we talk about secret operations and will we look at the Obama administration, many of us think that there is not much going on. That is because most of us do not know the true story. It is true that this president seems to be very laid-back and therefore gives the impression that it is only business as usual, when nothing could be further from the truth when it comes to military matters. There has been a sharp increase in the use of US Special Forces under this president, so much so that he had to request more money for these types of operations. There are now 75 countries that have secret units from the United States operating in them according to the Washington Post. When President Obama took office there were 60 countries that had the secretive units operating out of them. This is contrary to what most people think. They usually think that President George Bush was more of a hawk than President Obama, but it turns out that president Obama is a closet hawk. I think that he believes it is more diplomatic to keep these types of operations low-key, then talking about them. It seems that most of these operations are aimed at destroying Al Qaeda and other radical groups and most friendly countries allow us to conduct them out of their territory as long as their citizens don't know about it.

It is said that some of the other places where we are conducting special operations are the Philippines and Colombia. Most of us don't think about American soldiers and sailors fighting in the Philippines, but there you are. The strange thing about all this is that while it is secret from us, it is certainly not secret in the places where the operations are being conducted. It is the usual story, US citizens are being kept in the dark while the rest the world knows what's going on. In case you are wondering how many special forces are being deployed overseas, the number has been estimated to be 13,000. You have to remember that some of these units are very small and may only contain five or six people. If we are talking about six person units than we are talking well in excess of 2150 units, give or take a few, but these units can also be much larger. In a way these units mirror some of the operations of Al Qaeda. They are secret, and attack without warning and their purposes is to inflict terror on terror groups, along with destroying their leadership.

President Bush Introduces Resolution To Use The US Armed Forces Against Iraq In 2002
Photo Source: White House

For those of you that believe that we are just sitting back and allowing Iran to develop nuclear weapons, think again. We have been continually upgrading our secret operations in Iran. This has been going on for quite a while. An article in the New Yorker magazine from 2008 tells of a major escalation of covert operations in that country that were requested by President Bush. President Bush had requested $400 million to fund these operations and Congress quickly agreed. The idea at the time was to destabilize the country's religious leadership. Dissident groups in the country were funded and the intelligence gathering of the Iranian nuclear weapons program was increased. We have even seized members of al-Quds, which are a wing of the Palestinian Islamic organization Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which supposedly has a connection to Iran.

Fort Bragg Sign: "Special Operations Forces"
Photo Source: Public Domain

One thing is for certain, it is another thing that we don't hear much about in this country, and that is about all he innocent lives that we are responsible for in these other places. It is almost impossible to fight the type of war that we are fighting in Iraq without killing innocent civilians. Al Qaeda knows this and that is why they place their meeting areas and headquarters in populated areas. They know that when we attack there has to be what is known as collateral damage. More simply put, if you kill them you also kills civilians near them. There is really no such thing as a munition that is so perfect that it can guarantee that it will only kill the person you aim it at in a densely populated area. We are constantly being fed this malarkey and it should be taken with very large grain of salt.

There are probably more secret operations going on today than there were even during World War II.