Dissension over Adm. Mike Mullen's accusation that the Haqqani network of Afghan insurgents is a "veritable arm" of Pakistan's intelligence agency and the revelation that a U.S. official met with a Haqqani official have provided new evidence of a...
Sex and the Single Drone
Robo-Death: Made in the USA
If it is actually true that those whom the gods seek to destroy they first make mad, it would seem that the insanity process has at its epicenter the White House. How else to explain the various bits and pieces of counterterrorism policy that have been revealed over...
Mechanized Imperialism
The CIA’s Selective Secrecy
From the coups that ousted Mohammed Mossadegh, Jacobo Arbenz, and Salvador Allende in the Cold War to the waterboarding of suspected terrorists in the Global War on Terror, the CIA has built a solid reputation as an extralegal agent of international sabotage and...
CIA’s Push for Drone War Driven by Internal Needs
When David Petraeus walks into the Central Intelligence Agency today, he will be taking over an organization whose mission has changed in recent years from gathering and analyzing intelligence to waging military campaigns through drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, and...
Shadow Warriors: Movin’ On Up
For decades the U.S. military has waged clandestine war on virtually every continent on the globe, but for the first time, high-ranking Special Operations Forces (SOF) officers are moving out of the shadows and into the command mainstream. Their emergence suggests the...
Why Pakistan Demands a Veto on Drone Strikes
ISLAMABAD — Pakistani civilian and military leaders are insisting on an effective veto over which targets U.S. drone strikes hit, according to well-informed Pakistani military sources here. The sources, who met with IPS on condition that they not be identified, said...
Study Rebuts US Claims of ‘No Civilian Deaths’ in Pakistan Drone Strikes
As the Pakistani public grows increasingly outraged at the United States' drone attacks in the northwest region of the country, a recent study by the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism is contradicting U.S. officials' insistence that "not a single...
Perfect Asymmetry: The Predator and the Suicide Bomber
The expansion (and contraction) of great empires has long been driven by tactical and strategic “asymmetries” in the conduct of war. Norman archers overcame sword- and spear-wielding Anglo-Saxons at Hastings in 1066. Musket- and rifle-bearing Europeans slaughtered...