By Debra Sweet

Two recent stories powerfully capture the illegitimacy of the US "global war on terror."

1. The former Obama press secretary says he was told to deny US drone program existed.

For four years, the President has been expanding U.S. use of drones, while developing the execution and legal justification for the targeted killing policy. A military drone program has finally been admitted, and there is fierce struggle over the CIA drone program, delaying the confirmation of John Brennan as CIA Secretary.

Dennis Loo takes this apart in See the Drones? Forget the Drones:

Former Obama White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, who now works as an MSNBC reporter, revealed yesterday (Sunday, February 24, 2013) on MSNBC that while being prepared in 2008 to assume the Press Secretary job for the incoming Obama Administration, he was specifically told to deny the drone program’s existence: 

“When I went through the process of becoming press secretary, one of the first things they told me was you’re not even to acknowledge the drone program,” he explained on MSNBC. “You’re not even to discuss that it exists.”
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2. The Afghan government bars US special forces from key province.

When its multi-billion-dollar puppet governments won't stand even one more month of US special ops because they harm too many civilians, a rotten enterprise is exposed. The New York Times reported:

"The Afghan government barred elite American forces from operating in a strategic province adjoining Kabul on Sunday, citing complaints that Afghans working for American Special Operations forces had tortured and killed villagers in the area...

Afghan officials said the measure was taken as a last resort. They said they had tried for weeks to get the coalition to cooperate with an investigation into claims that civilians had been killed, abducted or tortured by Afghans working for American Special Operations forces in Maidan Wardak. But the coalition was not responsive, they said."

This is unjust, immoral, illegitimate, and we're going to keep saying so, and acting on that understanding.

I mentioned this report a few weeks ago, but not in the depth that Andy Worthington gives it in America's Injustices: The Tortured, The Rendered, The Disappeared:

“Two weeks ago, the latest update in this sordid and neglected story arrived via the Open Society Justice Initiative, which issued a new report, “Globalizing Torture: CIA Secret Detention and Extraordinary Rendition.” As the press release explained, the report 'identifies for the first time a total of 136 named victims and describes the complicity of 54 foreign governments in these operations.' The governments, 'ranging from Iceland and Australia to Morocco and Thailand,' are revealed to have 'enabled secret detention and extraordinary rendition operations in various ways, including by hosting CIA prisons, by assisting in the capture and transport of detainees, and by permitting the use of domestic airspace for secret flights.'”