Degrading Al Qaeda

The fact is that we are having a fair level of success in degrading the leadership of the Al- Qaeda movement.  What is not been diminished is their ability to recruit volunteers prepared to carry a suicide bomb.  Our press focuses on the odd such mad man aimed directly at US targets and misses the fact that they are almost daily occurrences in their own homelands were the heavy lifting is taking place.

Even then the level of activity is naturally self limiting and likely as bad as it is able to become.

The organization will continue to attempt penetration of our defenses because it is disruptive and the PR payback encourages yet more volunteers to come forward.

Thus our best strategy is to keep locating their leadership and eliminating them.  And as their command and control also degrades, their ability to avoid detection also degrades.  I suspect by now, that they are very vulnerable to basic intelligence gathering.  As they weaken, they also are far more vulnerable to simple betrayal which is why kill numbers appear to rising.

Amazingly, while they have followed a strategy of waiting for the west to get weary and go home, it appears that those who passively supported them have also become weary and want put paid of them.  I think that is why the Taliban has suddenly begun talking.

In the meantime, a new strategy is been deployed against them this coming week or so.  It was first sprung by the Canadian forces in Kandahar.  It consists of declaring to all and sundry that you will occupy a target and that you are coming loaded for bear.  This is so against standard operating procedure, that I wondered what they were thinking the first time out.

Yet the Taliban concentrated like flies to give battle.  They appear to be doing it again in Helmand province at present.  It is as if they can not stand the picture of a strategic defeat.  If this succeeds, a few hundred Taliban will die and a handful will escape and the area will suddenly be cleared.  Maybe they need to be visibly defeated in a great battle in order for the leadership to be able to negotiate a political settlement.

Anyway, it is curious.  We may actually be seeing the end game after all these years.  Keep up the pressure.

Al-Qaeda is a wounded but dangerous enemy

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/07/AR2010020702984.html?hpid=topnews

By Joby Warrick and Peter Finn

Washington Post Staff Writer 

Monday, February 8, 2010

In the past six weeks, Americans have witnessed two jarringly different -- but completely accurate -- views of al-Qaeda's terrorist network. One image was that of terrorist leaders being hunted down and killed by satellite-guided, pilotless aircraft. The other was of an agile foe slipping past U.S. defenses and increasingly intent on striking inside the United States.

New assessments of al-Qaeda by the top U.S. counterterrorism experts offer grounds for both optimism and concern a year after President Obama took office. Officials say al-Qaeda's ability to wage mass-casualty terrorism has been undercut by relentless U.S. attacks on the network's leadership, finances and training camps. But even in its weakened state, the group has shifted tactics to focus on small-scale operations that are far harder to detect and disrupt, analysts say.

The deadly November shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Tex., and the failed Christmas Day attempt to bomb an airliner -- both examples of the low-tech approach -- have raised the fear level in Washington and across the country. Some terrorism experts say the worst could be still to come as a wounded jihadist movement thrashes about in search of a victory.

"The noose is tightening, and al-Qaeda's leadership is accelerating efforts that were probably in place anyway," said Andy Johnson, former staff director of the Senate intelligence committee and now national security director for the Washington think tank Third Way.

In the past year, Johnson said, the "good guys have been scoring the points," killing key al-Qaeda leaders and disrupting multiple plots. But pressure on al-Qaeda in Iraq and Pakistan has forced terrorist operatives to flee to new havens, such as Yemen, and step up the search for weaknesses in Western defenses. While battered, "the enemy is unwavering and determined," he said.

The U.S. ability to strike al-Qaeda's nerve center was on display recently with news of the apparent death of the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, a close ally to al-Qaeda in the lawless frontier along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Hakimullah Mehsud, who suffered severe injuries in a missile strike in mid-January, was the second leader of the group to find himself in the path of a CIA Predator aircraft in the past six months. He also was closely linked to the Dec. 30 suicide bombing that killed seven CIA officers and contractors in Afghanistan's eastern Khost province.

U.S. drones have struck al-Qaeda and Taliban targets inside Pakistan 12 times this year, putting the Obama administration on a course to surpass 2009's record-setting 53 strikes, according to a tally by the Web site Long War Journal.

In testimony before two congressional panels last week, top U.S. intelligence officials said the campaign has shaken al-Qaeda's core leadership, the small band of hardened terrorists led by Osama bin Laden. The attacks, combined with a successful squeeze on al-Qaeda's cash supply, have impeded the group's ability to launch ambitious, complex terrorist operations on the scale of the Sept. 11, 2001, strikes on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the officials said.

"Intelligence confirms that they are finding it difficult to be able to engage in the planning and the command-and-control operations to put together a large attack," CIA Director Leon Panetta said Tuesday in testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

But intelligence officials also warned lawmakers of worrisome new evidence of al-Qaeda's ability to adapt. In an annual "threat assessment" to Congress, spy agencies described the emerging threat as more geographically dispersed and also low-tech, favoring lone operatives and conventional explosives.

'Short-term plots'

Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair, who presented the assessment to House and Senate panels, said the attempted bombing of Northwest Airlines Flight 253 over Detroit is emblematic of an evolving threat that relies on "small numbers of terrorists, recently recruited and trained, and short-term plots." The new tactics are less spectacular but also much harder to detect and disrupt, he said.

The suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, is a Western-educated young man who was apparently recruited because he had a U.S. visa and no record of ties to terrorist groups. Officials say that he was trained and equipped by one of al-Qaeda's rising affiliates, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and that he had a bomb made of a common military explosive sewn into his underwear, deliberately designed to thwart the kinds of safeguards put in place after 9/11.

The foiled plot came on the heels of the Fort Hood shooting rampage. That attack, and the arrest of an Army major apparently inspired by al-Qaeda, crushed the widely held perception that Americans were immune from the kind of violent home-grown extremism seen in Muslim enclaves in Western Europe. Blair acknowledged that intelligence agencies are newly concerned that Americans may be traveling overseas for training and returning to the United States to carry out terrorist strikes.

"A handful of individuals and small, discrete cells will seek to mount attacks each year, with only a small portion of that activity materializing into violence against the homeland," he said.

Blair testified that he thought another attempted strike by terrorists was "certain" in the next six months. The assertion was a response to a question by the Senate intelligence panel's chairman, Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), about the likelihood that al-Qaeda would try to launch a major attack on Americans in the near future. But Blair also suggested that the rash of news about terrorist plots in recent weeks has created a false impression that the threat is new.

"We have been warning since September 11 that . . . al-Qaeda-inspired terrorists remain committed to striking the United States," he said. "What is different is that we have names and faces to go with that warning. We are therefore seeing the reality."

Terrorism experts and administration officials have described the Dec. 25 bombing attempt as a wake-up call that helped expose gaps in security that are now being addressed. But some analysts say the dramatic successes against al-Qaeda in Pakistan may have led U.S. officials to miss signs that the terrorist threat was morphing in new directions. Now the administration is scrambling to respond to both threats at once, said Bruce Hoffman, a Georgetown University terrorism expert and senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center.

"Until Northwest Airlines Flight 253, the prevailing assumption was that we could fight and win by drone attacks. But the threats are diverse and spreading," Hoffman said. "Both administrations -- Bush and Obama -- had a tendency to focus on one threat, one enemy, emanating from one place. The use of predators in Afghanistan and Pakistan is a very effective tactic. But it's a tactic, and it's not a substitute for a strategy."

US Advisers Enter AfPak Conflict Theatre

This article is worthwhile for describing a string of interpretations clouding decision making and achieving ineffective results. It does not make for optimistic reading.

I will make a couple of comments however. Tribal loyalties run deep but money runs deeper. It is absolutely necessary to legalize the opium trade, even if it is to fill warehouses in Antarctica. With that the crop value can be reduced to that of any other grain crop by sheer over production. That pauperizes the enemy combatants. In fact this insurgency should then die of its own weight and contradictions.

Consider creating a Pashtun state out of the Pashtun portion of Southern Pakistan in particular and the southern portion of Afghanistan. Forcibly transport Pashtun populations into the new state. Not anyone’s first choice but certainly ends the ethic aspect of this area of historic conflict and fully secures the borders of the two countries. It is also quite clear that both countries would prosper without having to deal with a hostile proto state in their bosoms. The rest of Afghanistan has already settled down and would clearly love to be free of this distraction. The point that I am making is that the present boundary divisions are historically unsuccessful and the two countries are resisting the hidden agenda of Pashtun political independence. Combining the multiple ethnic polities and establishing a confederation style constitution is way too much to hope for.

Then confront the Islamic leadership and demand their active efforts in suppressing the propagation of Islamic militarism. It is no different than Nazism and must be suppressed internally.

There are even more radical methods to reshape civil society but I hardly wish to go there at this time. I do ask you to note that what I have just described requires a minimal application of the use of the rifleman. In fact, there is no military solution so long as you allow the fanatic fools continuing access to money and horny young men.

In the meantime, the build up of troops will be swiftly suppressing organized Pashtun resistance again.

Military Escalation and Obama's "War on Terrorism"

US Officials "Rediscover" ISI-Taliban Nexus

By Tom Burghardt

URL of this article:

www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=12943

March 29, 2009

Long considered the realm of "conspiracy buffs" The New York Times, citing anonymous "American government officials," have belatedly "discovered" that Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence agency (ISI) is aiding the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

That ISI operatives were reportedly involved in planning the 9/11 attacks, the ostensible reason for the 2001 U.S. invasion and occupation of Afghanistan remains as they say, "off the table." Yet, as The History Commons reports, Operation Diamondback uncovered a 2001 plot jointly-run by ISI operatives and organized crime figures to illegally purchase weapons, including Stinger missiles and nuclear components, for the Taliban and al-Qaeda. According to The History Commons, citing The Washington Post and MSNBC:

Informant Randy Glass plays a key role in the sting, and has thirteen felony fraud charges against him reduced as a result, serving only seven months in prison. Federal agents involved in the case later express puzzlement that Washington higher-ups did not make the case a higher priority, pointing out that bin Laden could have gotten a nuclear bomb if the deal was for real. Agents on the case complain that the FBI did not make the case a counterterrorism matter, which would have improved bureaucratic backing and opened access to FBI information and US intelligence from around the world. ("Sting Operation Exposes Al-Qaeda, ISI, and Drug Connections: Investigators Face Obstacles to Learn More," The History Commons, no date)

In 1999, ISI operative Rajaa Gulum Abbas is recorded telling Glass as he gestures towards the World Trade Center in New York during an earlier phase of Operation Diamondback, "those towers are coming down." Yet authorities fail to stop the plot and two years later, 3,000 people are murdered by terrorists in New York and Washington.

The appearance of these reports in the corporate media arrive as the United States prepares a "surge" of some 17,000 American troops into Afghanistan and as the Obama administration escalates CIA drone attacks inside Pakistan. On March 18, The New York Times reported that the Pentagon is contemplating "broadening the target area" to include "a major insurgent sanctuary in and around the city of Quetta."

Extending military operations into the Pakistani province of Baluchistan, with the potential for "surging" CIA paramilitary officers and Special Operations troops to "kill or capture" senior Taliban and al-Qaeda operatives represents a significant escalation of the conflict.

In a March 27 announcement outlining America's new regional strategy in the "Afpak theatre," President Obama vowed to send an additional 4,000 troops under cover of "training" recruits for the Afghan National Army. The Pentagon plans to raise the total strength of the Afghan army to 134,000 by 2011.

Echoing Bush administration pronouncements, Obama told diplomats and soldiers headed to Afghanistan, "I want the American people to understand that we have a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan." Employing rhetoric designed to sell the war to a sceptical public, Obama went on to say: "Multiple intelligence estimates have warned that al-Qaeda is actively planning attacks on the US homeland from its safe havens in Pakistan."

As I reported March 7, with a recently concluded agreement amongst Pakistani Taliban fighters and their Afghan counterparts, the prospects for a bloody spring offensive are a nettlesome reminder that U.S. regional plans are so many illusions soon to be cast to the four winds.

Orchestrated by Afghan Taliban chieftain Mullah Mohammed Omar in coordination with Baitullah Mehsud's Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), North Waziristan commander Hafiz Gul Bahadur and South Waziristan "emir" Maulvi Nazeer--grouped under the banner of the Shura Ittihad-ul-Mujahideen (Council of United Holy Warriors, SIM)--the United States and their NATO allies face the prospect of ferocious multi-front attacks.

According to the Times, ISI support "consists of money, military supplies and strategic planning guidance to Taliban commanders." Despite billions of dollars in military assistance to the corrupt Musharraf regime and the equally venal Zardari administration, Pakistan's search for "strategic depth" against their geopolitical rival India has only resulted in a furtherance of ISI/Army connivance with the Islamist far-right. The Times avers:

"Support for the Taliban, as well as other militant groups, is coordinated by operatives inside the shadowy S Wing of Pakistan's spy service, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, the officials said. There is even evidence that ISI operatives meet regularly with Taliban commanders to discuss whether to intensify or scale back violence before the Afghan elections. (Mark Mazzetti and Eric Schmitt, "Afghan Strikes by Taliban Get Pakistan Help, U.S. Aides Say," The New York Times, March 26, 2009)
Citing "electronic surveillance and trusted informants," anonymous Pakistani officials have denied these ties "were strengthening the insurgency." While publicly denying state links to Islamist insurgents, the Army and ISI have historical ties--as does the CIA--to organizations such as the Taliban and the Afghan-Arab database of disposable Western intelligence assets known as al-Qaeda.

As readers of Antifascist Calling and websites such as Global Research and the World Socialist Web Site are well aware, for three decades the United States has pursued a ruthless policy in pursuit of its own narrow interests. Far from being concerned with the economic and social well-being of the people of Central and South Asia, America's imperialist project is designed solely for regional military domination and resource extraction vis-à-vis their geopolitical rivals Russia and China.

Indeed, since the fall of Kabul's socialist government, the United States has single mindedly pursued policies to control the vast petrochemical resources of Eurasia.

As researcher and analyst Michel Chossudovsky pointed out, anticipating the current political demonization of the Pakistani people as a selling-point to secure the giant oil and natural gas reserves of Central Asia for American corporations,

"Demonization serves geopolitical and economic objectives. Likewise, the campaign against "Islamic terrorism" (which is supported covertly by US intelligence) supports the conquest of oil wealth. The term "Islamo-fascism," serves to degrade the policies, institutions, values and social fabric of Muslim countries, while also upholding the tenets of "Western democracy" and the "free market" as the only alternative for these countries.

The US led war in the broader Middle East-Central Asian region consists in gaining control over more than sixty percent of the world's reserves of oil and natural gas. The Anglo-American oil giants also seek to gain control over oil and gas pipeline routes out of the region. ...

The ultimate objective, combining military action, covert intelligence operations and war propaganda, is to break down the national fabric and transform sovereign countries into open economic territories, where natural resources can be plundered and confiscated under "free market" supervision. This control also extends to strategic oil and gas pipeline corridors (e.g. Afghanistan)." ("The 'Demonization' of Muslims and the Battle for Oil," Global Research, January 4, 2007)

All of the features described above are in play today. That media outlets such as The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal have discovered ISI-Taliban-al-Qaeda "connections"--while glossing over and suppressing--America's operational links to these same terrorist and narcotrafficking networks, is indicative of the dire straits faced by an economically depleted and politically bankrupt empire.

Drawing (false) distinctions amongst the welter of jihadist groups that American and Pakistan have cultivated since the 1980s, Obama's Director of National Intelligence, retired admiral Dennis Blair, told Congress that the CIA's counterparts in crime, the ISI, believe there are some that "have to be hit and that we should cooperate on hitting, and there are others they think don't constitute as much of a threat to them and that they think are best left alone."

While pursuing Mehsud and others who threaten the state's writ, the Army has been loathe to run to ground proxies such as Jalaluddin Haqqani and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, veteran narcotrafficking jihadists' who were key Pakistani-linked commanders during the anti-Soviet jihad. Considered "strategic assets" by ISI, Haqqani and Hekmatyar's networks direct fire inside Afghanistan and are therefore considered candidates "best left alone" in Blair's laconic phrase.

However, according to anonymous officials it was none other than the Haqqani network, in collusion with ISI operatives who helped plan last summer's Indian Embassy bombing in Kabul that killed 54 and wounded dozens of others.

While American and European officials are hell-bent on finding (or manufacturing) "good Taliban" with whom they can negotiate a climb down, Pentagon analysts are far-less sanguine of the prospects.

A March 1, 2009 presentation for deploying troops prepared by the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) G-2 and the TRADOC Intelligence Support Activity (TRISA), posted by the intelligence and security website Cryptome, lays out the formidable problems posed by the insurgency--and the extent of Pakistani involvement. Under the heading, "Insurgent Syndicate Characteristics," TRISA analysts aver:

The nature of the enemy in AF HAS NOT CHANGED:

* This enemy is primarily Pashtun in nature and Sunni Muslim (Wahhabi and Deobandi).
* This enemy is funded by the drug economy and Gulf Arab money (for religious reasons).
* This enemy is trained and assisted by ISID or ISID affiliated elements (Kashmiris/HuJI/LeT/HuM, with some Uzbeks.
* They are assisted by AQ [al-Qaeda] in terms of funding, foreign fighters, and other assistance.
* Logistics is the Achilles heel of ISAF operations in AF. Pak control of FATA and the Torkhum Gate. ("HB 9 Paramilitary Terrorist Insurgent Groups: Afghanistan," U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, March 1, 2009, p. 5)

As if to drive home the point that "logistics is the Achilles heel" of U.S. and NATO operations in Afghanistan, Dawn reported March 29 that "hundreds of suspected Taliban armed with rockets and Kalashnikovs entered the Farhad terminal at about 2am and set on fire four vehicles, three cranes, a mini-truck and six power generators." The Al-Faisal terminal near Peshawar is a major jump-off point supplying NATO troops in Afghanistan.

TRISA's "Threat Lay Down" (p. 7) estimates that some 60,000 insurgent fighters are currently arrayed against U.S. and NATO forces. Estimating Afghan Taliban strength at 30,000 fighters, fully half of the estimated number of insurgents are Pakistani. These include: TTP, 15,000; TNSM, 5,000; Lashkar-e-Toiba, 3,000; Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, 2,000.

With 2,000 Al-Qaeda commandos (Brigade 055) and smaller contingents drawn from the former Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and other Central Asian and Middle Eastern factions, it becomes clear that Pakistan's intelligence services, given continued support to "moderates" such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar as well as to terrorist outfits such as LET and LEJ are a major source of support behind the insurgency.

This is all the more remarkable considering that LET commandos, operating in close coordination with ISI and Dawood Ibrahim's organized crime-linked D Company carried out last November's attacks in Mumbai, whilst LEJ was reportedly behind the assault on Sri Lanka's national cricket team in Lahore earlier this month.

Significantly, TRISA analysts claim that amongst the "Warlord Militias" (p. 10) currently backing Hamid Karzai's government, their operations unsurprisingly, are also financed through "crime, narco-trafficking, smuggling, illegal taxation, including illegal road checkpoints for taxation." One might reasonably infer that U.S. operations amount to little more, despite the role of the narcotics trade on both sides of the "Afpak" divide, than a battle for control over lucrative drug manufacturing and smuggling routes.

Ironically enough, despite the grave threat to Pakistani citizens in Swat Valley, indeed throughout the entire country, the Zardari administration cut a deal last month with local TTP commander Maulana Fazlullah.

The sociopathic son-in-law of Tehrik Nifaz Shariat-i-Muhammadi (Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Law, TNSM) leader Maulana Sufi Mohammed, a close ally of Mullah Omar, Fazlullah's criminal network has instituted a reign of terror in Swat under the banner of "Sharia law." Despite the truce, TTP militants continue to murder Swat residents and enhance the reach of various criminal enterprises, ranging from extortion, kidnapping and illegal logging through heroin processing for export.

Pakistani workers and farmers continue to pay a heavy price for the state's move to mollify the jihadist Frankenstein. For decades, having proven themselves politically useful when it comes to murdering leftists, trade union activists or uppity women and cultural workers, reactionary forces such as the TTP or the ever-pliant Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed are a shadowy "third force" that can be counted on by "Military Inc." to "keep the rabble in line."

In this context, "holy warriors" linked to the TTP carried out a horrific suicide bombing inside a mosque packed with worshipers in the Khyber region on Friday, killing 50 people and wounding 158 others.

Dawn reported that the two-storey structure collapsed onto the heads of worshipers after a suicide bomber "jumped into the Friday congregation and blew himself up just when the prayers were about to begin."

Eyewitnesses told Dawn they believe the casualty figures are being under-reported by authorities and that upwards of 70 people may have been killed by the blast and the subsequent collapse of the mosque's ceiling.

The News reported Saturday that upwards of 76 people had been killed in the vicious blast, including the prayer leader, his brother, as well as truck drivers carrying goods to neighboring Afghanistan.

There were tragic scenes at the site of the explosion. Many of the dead were mutilated beyond recognition. Rescuers and grief-stricken relatives of the missing and the dead were collecting pieces of bodies in the hope of locating their near and dear ones. A goat killed by the blast was also lying near the destroyed mosque. ...

Meanwhile, some residents and injured belonging to the villages of Rekalay and Kufar Tangi said they saw aircraft flying above the area since Friday morning. They feared the blast at the mosque could have been caused by a missile fired by a US drone. (Daud Khattak & Nasrullah Afridi, "76 killed in Jamrud mosque bombing," The News, March 28, 2009)

While eyewitness accounts describe a suicide bomber as the party responsible for the horrendous attack, part and parcel of SIM's campaign to cut NATO supply lines into Afghanistan, America's escalating robot drone wars are a reminder of growing anti-American sentiment amongst Pakistanis who are the overwhelming victims of the CIA's death-from-above air campaign.

If the Swat truce is an indication of what Pakistani citizens will now face at the hands of Mehsud's TTP and their minions, the prospects for a "normal" life--short of smashing the medievalists' and their ISI handlers--are grim.

Even as CIA and Pakistani intelligence officials "are drawing up a fresh list of terrorist targets for Predator drone strikes along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border," The Wall Street Journal reports that ISI officials are "directly supporting the Taliban and other militants in Afghanistan, even as the U.S. targets those groups."

Indeed, as the Times avers, "when the Haqqani fighters need to stay a step ahead of American forces stalking them on the ground and in the air, they rely on moles within the spy agency to tip them off to allied missions planned against them."

An unspoken subtext to the Times and Journal reportage is the continued utilization of these terrorist networks--by the CIA and U.S. Special Operations Command--for covert war against Iran--even as the Obama administration seeks Tehran's assistance in battling the Taliban and al-Qaeda. As investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reported last July in The New Yorker the Pentagon funded the narcotrafficker Baluchi-based Jundullah organization to attack security personnel inside Iran.

While an open secret in Washington, Obama's new product roll-out in the form of an ill-conceived plan to "disrupt, dismantle and defeat" al-Qaeda and the Taliban has everything to do with the construction of the $7.6 billion dollar "Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline that would cross western Afghanistan east of Herat and advance south through Taliban-controlled territory towards Pakistani Balochistan province," according to Asia Times. As the World Socialist Web Site points out,

Afghanistan and Pakistan stand at a nexus of pipeline and trade routes between the Middle East, Russia, China and the Indian subcontinent, and US domination of the countries would give it decisive influence over developments in trade and strategic relations between many of Eurasia's largest and fastest-growing economies. In particular, it would cement the US' ability to mount a blockade of oil supplies for China and India in the Indian Ocean. (Alex Lantier, "Obama announces escalation of war in Afghanistan, Pakistan," World Socialist Web Site, March 28, 2009)

And with the imperialist military project going off the rails in Afghanistan as the Taliban's spring offensive looms ever-larger on the horizon, the prospects for a deadly confrontation between nuclear-armed world powers over control of oil and gas will inevitably increase.

Tom Burghardt is a researcher and activist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition to publishing in Covert Action Quarterly and Global Research, an independent research and media group of writers, scholars, journalists and activists based in Montreal, his articles can be read on Dissident Voice, The Intelligence Daily, Pacific Free Press and the whistleblowing website Wikileaks. He is the editor of Police State America: U.S. Military "Civil Disturbance" Planning, distributed by AK Press.