Pentagon wants to expand spying on foreign military contractors

The U.S. is expanding covert operations both in the military and in spying Obama moves to project U,S.power through methods that are hidden from view and from accountability. The Dept. of Defense has asked that spies be allowed to infiltrate foreign military contractors' businesses.

These would be companies that are manufacturing weapons for competing nations. Some U.S. business people would actually be spies gathering intelligence.

The Dept. of Defense also said: “The conflict with al-Qaeda and its affiliates, and other developments, have required the regular conduct of small-scale clandestine military operations to prepare the battlefield for military operations against terrorists and their sponsors,” The Department wants to be able to use more clandestine spying operations. Not only would the department keep the operations secret but could ignore or deny the operations entirely. So much for open and accountable government.

There are dangers to the program as a correspondent with Wired Danger Room points out:“Once civilian commercial activities become a front for US military spying, then foreign governments will likely view normal businessmen as targets for their own counter-spying, or even detention,” No doubt foreign operatives will also engage in such activities in U.S. businesses. For more see this article.

The Age of U.S. Shadow Power: Juan Cole

In an article published recently in the NATION and also available here. Juan Cole a prof. at the U. of Michigan and well know commentator on Middle East politics writes of what he calls "The Age of American Shadow Power".

Cole notes that covert actions have long been part and parcel of U.S. policies to project power world-wide. However within the last decade he argues that these actions are becoming a more important part of U.S. power supplementing or even replacing conventional military action in many cases.

Among the new shadow power tools are drone strikes, electronic spying, secret operations by military units such as the Joint Special Operations Command. The government also now uses many more corporate contractors and mercenaries for security and even some terrorist groups.

As Cole points out these new tools can lead to operations that may put the U.S. in peril and create blow back. They also make the U.S. very unpopular in areas where they are unemployed. Drone attacks, and CIA operatives in Pakistan are a good example as well as the antics of private security contractors,. This is just a short introduction to the article for much more detail see the full article. Cole claims that if the use of shadow power is not rolled back it could hurt U.S. diplomacy and the blow back from the practices could make the U.S. actually less secure.