Anonymous ID: b3cf54 July 27, 2022, 11:10 p.m. No.16874400   🗄️.is 🔗kun

>>16870770

the Pentagon Uses a Secretive Program to Wage Proxy Wars

Exclusive documents and interviews reveal the sweeping scope of classified 127e operations

 

Small teams of U.S. Special Operations forces are involved in a low-profile proxy war program on a far greater scale than previously known, according to exclusive documents and interviews with more than a dozen current and former government officials.

 

While The Intercept and other outlets have previously reported on the Pentagon’s use of the secretive 127e authority in multiple African countries, a new document obtained through the Freedom of Information Act offers the first official confirmation that at least 14 127e programs were also active in the greater Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region as recently as 2020. In total, between 2017 and 2020, U.S. commandos conducted at least 23 separate 127e programs across the world.

 

Separately, Joseph Votel, a retired four-star Army general who headed both Special Operations Command and Central Command, which oversees U.S. military efforts in the Middle East, confirmed the existence of previously unrevealed 127e “counterterrorism” efforts in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen.

 

Another former senior defense official, who requested anonymity to discuss a classified program, confirmed that an earlier version of the 127e program had also been in place in Iraq. A 127e program in Tunisia, code-named Obsidian Tower, which has never been acknowledged by the Pentagon or previously identified as a use of the 127e authority, resulted in combat by U.S. forces alongside local surrogates in 2017, according to another set of documents obtained by The Intercept. A third document, a secret memo that was redacted and declassified for release to The Intercept, sheds light on hallmarks of the program, including use of the authority to provide access to areas of the world otherwise inaccessible even to the most elite U.S. troops.

 

The documents and interviews provide the most detailed picture yet of an obscure funding authority that allows American commandos to conduct counterterrorism operations “by, with, and through” foreign and irregular partner forces around the world. Basic information about these missions — where they are conducted, their frequency and targets, and the foreign forces the U.S. relies on to carry them out — are unknown even to most members of relevant congressional committees and key State Department personnel.

 

Through 127e, the U.S. arms, trains, and provides intelligence to foreign forces. But unlike traditional foreign assistance programs, which are primarily intended to build local capacity, 127e partners are then dispatched on U.S.-directed missions, targeting U.S. enemies to achieve U.S. aims. “The foreign participants in a 127-echo program are filling gaps that we don’t have enough Americans to fill,” a former senior defense official involved with the program told The Intercept. “If someone were to call a 127-echo program a proxy operation, it would be hard to argue with them.”

 

Retired generals with intimate knowledge of the 127e program — known in military parlance as “127-echo” — say that it is extremely effective in targeting militant groups while reducing risk to U.S. forces. But experts told The Intercept that use of the little-known authority raises grave accountability and oversight concerns and potentially violates the U.S. Constitution.

 

One of the documents obtained by The Intercept puts the cost of 127e operations between 2017 and 2020 at $310 million, a fraction of U.S. military spending over that time period but a significant increase from the $25 million budget allocated to the program when it was first authorized, under a different name, in 2005.

 

https://theintercept.com/2022/07/01/pentagon-127e-proxy-wars/

Anonymous ID: b3cf54 July 27, 2022, 11:11 p.m. No.16874427   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>4776

Rouble firms past 52 against dollar for first time since May 2015

 

Tuesday June 28, 2022 17:17 [kek]

 

The rouble rallied past 52 against the dollar to a more than a seven-year high on Tuesday as capital controls and month-end taxes offset the negative impact of Western statements that Russia has defaulted on its international bonds.

 

The rouble became the world's best-performing currency this year, boosted by emergency measures that authorities have taken to shield Russia's financial system from western sanctions after Moscow sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine.

 

The rouble hit 50.6125 against the dollar in Moscow trade for the first time since late May 2015, and jumped to 54.40 against the euro, a level last seen in April 2015.

 

As of 1523 GMT, the rouble gained nearly 3% to 51.88 against the greenback and was at 54.71 against the euro, gaining more than 2.5% on the day .

 

full art @ https://www.kitco.com/news/2022-06-28/Rouble-firms-past-52-against-dollar-for-first-time-since-May-2015.html

Anonymous ID: b3cf54 July 27, 2022, 11:18 p.m. No.16874950   🗄️.is 🔗kun

>>16872513

>Project Veritas

CRITICAL MASS https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2022/06/23/im-going-stand-up/

 

Today Roe v. Wade was overturned - less than 24 hours after Project Veritas Action released undercover footage of Republican Utah Senate Candidate Becky Edwards saying she will "Stand up" for abortion. "I'm the only candidate who has even said anything other than 'joyful,' 'happy,' 'yay,' 'answer to prayer'" on Roe being overturned.

Anonymous ID: b3cf54 July 27, 2022, 11:21 p.m. No.16875117   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>5313

>>16872384

“Why travel to the Moon or Mars if we only continue our wars there with Russia or China or Africa? Why build rockets at all? For fun? For adventure? Or is this the same process that sends the salmons back upstream year after year to spawn and die - a subliminal urge in mankind to spread, in self-preservation, to the stars? Are we then secretly fearful that one day the sun might freeze and the the earth grow cold or the sun explode in a terrific thermal cataclysm and burn down our house of cards?”

― Ray Bradbury, Yestermorrow