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Eliana Benador:  America on the Ethics of Funding Terrorism

Eliana Benador: America on the Ethics of Funding Terrorism

Throughout American history, different presidents have supported various causes and countries and, to do so, they have sent weapons to and have trained opposition groups, to include rebels and terrorists.

In a world that is clearly losing their ethical compass, America’s future is at stake on many grounds. Morally speaking, the notion of right and wrong is being slowly and surely blurred under the wings of its red, white and blue flag.

While many areas of governance are being questioned, the management of intelligence and counter-intelligence resources, has recently been brought to light by The New York Times providing information about one of the CIA’s centers to train personnel as well as to store, maintain and distribute weapons and arms destined to “opposition” groups abroad.

In 2009, President Barack Obama signed executive orders ending the CIA's secret overseas prisons, banning coercive interrogation. He also ordered that Guantanamo Bay prison be closed within the year. However, Guantanamo, which initially counted 775 detainees in January 2002 still had, as of January 2014, a population of 158 detainees.

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And, while keen in ending imprisonment and torture, the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize winner showed no desire to stop arming opposition groups throughout the world, continuing in the footsteps of both democrats and republicans.

Choosing to "help" bring down some governments, successive American administrations also were willing to assist terrorists, now acknowledged with the more politically correct term of "rebels groups," to overthrow oponents to American interests.

Soon to be 238-year-old America has now entered the second century of such activities.

As part of their interference, they have not only sent troops abroad but, unbeknownst from most, have been actively involved in arming opposition groups.

Commanders and military leaders have not had qualms sending their men to fight alongside those same terrorists who attacked their soil, their people and their country.

A first hand insider and witness to some of these activities, former counterterrorism consultant and veteran Center Intelligence officer Kevin Schipp and his family were moved to a secret CIA facility, Camp Stanley, in June 1999.

FILE - In this Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2012 file photo, Syrian fighters of  The Beloved of Allah,  brigade hold their weapons before fighting with government forces on the outskirts of Aleppo. More than two years into Syria's civil war, the once highly-centralized authoritarian state has effectively split into three distinct parts, each boasting its own flags, security agencies and judicial system. Credit: AP The author wonders how many of the weapons being used in Syria were provided by the CIA. Credit: AP 

They lived there until May 2001. The Camp, an army weapons depot just north of San Antonio, is located in an area known for its polluted drinking water.

Almost a decade later, at the end of 2011, the Schipp family sued the agency, on the grounds that they were placed in a mold-contaminated home that made them sick. All their possessions had to be destroyed. And the government convinced the judge to dismiss the case to protect state secrets which, naturally, outweighed those of the Schipp family.

Camp Stanley became part of the Red River Arsenal as CSSA in 1949; nowadays, CSSA consists of 4,004 acres of varying terrain.

Allen Thomson, a CIA analyst who has presented a paper about it, says: “there are 'some indications' the ... [CSSA] may be the site of a facility called Midwest Depot that the CIA has used for clandestine accumulation and dissemination of arms to various parties from at least the early 1960s through 2001 and probably through 2010.”

And he added: “If the CSSA, established in 1949, has always been the cover for Midwest Depot, then the covert facility dates to the earliest days of the CIA and, speculatively, may have been created to provide an arms channel to resistance groups in Soviet-occupied Eastern Europe and elsewhere.”

Several United States administrations, during the second half of the last century, have supported such operations from the Bay of Pigs invasion, to the arming of rebels in Angola, Nicaragua and Afghanistan. As most of the records from the 1961 Bay of Pigs indicate, the CIA was responsible for the failure of the exile army of Cubans, who went to their deaths or to prison in a failed invasion of their country.

An Afghan policeman stands guard near burning NATO supply trucks following an attack by militants in the Torkham area near the Pakistan--Afghanistan border in Jalalabad province east of Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, Sept. 2, 2013. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the strike on a U.S. base in Afghanistan near the border with Pakistan on Monday, setting off bombs, torching vehicles and shutting down a key road used by NATO supply trucks, officials said. Several people -- apparently all attacking insurgents -- were killed.  (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul) An Afghan policeman stands guard near burning NATO supply trucks following an attack by militants in the Torkham area near the Pakistan--Afghanistan border in Jalalabad province east of Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, Sept. 2, 2013. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)

Afghanistan is another case of boomerang reaction resulting from the manipulations of the American government and the maneuverings the CIA on the ground. What then they considered, a “freedom fighter” turned to be the mastermind of the largest attack on a civilian population in times of peace, in the annals of American history, showing the devastating failure, incompetence and impotence of such an agency as the Central Intelligence Agency.

In an email, Allen Thomson said the history of Camp Stanley needs to be studied and scrutinized.

“I have worried about the extent to which the U.S. has spread small arms around over the decades to various parties it supported,” he said. “Such weapons are pretty durable and, after the cause du jour passed, where did they go? To be a little dramatic about it, how many of those AK-47s and RPG-7s we see Islamists waving around today passed through the Midwest Depot on their way to freedom fighters in past decades?”

Nonetheless, the story continues. According to NATO Special Operations Components Commando-Afghanistan, as of March 31, 2014, nearly $196 million of the Afghanistan Security Forces Fund had been obligated and spent to support the Afghan Local Police. Once the full strength of the Afghan Local Police is fully operational, it will cost $121 million per year to maintain.

In recent days, the big question is who is arming the Syrian terrorists that are stubbornly trying to depose President Bashar al-Assad. Who is behind them?

Some of the culprits are not far. Indeed, the United States is increasing their contribution in arms and training to those who are now categorized by the Obama Administration under the very noble name of "moderate rebels" in Syria.

In a re-do of the Lybian case, the Obama Administration is anxious to get rid of Assad and put in place the terrorists marionettes masterfully pulled by the Muslim Brotherhood, in turn choreographed by the Emirate of Qatar and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, all of them close to the Circle of Power surrounding President Obama and other American leaders.

America has gone from trial to failure in the business of funding terrorism, because no matter how much the administration may want to force their way into altering and falsifying documents and modifying the vocabulary, etymologically speaking, terrorism is terrorism.

Eliana Benador founder of Benador Associates and Benador International. She is an international strategist, adviser, opinion writer on international affairs and speaker. Her website is www.elianabenador.com.

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