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Afghanistan
CIA Scales Back Bases in Afghanistan
2013-07-25
Shhhh! Don't tell anyone, it's a secret.
[AnNahar] The Central Intelligence Agency has started scaling back its presence in Afghanistan, closing secret bases as U.S. troops withdraw from the country, the Washington Post reported Wednesday, citing unnamed officials.

The move marks a shift for the spy agency as it turns its attention to other regions and gets back to more traditional intelligence gathering after a decade marked by paramilitary operations, U.S. officials told the Post.

The closures were part of two-year plan to cut the number of CIA facilities in Afghanistan from 12 to as few as six, the paper reported.

At the same time, the bulk of a U.S. military contingent of more than 60,000 troops is due to pull out by the end of 2014, with a possible smaller force of about 10,000 to remain on the ground.

The CIA declined to comment to Agence La Belle France Presse on the report.

U.S. administration officials had concluded the size of the intelligence mission in Afghanistan was out of proportion to the dangers posed by al-Qaeda, whose core leadership has been weakened and dispersed in neighboring Pakistain.

"When we look at post-2014, how does the threat in Afghanistan and Pakistain measure against the threat in North Africa and Yemen?" an unnamed administration official was quoted as saying.

"Shouldn't our resources reflect that?"

The CIA was still expected to retain a large office in Kabul -- among the agency's largest in the world -- and to keep flying a fleet of armed drones to track Death Eaters in Pakistain's tribal belt, the paper reported.

The CIA's Predator and Reaper drones are flown out of an airfield near the Pakistain border in Jalalabad.

The Central Intelligence Agency, which once armed Afghans fighting Soviet forces in the 1980s, has deep ties to Afghanistan's spy services and to President Hamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai
... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use...
, who has publicly admitted to accepting bags of cash from U.S. intelligence officers.
Posted by:trailing wife

#5  Well, there's 'the people', and then there's everyone else.
Posted by: Pappy   2013-07-25 12:32  

#4  Enemy, or enemy of the people

Is there a difference?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2013-07-25 10:02  

#3  It's a holistic approach g(r)om. A seamless community of Federal Police State prole watchers, bit-catchers, and listeners. Enemy, or enemy of the people; subjective terms correct ?

"Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they they have rebelled they cannot become conscious."
- Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 7
Posted by: Besoeker   2013-07-25 07:31  

#2  good riddance

Are you sure it's riddance Besoeker---or just moving to another theater to fight the real enemy?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2013-07-25 05:45  

#1  If you possess limited or in many cases NO clandestine capability and must operate under the safeguarding and protection of the US military; when the military departs.... what choice do you have ?

You had it wrong at FOB Chapman and you've had it wrong with Karzai. History will show you had it wrong at Benghazi as well. Political commissars the lot, good riddance !
Posted by: Besoeker   2013-07-25 03:16  

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