lgstarr: Special Ops

By Dana Priest and William M. Arkin, Published: September 2

The CIA’s armed drones and paramilitary forces have killed dozens of al-Qaeda leaders and thousands of its foot soldiers. But there is another mysterious organization that has killed even more of America’s enemies in the decade since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. CIA operatives have imprisoned and interrogated nearly 100 suspected terrorists in their former secret prisons around the world, but troops from this other secret organization have imprisoned and interrogated 10 times as many, holding them in jails that it alone controls in Iraq and Afghanistan.

‘Top Secret America’: A look at the military’s Joint Special Operations Command

Hugh Hewitt Show, Saturday, September 03, 2011:
General Jerry Boykin on Kiloton Threat, and disgraceful action at the Washington Post, releasing Special Operations secrets

HH: Now while that story unfolds, attention is going to be on a new book, and a new series in the Washington Post, Top Secret America: The Rise Of The New American Security State, by Dana Priest and a name I’m sure is familiar to you, William Arkin.

JB: Yeah.

HH: And it reveals operational secrets, General. What do you think of this? And what do you think of Arkin?

JB: Well, you know, I’ve had a lot of experience with Arkin. Arkin came after me, and Dana Priest has a record very similar to Arkin’s of exposing things that are very sensitive. Arkin, remember, he wrote the book Code Words. It exposed the code words of many, many very sensitive programs in our government, not just the Department of Defense. Arkin is not just anti-American, I mean anti-military, but he is very much anti-American. I think the guy is, frankly, I think he’s a hard-core Marxist. And if it was 1960, I think he’d be a leader in the Weather Underground. And Dana Priest has done similar kinds of things in exposing very sensitive programs. I can’t tell you what their agenda is other than they are very anti-American.

HH: Now I referred to Arkin earlier today as scum, because his record of attacking the military as mercenaries, and other attacks, not just on you, but I mean generally, he’s so anti-military and so anti-American, the Institute For Policy Studies, Greenpeace, he’s got this long lefty pedigree. What is the Washington Post doing, General, publishing this stuff. It’s not…there will be nutters and left wing extremists like Arkin out there. But why is the Washington Post aiding and abetting them?

JB: Well, I certainly can’t answer for the leadership of the Washington Post, but the Washington Post has a history of doing this, particularly with Dana Priest, who has been working with the Washington Post for a very long time. And I must tell you, I think this is an example of how the 1^st Amendment was never intended to have an open press without some check and balance, without some accountability for what they do. And this is another example of how that can be very damaging to the nation.

HH: When a newspaper publishes the nicknames and the code names for some of the Special Operators, like Task Force Green, secret army in Northern Virginia, Task Force 11, Task Force 121, when they talk very specifically about where the new headquarters is, what the new operational command is, does that help the enemy?

JB: Of course it helps the enemy, and it also discourages the brave, young Americans that are playing by the rules, and taking some very high risks, and making a lot of sacrifices. It’s very discouraging to them, but it also encourages the enemy very much, because they see themselves being on the winning side, and they’re using our civil liberties against us. And it concerns me a great deal.

HH: Should we have released as much information as we did about the bin Laden mission?

JB: No, and it’s interesting. I was just talking to someone two days ago about that, and I will tell you that that was all a political ploy. You’re going to see a movie about it come out the 1^st of October. The producers and so forth have been integrated into a number of things now with the administration. And I must tell you, this whole thing is political. It is trying to build the credibility of this president as the commander-in-chief, and as a substantial leader. And I think that it is disgraceful, because you never heard who got Saddam Hussein. You heard the 4^th Infantry Division. Well, I happen to know that embedded in there, the people that really got him, was a Special Operations element. But nobody talked about who that was. There was no fanfare on that. But that wasn’t used for political purposes.

HH: I will be right back. One more segment with General, retired General William G. Jerry Boykin.