{"id":185364,"date":"2011-07-20T18:32:00","date_gmt":"2011-07-20T23:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2011\/07\/20\/how-is-barack-obama-different-from-george-w-bush\/"},"modified":"2011-07-20T18:32:00","modified_gmt":"2011-07-20T23:32:00","slug":"how-is-barack-obama-different-from-george-w-bush","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2011\/07\/20\/how-is-barack-obama-different-from-george-w-bush\/","title":{"rendered":"How is Barack Obama Different from George W. Bush?"},"content":{"rendered":"

No this is not a lead in for a joke it’s a real question because Barack “I’m Shutting Down the CIA Black Sites” Obama has set up a new CIA black site<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Nestled in a back corner of Mogadishu\u2019s Aden Adde International Airport is a sprawling walled compound run by the Central Intelligence Agency. Set on the coast of the Indian Ocean, the facility looks like a small gated community, with more than a dozen buildings behind large protective walls and secured by guard towers at each of its four corners. Adjacent to the compound are eight large metal hangars, and the CIA has its own aircraft at the airport. The site, which airport officials and Somali intelligence sources say was completed four months ago, is guarded by Somali soldiers, but the Americans control access. At the facility, the CIA runs a counterterrorism training program for Somali intelligence agents and operatives aimed at building an indigenous strike force capable of snatch operations and targeted \u201ccombat\u201d operations against members of Al Shabab, an Islamic militant group with close ties to Al Qaeda.<\/p>\n

As part of its expanding counterterrorism program in Somalia, the CIA also uses a secret prison buried in the basement of Somalia\u2019s National Security Agency (NSA) headquarters, where prisoners suspected of being Shabab members or of having links to the group are held. Some of the prisoners have been snatched off the streets of Kenya and rendered by plane to Mogadishu. While the underground prison is officially run by the Somali NSA, US intelligence personnel pay the salaries of intelligence agents and also directly interrogate prisoners. The existence of both facilities and the CIA role was uncovered by The Nation during an extensive on-the-ground investigation in Mogadishu. Among the sources who provided information for this story are senior Somali intelligence officials; senior members of Somalia\u2019s Transitional Federal Government (TFG); former prisoners held at the underground prison; and several well-connected Somali analysts and militia leaders, some of whom have worked with US agents, including those from the CIA. A US official, who confirmed the existence of both sites, told The Nation, \u201cIt makes complete sense to have a strong counterterrorism partnership\u201d with the Somali government.<\/p>\n

The CIA presence in Mogadishu is part of Washington\u2019s intensifying counterterrorism focus on Somalia, which includes targeted strikes by US Special Operations forces, drone attacks and expanded surveillance operations. The US agents \u201care here full time,\u201d a senior Somali intelligence official told me. At times, he said, there are as many as thirty of them in Mogadishu, but he stressed that those working with the Somali NSA do not conduct operations; rather, they advise and train Somali agents. \u201cIn this environment, it\u2019s very tricky. They want to help us, but the situation is not allowing them to do [it] however they want. They are not in control of the politics, they are not in control of the security,\u201d he adds. \u201cThey are not controlling the environment like Afghanistan and Iraq. In Somalia, the situation is fluid, the situation is changing, personalities changing.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bullsh%@.<\/p>\n

This is not an existing state security apparatus who is doing us a favor, this the CIA, and possibly the NSA running another black site.<\/p>\n

The “official government” in Somolia controls, “Somali government forces control roughly thirty square miles of territory in Mogadishu thanks in large part to the US-funded and -armed 9,000-member AMISOM force.” <\/p>\n

This government controls about half the land area of Liechtenstein and that only by dint of massive foreign aid.<\/p>\n

Seriously, what Barack Obama has done by way of the rule of law and civil rights is worse than what George W. Bush did, because he has normalized behavior, both by refusing to investigate criminality, and by aping the policies of Bush\/Cheney.<\/p>\n

\u2026and it’s not getting any<\/b> coverage by the MSM.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No this is not a lead in for a joke it’s a real question because Barack “I’m Shutting Down the CIA Black Sites” Obama has set up a new CIA black site: Nestled in a back corner of Mogadishu\u2019s Aden Adde International Airport is a sprawling walled compound run by the Central Intelligence Agency. Set …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1142,971,970,1032,969,1182,1168],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-185364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-barack-obama","category-civil-rights","category-corruption","category-crimes-against-humanity","category-evil","category-george-w-bush","category-torture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185364"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185364\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}