Tag Archives: Development Alternatives Inc

SEAL Team Glossary includes Canoeing, Winkler Hatchets & Bleed Out Videos.

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You won’t find these terms in the indexes of the countless books praising SEAL Team 6. But they feature prominently in an Intercept exposé about the war crimes of America’s most famous death squad. “Bleed out” videos are passed among operators, as Special Ops mercenaries are called, featuring their victims bleeding to death as they are taunted by their murderers. “Canoeing” is the act of aiming a final gunshot through the top of the victim’s forehead such that the head splits open to form a V like the bow of a canoe. Canoeing Photos of faces spilling over with brains, such as the proof-of-death pic of Osama bin Laden, are then taken for the official record, including the team’s formal scrapbook. “Devil’s Guard” is an obscure war novel that glamorizes Nazi attrocities including fictional methods of inflicting state terror. Title 50 authority is the so-called license which US Special Ops have to partner with allied commandos to form death squads. Winkler hatchets are tomahawks made by craftsman Daniel Winkler for the SEAL Team 6 Red Squadron, known as the redmen, who are expected to bloody their hatchets as they conduct their raids. Using the hatchets to collect DNA hair-follicle samples for the Redmen means flaying their victims and returning with scalps, fingers and other disfiguring momentos. Another insight revealed by the Intercept: The British aid captive Linda Norgrove, who was killed during a botched rescue attempt, wasn’t killed by her captors, but by a grenade thrown at her by a Seal Team operators, perhaps because the goal of reaching Norgrove was not rescue but exposure control. Linda Norgrove worked for DAI, Development Alternatives Inc, an American NGO, a cover for being an agent for MI-6. The glossary we already knew: Blue Squadron, known as the Pirates; Gold Squadron, known as the Crusaders or Knights; Silver Squadron; and Red Squadron, known as the Redmen.

DAI and the perils of privatization

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The perils of privatization. Cuba has arrested a pro-democracy agent who admits working for the US government. But that didn’t come from a confession. Instead, it was reported by a Washington DC area contractor, Development Alternatives, Inc, who confirmed one of their employees had been apprehended. The US State Department and CIA have always used private firms as cover, but privatizing the payroll, instead of providing a firewall of deniability, has added a bureaucratic layer more readily exposed.

Referring to their agent in Havana as a “subcontractor” is not to suggest that there are now sub-mercenaries, or sub-agents, but simply that the functions of the CIA and USAID have indeed been subcontracted. DAI is not a cover for the CIA, it’s a privatized surrogate.

The name DAI reminds me of the more embarrassing anagram, CAI, Greg Mortenson’s Central Asia Institute, also doing the Lord Uncle Sam’s work.

Actually, the agent in question is not an employee of DAI, but a person subcontracted under the employ of a third party. The identity of neither the person, nor the third party company, is being revealed. Does that imply funny business to you?

Aspiring privateers beware, there is neither diplomatic immunity, nor covert backup, for private companies infiltrating foreign political systems. Under US laws, these agents would be tried as terrorists.

I’ve read it suggested that Cuba should consider a prisoner swap for the CUBAN 5, who’ve been languishing in US prisons for the crime of trying to stop Florida-based terrorists plotting attacks on Cuba. The DAI employee apprehended today entered Cuba under false pretenses, with a tourist visa, with the intention of overthrowing the Cuban government. The US would be lucky if it could be considered an even trade.