On Friday an active CIA officer is bringing a lawsuit to pressure the agency to finish a war crimes investigation regarding a secret overseas paramilitary operation, John Hudson of Foreign Policy reports.
There aren't many details, but basically this 'John Doe' is filing a suit against the CIA for "unreasonable delay" of an Inspector General investigation into "alleged war crimes committed in an overseas location."
Doe's lawyer, Mark Zaid, told Foreign Policy that Doe participated in "offensive operations against individuals designated or viewed as enemies" of the U.S. and witnessed events that "concerned him."
Hudson cites a Washington Post article by Greg Miller and Julie Tate that details the high level of collaboration between the CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), which comprises the nation's most military units.
“You couldn’t tell the difference between CIA officers, Special Forces guys and contractors,” a senior U.S. official after a recent tour through Afghanistan told the Post. “They’re all three blended together."
In the new movie "Dirty Wars: The World Is A Battlefield, " a JSOC operator dubbed "Hunter" tells investigative journalist and New York Times bestselling author Jeremy Scahill that he witnessed what would he considered acts of torture during operations (although JSOC reportedly has their own interrogation program).
Hunter notes that "dozens, if not hundreds" of operations were happening simultaneously in more than 75 countries, without minimal oversight from politicians who "don't want to step into the dark and see what goes on behind the curtain."
In the "Dirty Wars" book, Scahill notes that Hunter — who worked in acknowledged and unacknowledged battlefields — said that "offensive operations against individuals designated or viewed as enemies" that had occurred countries including Algeria, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Mali, Colombia, Peru, and various European and Central Asia countries (such as Uzbekistan).
Doe is not a whistleblower — he is bringing the suit to bring an end to the IG's open investigation (which is believed to have started in 2010 or 2011) that led to his administrative suspension and "ruined his career," according to Zaid.
Here's the suit:
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