Secret U.S. drone bases in Germany revealed

[unhappycamper]

http://www.icij.org/blog/2013/12/secret-us-drone-bases-germany-revealed



Secret U.S. drone bases in Germany revealed
By Hans Leyendecker, Frederik Obermaier and Bastian Obermayer
December 11, 2013, 11:45 am

~snip~

German agencies and politicians have long been accustomed to American intelligence and military right here in their own backyard: tapping, code cracking, recruiting informants, observing suspects, kidnapping and abducting foreign enemies. Germans have known all that for years. But what they didn’t know is that the U.S. has been launching deadly drone strikes in Africa from German bases, often with the collaboration of German intelligence agencies.

Some 43,000 American soldiers are stationed in Germany, operating a total of about 40 military bases, and reportedly storing nuclear weapons on the German airbase in Büchel, southwest Germany. The U.S. spent $3 billion in Germany in 2012. Only in Afghanistan—where there is still an ongoing conflict—does the U.S. spend more money annually. There’s no war in Germany. But where the U.S. army and intelligence agencies once protected the West during the Cold War, they now lead a worldwide secret war.

We uncovered how the U.S. Secret Service, Department of Homeland Security, Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency–as well as a large shadow army of private spies–have acted without accountability on German soil. Some of the contractors don’t even work for the NSA or CIA, but rather for German federal ministries. These private companies—some of whom have been involved in human rights violations—are allowed access to data from the highest levels of German authorities. We also showed which projects of German scientists are supported by the Pentagon, and demonstrated how the city of Frankfurt has turned into a U.S. military-intel metropolis.

But first and foremost, we revealed how the U.S. drone war in Africa is controlled from U.S. bases in Germany. American soldiers—on bases in Ramstein and Stuttgart—are conducting a bloody drone war in Africa from within Germany. When they receive intelligence on potential targets and suspected terrorists, they deliver that information to U.S. intelligence officers, also based in Germany. The U.S. soldiers are regularly supported by German intelligence service Bundesnachrichtendienst. The service questions African asylum seekers, whose knowledge is unwittingly used to drop bombs in their home countries.

[idwiyo]

1. k&r

[dipsydoodle]

2. k & r

.

[bvar22]

3. The Empire is crumbling.

Children are going hungry in the Homeland,
while our politician spend Hundreds of Billions on repeated failed attempts to make the World safe to rape and pillage for the benefit of our 1%