and now for something completely different.. (classified)

[Antid Oto]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

http://www.empirenotes.org/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48522-2005Feb23.html

The Pentagon is promoting a global counterterrorism plan
that would allow Special Operations forces to enter a
foreign country to conduct military operations without
explicit concurrence from the U.S. ambassador there,
administration officials familiar with the plan said.

The plan would weaken the long-standing "chief of mission"
authority under which the U.S. ambassador, as the
president's top representative in a foreign country, decides
whether to grant entry to U.S. government personnel based on
political and diplomatic considerations.

The Special Operations missions envisioned in the plan would
largely be secret, known to only a handful of officials from
the foreign country, if any.

The change is included in a highly classified "execute
order" -- part of a broad strategy developed since Sept. 11,
2001, to give the U.S. Special Operations Command new
flexibility to track down and destroy terrorist networks
worldwide, the officials said.

"This is a military order on a global scale, something that
hasn't existed since World War II," said a counterterrorism
official with lengthy experience in special operations. He
and other officials spoke on the condition of anonymity
because the proposal is *classified*

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