Just when you thought it was safe to take off your tinfoil hat...

... the capable William Arkin comes along with a teaser like this for his upcoming blog reporting:

I'm also in the middle of research for an upcoming series on secret organizations of the U.S. military. There has been an explosion of clandestine and secret organizations since 9/11. Many of the organizations are involved in activity - special operations, domestic counter-terrorism, deception, computer network attack, surveillance - that is inherently controversial and even questionable.

I can't believe that "normal" security classification coupled with effective operational security isn't sufficient to keep the details of their activities and methods secret. Instead though, we've entered an era where entire operations and units of the American military are made secret in the form of special access programs existing outside of normal channels. This tendency impedes oversight, complicates integration with other capabilities, and results in uncoordinated proliferation of overlapping activity.

Yes, the Pentagon is running "entire operations and units" that are so secret that it's a secret that the secret even exists. Or something like that. Operating at the command of Rummy, Deadeye Dick Cheney and our Dear Leader Dubya. How broad a definition of "domestic counter-terrorism" do you think they use?

That "existing outside of normal channels" part - kind of like the Mafia operates "outside of normal channels"? Kind of like Nixon's "Plumbers" and Ollie North's merry little band under Reagan? The more we learn, the more it looks like the Iran-Contra affair is the template for the operation of US foreign policy under this member of the Bush dynasty.

I'd rather deal with rude little space aliens who sneak into the bedroom at night!

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