Jordanian military forces in Afghanistan القوات الأردنية في افغانستان

الأحد 29 آذار 2009
Picture: The commander of NATO’s Standing NRF Mine Countermeasure Group 2 (SNMCMG2), Captain Paolo Polidoro, Italian Navy (left), and Lieutenant Colonel Kafaween Bassam, Jordan Navy (right), plan the details of a training activity that was conducted in the Red Sea on 21 March 2005. Courtesy of NATO JFC.

 

تم أخذ هذا المقال عن الصحفي مارك امبيندر لمجلة الأتلانتك. و فيه يبين دور الأردن في الحرب العالمية ضد الإرهاب في وثيقة صادرة عن الناتو. حيث ذكر في صفحة 29 ان الأردن كانت من ضمن القوات الدولية في افغانستان، و لكن الحكومة فضلت أن لا يكون ذلك علنيا حذرا من العواقب الداخلية. 

 

  السؤال الذي يطرح نفسه هنا، لماذا يلجأ الأردن الى اخفاء مثل هذه المعلومات و اعتبارها سرية؟ اليس من الأجدر من الحكومة ان تتبع نظام الشفافية فيما يتعلق بمعلومات سيتم الكشف عنها عاجلا ام اجلا؟ اليس بإخفاء هذه المعلومات تدفع الحكومة المواطنين الى تحليلات عشوائية و اختراع نظريات المؤامرة؟

 

Written by Rami Abdelrahman

Writing for the Atlantic, journalist Marc Ambinder refers to a newly declassified NATO document that shows the extent of Jordan’s role in the war on terror. The kind of cooperation that has been long considered a national “secret,” by demand of the Jordanian government, but is well known to other partners involved.

What’s more interesting is that it includes Jordan as being among the countries that are part of the international forces in Afghanistan, but it also includes the notice that Jordan doesn’t want its name in the public domain, fearing the internal repercussions. (See pp.29)

Jordan has tried to keep the extent of its role in various US operations a secret — not from the world, which knows, but from Jordanian citizens. Even though its bases have been used extensively for staging and support missions, its intelligence agency cooperates with the CIA, thousands of U.S. troops are sheltered in the country and it participates in our rendition program.

Even though authoritative sources have included Jordan as among the countries aiding the United States and NATO, the U.S. government still officially classifies Jordan’s participation as a secret. The idea is that even though the name might be out there, it’s never been formally confirmed by the US or an official source. Well, now the NATO document confirms it. In the new era of transparency, maybe our government can advise Jordan about how to handle the inevitability that its role will be disclosed.

In my humble opinion, I think the extent of this secrecy is exaggerated, despite that the extent of cooperation remains unknown. Jordanians have long known that the US outsourced some of its terrorist interrogation activities to Jordan, thanks to access to international media.

Jordanians have seen US troops going in and out of the country like it is a summer parade. They have witnessed on a first hand basis how sloppy Jordanian policemen in ragged uniforms were superficially upgraded with state of the art SUVs, fancy walkie talkies, international training and uniforms made of “science fiction” material. Speaking of films, Body of Lies paints a very close picture entwined in fictional plot on how cooperation between Jordanian intelligence and the CIA works ( or does it, really? ) This is all, bearing in mind that the US is paying the salaries in Jordan.

I blogged a couple of years ago about this sort of cooperation, with testimonials from an ex-CIA operative in Jordan about the so called “rendition program,” where Jordan received terror suspects flown secretly in from different regions around the world for thorough, and often sadomasochist, interrogation.

More recently, Johnson Chalmers, writing for Global Research about the 737 US Military Bases abroad drew Jordan as one example nation where the US deployed forces effectively to monitor operations in neighboring nations, namely Syria and Iraq. However, he insists that it is virtually impossible to tell the details regarding the nature and size of such deployment.

In Jordan, to take but one example, we have secretly deployed up to five thousand troops in bases on the Iraqi and Syrian borders. (Jordan has also cooperated with the CIA in torturing prisoners we deliver to them for “interrogation.”) Nonetheless, Jordan continues to stress that it has no special arrangements with the United States, no bases, and no American military presence.

The country is formally sovereign but actually a satellite of the United States and has been so for at least the past ten years. Similarly, before our withdrawal from Saudi Arabia in 2003, we habitually denied that we maintained a fleet of enormous and easily observed B-52 bombers in Jeddah because that was what the Saudi government demanded. So long as military bureaucrats can continue to enforce a culture of secrecy to protect themselves, no one will know the true size of our baseworld, least of all the elected representatives of the American people.

Wouldn’t the NATO and its Middle Eastern allies do better if they were more transparent to their citizens about deals that would eventually be exposed? Why is there such need to hide, providing much space for opposition to fabricate stories and conspiracy theories and sell it cheap to the masses? Why leave us all, global citizens, resort to arbitrary interpretation, just when the need for public support is paramount? Anyone? Why can’t we all stick to Jordanian intelligence chief character Hani Salim’s motto, ” never lie to me ” ?

In sum, why does Jordan want to keep this a secret, when Jordanians understand and accept its alliances?

This is high time for transparency.

 

 لتصلك أبرز المقالات والتقارير اشترك/ي بنشرة حبر البريدية

Our Newsletter القائمة البريدية