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• Sarah Kendzior

With Sinwar Dead, Biden Reveals U.S. Role

White House admits it worked with Israel to kill Hamas leader

kenklippenstein.com

The Biden administration admitted today that the CIA and military special operations forces have been assisting Israel to locate and track Hamas leaders, an involvement in the Gaza war that goes far beyond what the government previously disclosed. The revelation follows Wednesday’s killing of October 7 architect Yayha Sinwar, but also comes after months of assurances by the White House that American intelligence and special operators were merely involved in hostage recovery.  Despite the fact that Sinwar was killed by accident (and not as part of a targeted operation), the Biden administration’s desperation to grab some of the limelight is more a political desire to demonstrate success in their decision to support Israel. It also shows an acceptance of one of Israel’s core beliefs about its wars against its many enemies, one that the United States has adopted: that killing leaders is going to eliminate threats, indeed that it is tantamount to victory. Israeli leaders are already crowing that Hamas should release the hostages and “surrender,” pushing its own fantasy and narrative about the significance of Sinwar’s death, which is being used to affirm the country’s never-ending war. Lost in all the hoo-hah is the fact that Washington has consistently lied to the American people.   [...] After 20-plus years of hunting al Qaeda and other terrorists, U.S. intelligence has become very proficient at the painstaking task, mastering real time intelligence processing, precise geolocation, and rapid attack on individuals. Multiple sources have been added to the post 9/11 arsenal, from big data analysis to close in collection of the most minute of signals. New weapons and drones have been developed. Specialty organizations have been created. Behind all of this is a special access program in a joint CIA-military cell in McLean, Virginia that conducts the most sensitive "high value targeting." The experts look for any blip that indicates a target's location, a process that is a form of forensic analysis that includes overhead reconnaissance, signals intercepts, and on-the-ground detection. Israel is just as proficient, experts say, but the U.S. has numerous tools -- from stealth satellites to sophisticated tracking algorithms -- that can blanket an area more completely and efficiently. Still, it must be added, Sinwar was not killed as a result of the work of this apparatus, not after a year of intense work. Washington exaggerates the effect of the enormous effort as a way of not only continuing perpetual war in the Middle East but also to create the aura of success, an outcome that eludes both countries.  President Joe Biden drew a comparison to the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011 even though his death looks nothing like Israel’s campaign against Hamas. The U.S. searched for bin Laden for a decade, and although his death was vindication of the effort, it came at a point when Afghanistan-based al Qaeda had already morphed and transformed into other organizations. Biden’s crediting these same forces with helping Israel in some ways proves that the war never ended, and never will.