Who is Cofer Black?

If you’ve never heard of Cofer Black, consider yourself normal. However, if you’ve never heard of Cofer Black consider yourself disturbingly uninformed. It’s a significant fact that Cofer Black has remained as anonymous as he has, afterall, he was head of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Division and the man in charge of tracking Osama bin Laden before 9/11. Cofer Black was, in fact, the man most responsible for not stopping bin Laden.

Cofer Black’s background;

1. Black’s father was a Pan Am pilot who flew routes in Africa. Growing up, Black saw firsthand the unrest in Ghana and Nigeria. This was during the time when the CIA was helping overthrow Ghana’s founder and first president, Kwame Nkrumah, in 1966.
2. As a teenager he went to Nigeria where he witnessed the outbreak of the Biafran War firsthand. That was a war which lasted for three years, full of genocide and starvation, and which claimed three million lives.
3. Cofer graduated from USC in 1973.
4. He went back to USC for a graduate degree and then joined the CIA where he requested an assignment in Zambia to keep an eye on the Rhodesian Civil War. He remained there throughout the 1970’s, a period when the CIA was recruiting mercenaries to fight on the side of the white minority during the Rhodesian Bush War.
5. Cofer goes to Somalia during their conflict with Ethiopia in 1978.
   In the early 80’s, goes to South Africa during its “dirty war” against black majority rule.
6. In 1985, Cofer, the Blackwater guys, and some of Ronald Reagan’s men came together to fight communists in the Angolan Civil War, an extremely bloody war that killed over 500,000 people. The go ahead was issued to join forces with terrorist leaders in Africa, Afghanistan and Nicaragua to fight “communism”.
7. In 1993 Black becomes station chief in Sudan where he watches Osama bin Laden grow into the world’s most dangerous terrorist. Black follows bin Laden to Afghanistan where he recruits Muslims to get close to Bin Laden. Atta and three other 9/11 hijackers were training in-country at the time.
8. Two days after 9/11, Cofer briefs Bush with an already-developed plan to invade Afghanistan. Cofer Black is the person who tells CIA agents to bring Bin Laden’s head back in a box and to put al-Queda leader’s heads on pikes, uninterested in bringing any of them back alive. Bin Laden is allowed to escape into Pakistan.
9. Until 2005, Cofer Black runs the extraordinary rendition program utilizing torture and secrecy to keep alleged terrorists in limbo without rights or identities. There would be no chance for outsiders to interview terrorists.
10. Black joins Blackwater USA in 2005 and supervises the deployment of mercenary soldiers into New Orleans after Hurrican Katrina hits which devastates the area’s African-American communities.
11. Becomes chairman of Total Intelligence Solutions in 2007, a company whose intent is to bring CIA intelligence gathering techniques to the corporate world.
12. Mitt Romney works closely with Cofer Black and selects him as an advisor to his presidential campaign.

Who is Cofer Black? I’ve tried to make his history as black and white as possible. Hopefully, this has given you a better sense of the mysterious spook who stays out of the public eye. Help fill in the blanks if you can.

Aaron Dahl

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