[News] The Special Ops Surge - America’s Secret War in 134 Countries
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Thu Jan 16 10:37:45 EST 2014
*The Special Ops Surge *
*America’s Secret War in 134 Countries*
By Nick Turse <http://www.tomdispatch.com/authors/nickturse>
*http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175794/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_secret_wars_and_black_ops_blowback/#more*
They operate in the green glow of night vision in Southwest Asia and
stalk through the jungles of South America. They snatch
<http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/us-commando-raids-john-kerry-defends-capture-of-libyan-terror-suspect-abu-anas-alliby-in-tripoli-8863933.html>
men from their homes in the Maghreb
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/356614/Maghrib> and shoot
it out
<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/06/world/africa/Al-Qaeda-Suspect-Wanted-in-US-Said-to-Be-Taken-in-Libya.html>
with heavily armed militants in the Horn of Africa. They feel the
salty spray while skimming over the tops of waves from the turquoise
Caribbean to the deep blue Pacific. They conduct missions in the
oppressive heat of Middle Eastern deserts and the deep freeze
<http://yle.fi/uutiset/us_army_special_forces_in_finland_for_winter_war_games/6517027>
of Scandinavia. All over the planet, the Obama administration is
waging a secret war <http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175790/> whose
full extent has never been fully revealed -- until now.
Since September 11, 2001, U.S. Special Operations forces have grown
in every conceivable way, from their numbers to their budget. Most
telling, however, has been the exponential rise in special ops
deployments globally. This presence -- now, in nearly 70% of the
world’s nations -- provides new evidence of the size and scope of a
secret war being waged from Latin America to the backlands of
Afghanistan, from training missions with African allies to
information operations launched in cyberspace.
In the waning days of the Bush presidency, Special Operations forces
were reportedly deployed
<http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/dod/socom/posture2008.pdf> in about
60 countries around the world. By 2010, that number had swelled to
75, according
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/03/AR2010060304965.html>
to Karen DeYoung and Greg Jaffe of the /Washington Post./ In 2011,
Special Operations Command (SOCOM) spokesman Colonel Tim Nye told
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175426/> TomDispatch that the total
would reach 120. Today, that figure has risen higher still.
In 2013, elite U.S. forces were deployed in 134 countries around the
globe, according to Major Matthew Robert Bockholt of SOCOM Public
Affairs. This 123% increase during the Obama years demonstrates
how, in addition to conventional wars and a CIA drone campaign
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175551/engelhardt_assassin_in_chief>,
public diplomacy and extensive electronic spying
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175713/tomgram%3A_engelhardt,_you_are_our_secret/>,
the U.S. has engaged in still another significant and growing form
of overseas power projection. Conducted largely in the shadows by
America’s most elite troops, the vast majority of these missions
take place far from prying eyes, media scrutiny, or any type of
outside oversight, increasing the chances of unforeseen blowback and
catastrophic consequences.
*Growth Industry*
Formally established in 1987, Special Operations Command has grown
steadily in the post-9/11 era. SOCOM is reportedly on track to
reach 72,000 personnel in 2014, up from 33,000 in 2001. Funding for
the command has also jumped exponentially as its baseline budget,
$2.3 billion in 2001, hit $6.9 billion in 2013 ($10.4 billion, if
you add in supplemental funding). Personnel deployments abroad have
skyrocketed, too, from 4,900 “man-years” in 2001 to 11,500 in 2013.
A recent investigation
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175790/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_special_ops_goes_global>
by TomDispatch, using open source government documents and news
releases as well as press reports, found
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175790/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_special_ops_goes_global>
evidence that U.S. Special Operations forces were deployed in or
involved with the militaries of 106 nations around the world in
2012-2013. For more than a month during the preparation of that
article
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175790/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_special_ops_goes_global>,
however, SOCOM failed to provide accurate statistics on the total
number of countries to which special operators -- Green Berets and
Rangers, Navy SEALs and Delta Force commandos, specialized
helicopter crews, boat teams, and civil affairs personnel -- were
deployed. “We don’t just keep it on hand,” SOCOM’s Bockholt
explained in a telephone interview once the article had been filed.
“We have to go searching through stuff. It takes a long time to do
that.” Hours later, just prior to publication, he provided an
answer to a question I first asked in November of last year. “SOF
[Special Operations forces] were deployed to 134 countries” during
fiscal year 2013, Bockholt explained in an email.
*Globalized Special Ops*
Last year, Special Operations Command chief Admiral William McRaven
explained his vision for special ops globalization. In a statement
to the House Armed Services Committee, he said:
“USSOCOM is enhancing its global network of SOF to support our
interagency and international partners in order to gain expanded
situational awareness of emerging threats and opportunities. The
network enables small, persistent presence in critical locations,
and facilitates engagement where necessary or appropriate...”
While that “presence” may be small, the reach and influence of those
Special Operations forces are another matter. The 12% jump in
national deployments -- from 120 to 134 -- during McRaven’s tenure
reflects his desire to put boots on the ground just about everywhere
on Earth. SOCOM will not name the nations involved, citing host
nation sensitivities and the safety of American personnel, but the
deployments we do know about shed at least some light on the full
range of missions being carried out by America’s secret military.
Last April and May, for instance, Special Ops personnel took part in
training exercises in Djibouti, Malawi, and the Seychelles Islands
in the Indian Ocean. In June, U.S. Navy SEALs joined Iraqi,
Jordanian, Lebanese, and other allied Mideast forces for irregular
warfare simulations in Aqaba, Jordan. The next month, Green Berets
traveled to Trinidad and Tobago to carry out small unit tactical
exercises with local forces. In August, Green Berets conducted
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/usasoc/9492888165/> explosives
training with Honduran sailors. In September, according to
<http://www.defensenews.com/article/20130930/DEFREG03/309300033>
media reports, U.S. Special Operations forces joined elite troops
from the 10 member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations -- Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore,
Thailand, Brunei, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar (Burma), and Cambodia -- as
well as their counterparts from Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South
Korea, China, India, and Russia for a US-Indonesian joint-funded
counterterrorism exercise held at a training center in Sentul, West
Java.
In October, elite U.S. troops carried out
<http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/06/us-special-forces-libya-somalia>
commando raids in Libya and Somalia, kidnapping
<http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/06/world/africa/us-forces-africa-terrorist-raids/>
a terror suspect in the former nation while SEALs killed at least
one militant in the latter before being driven off
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-navy-seals-raid-al-shabab-leaders-somalia-home-in-response-to-nairobi-attack/2013/10/05/78f135dc-2e0c-11e3-8ade-a1f23cda135e_story.html>
under fire. In November, Special Ops troops conducted humanitarian
operations in the Philippines to aid survivors of Typhoon Haiyan.
The next month, members of the 352nd Special Operations Group
conducted <http://www.afsoc.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123375269> a
training exercise involving approximately 130 airmen and six
aircraft at an airbase in England and Navy SEALs were wounded while
undertaking
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/10/world/africa/us-mission-in-south-sudan-shows-limits-of-military.html>
an evacuation mission in South Sudan. Green Berets then rang in the
new year with a January 1st combat mission alongside elite Afghan
troops in Bahlozi village in Kandahar province.
Deployments in 134 countries, however, turn out not to be expansive
enough for SOCOM. In November 2013, the command announced that it
was seeking to identify industry partners who could, under SOCOM’s
Trans Regional Web Initiative, potentially “develop new websites
tailored to foreign audiences.” These would join an existing global
network of 10 propaganda websites, run by various combatant commands
and made to look like legitimate news outlets, including
CentralAsiaOnline.com, Sabahi <http://sabahionline.com/> which
targets the Horn of Africa; an effort aimed at the Middle East known
as Al-Shorfa.com; and another targeting Latin America called
Infosurhoy.com <http://infosurhoy.com/>.
SOCOM’s push into cyberspace is mirrored by a concerted effort of
the command to embed itself ever more deeply inside the Beltway. “I
have folks in every agency here in Washington, D.C. -- from the CIA,
to the FBI, to the National Security Agency, to the National
Geospatial Agency, to the Defense Intelligence Agency,” SOCOM chief
Admiral McRaven said during a panel discussion at Washington’s
Wilson Center last year. Speaking at the Ronald Reagan Library in
November, he put the number of departments and agencies where SOCOM
is now entrenched
<http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=121167> at 38.
*134 Chances for Blowback*
Although elected in 2008 by many who saw him as an antiwar candidate
<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/26/us/politics/26obama.html?pagewanted=all>,
President Obama has proved to be a decidedly hawkish
commander-in-chief whose policies have already produced notable
instances of what in CIA trade-speak has long been called blowback
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175578/best_of_tomdispatch%3A_chalmers_johnson,_the_cia_and_a_blowback_world/>.
While the Obama administration oversaw a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq
(negotiated
<http://articles.latimes.com/2011/oct/24/news/la-pn-obama-bush-iraq-withdraw-20111024>
by his predecessor), as well as a drawdown
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/in-afghanistan-drawdown-us-forced-to-take-costly-option-in-transporting-military-gear-out/2013/09/12/6a5e260a-1bde-11e3-b4fb-944b778463f5_story.htmlhttp:/www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/>
of U.S. forces in Afghanistan (after a major military surge
<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/world/asia/06reconstruct.html?pagewanted=all>
in that country), the president has presided over a ramping up of
the U.S. military presence in Africa
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175743>, a reinvigoration
<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/world/americas/us-turns-its-focus-on-drug-smuggling-in-honduras.html?_r=0>
of efforts
<http://truth-out.org/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=2544:us-expands-its-presence-in-mexico-ramping-up-drug-war>
in Latin America
<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/world/americas/us-turns-its-focus-on-drug-smuggling-in-honduras.html?_r=0>,
and tough talk about a rebalancing or “pivot to Asia
<http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/12/17/us-japan-asia-security-strategy/4049517/>”
(even if it has amounted to little as of yet).
The White House has also overseen an exponential expansion of
America’s drone war. While President Bush launched 51 such strikes,
President Obama has presided
<http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2014/01/06/a-changing-drone-campaign-us-covert-actions-in-2013/>
over 330, according to research by the London-based Bureau of
Investigative Journalism. Last year, alone, the U.S. also engaged
in combat operations in Afghanistan, Libya
<http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/06/world/africa/us-forces-africa-terrorist-raids/>,
Pakistan
<http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2014/01/06/a-changing-drone-campaign-us-covert-actions-in-2013/>,
Somalia
<http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2014/01/06/a-changing-drone-campaign-us-covert-actions-in-2013/>,
and Yemen
<http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2014/01/06/a-changing-drone-campaign-us-covert-actions-in-2013/>.
Recent revelations from National Security Agency whistleblower
Edward Snowden
<http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/11/edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblower-profile>
have demonstrated the tremendous breadth and global reach of U.S.
electronic surveillance during the Obama years. And deep in the
shadows, Special Operations forces are now annually deployed to more
than double the number of nations as at the end of Bush’s tenure.
In recent years, however, the unintended consequences of U.S.
military operations have helped to sow outrage and discontent,
setting whole regions aflame. More than 10 years after America’s
“mission accomplished
<http://www.thenation.com/blog/174127/ten-years-ago-bush-declared-mission-accomplished-and-media-swooned>”
moment, seven years after its much vaunted surge
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/thegamble/timeline/>,
the Iraq that America helped make is in flames
<http://amanpour.blogs.cnn.com/2014/01/06/osullivan/>. A country
with no al-Qaeda presence
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/15/bush-acknowledges-absence_n_151144.html>
before the U.S. invasion
<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/19/us/politics/19threat.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print>
and a government opposed
<http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2015277,00.html>
to America’s enemies in Tehran now has a central government aligned
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/14/iraq-iran-ties_n_1664728.html>
with Iran and two cities
<http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/world/jan-june14/newswrap_01-07.html> flying
al-Qaeda flags.
A more recent U.S. military intervention to aid the ouster of Libyan
dictator Muammar Qaddafi helped send neighboring Mali, a
U.S.-supported bulwark against regional terrorism, into a downward
spiral, saw a coup there carried out by a U.S.-trained officer,
ultimately led to a bloody terror attack on an Algerian gas plant,
and helped to unleash nothing short of a terror diaspora
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175714/> in the region.
And today South Sudan -- a nation the U.S. shepherded into being,
has supported economically
<http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/us-risk-civil-war-south-sudan-21474955>
and militarily
<http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/03/13/141703/in-south-sudans-violence-us-backed.html>
(despite its reliance on child soldiers
<http://thinkprogress.org/security/2013/10/01/2704611/child-soldier-waivers/>),
and has used as a hush-hush base
<http://bangordailynews.com/2012/04/30/news/wheres-joseph-kony-us-troops-have-yet-to-find-him/>
for Special Operations forces -- is being torn apart by violence and
sliding toward civil war
<http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/us-risk-civil-war-south-sudan-21474955>.
The Obama presidency has seen the U.S. military’s elite tactical
forces increasingly used in an attempt to achieve strategic goals.
But with Special Operations missions kept under tight wraps,
Americans have little understanding of where their troops are
deployed, what exactly they are doing, or what the consequences
might be down the road. As retired Army Colonel Andrew Bacevich,
professor of history and international relations at Boston
University, has noted, the utilization of Special Operations forces
during the Obama years has decreased military accountability,
strengthened the “imperial presidency,” and set the stage for a war
without end. “In short,” he wrote
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175547/andrew_bacevich_golden_age>
at TomDispatch, “handing war to the special operators severs an
already too tenuous link between war and politics; it becomes war
for its own sake.”
Secret ops by secret forces have a nasty tendency to produce
unintended, unforeseen, and completely disastrous consequences. New
Yorkers will remember
<http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/nyregion/9-11imagemap.html>
well the end result
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175578/best_of_tomdispatch%3A_chalmers_johnson,_the_cia_and_a_blowback_world/>
of clandestine U.S. support
<http://www.niemanwatchdog.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=background.view&backgroundid=574>
for Islamic militants
<http://www-personal.umich.edu/%7Ejrcole/qaeda/fahdreagan.htm>
against the Soviet Union
<http://www.juancole.com/2005/08/fisking-war-on-terror-once-upon-time.html>
in Afghanistan during the 1980s: 9/11. Strangely enough, those at
the other primary attack site that day, the Pentagon
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/11/pentagon-attack_n_1873357.html>,
seem not to have learned the obvious lessons from this lethal
blowback. Even today in Afghanistan and Pakistan, more than 12
years after the U.S. invaded the former and almost 10 years
<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/07/world/asia/origins-of-cias-not-so-secret-drone-war-in-pakistan.html?pagewanted=all>
after it began conducting covert attacks
<http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2013/07/01/six-month-update-us-covert-actions-in-pakistan-yemen-and-somalia/>
in the latter, the U.S. is still dealing with that Cold War-era
fallout: with, for instance, CIA drones conducting missile strikes
<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/07/world/asia/us-drone-strike-kills-6-in-pakistan-fueling-anger.html>
against an organization (the Haqqani network
<http://www.stanford.edu/group/mappingmilitants/cgi-bin/groups/view/363>)
that, in the 1980s, the Agency supplied with missiles
<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/25/world/asia/brutal-haqqani-clan-bedevils-united-states-in-afghanistan.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0>.
Without a clear picture of where the military’s covert forces are
operating and what they are doing, Americans may not even recognize
the consequences of and blowback from our expanding secret wars as
they wash over the world. But if history is any guide, they will be
felt -- from Southwest Asia to the Mahgreb, the Middle East to
Central Africa, and, perhaps eventually, in the United States as well.
In his blueprint for the future, /SOCOM 2020/, Admiral McRaven has
touted the globalization of U.S. special ops as a means to “project
power, promote stability, and prevent conflict.” Last year, SOCOM
may have done just the opposite in 134 places.
/Nick Turse is the managing editor of //TomDispatch.com/
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/>/ and a fellow at the Nation
Institute. An award-winning journalist, his work has appeared in
the /New York Times
<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/10/opinion/for-america-life-was-cheap-in-vietnam.html?_r=0>/,
the /Los Angeles Times
<http://articles.latimes.com/2012/apr/24/opinion/la-oe-turse-afghanistan-and-vietnam-20120424>,
/the/ Nation <http://www.thenation.com/article/pentagon-book-club>,
/on the/ /BBC/ <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23427726> /and
//regularly/
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175635/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_a_war_victim%27s_question_only_you_can_answer/>/
at //TomDispatch.// He is the author most recently of the /New York
Times/ bestseller /Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War
in Vietnam
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/1250045061/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20>/
//(just out in paperback).// You can catch his conversation with
Bill Moyers about that book by //clicking here/
<http://billmoyers.com/segment/nick-turse-describes-the-real-vietnam-war/>/.
/
Copyright 2014 Nick Turse
--
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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