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A Secret War in 120 Countries: The Pentagon’s New Power Elite
Somewhere on this planet an American commando is carrying out a mission. Now, say that 70 times and you’re done... for the day. Without the knowledge of the American public, a secret force within the U.S. military is undertaking operations in a majority of the world’s countries. This new Pentagon power elite is waging a global war whose size and scope has never been revealed, until now.
In 120 countries across the globe, troops from Special Operations Command carry out their secret war of high-profile assassinations, low-level targeted killings, capture/kidnap operations, kick-down-the-door night raids, joint operations with foreign forces, and training missions with indigenous partners as part of a shadowy conflict unknown to most Americans. Once “special” for being small, lean, outsider outfits, today they are special for their power, access, influence, and aura.
After a U.S. Navy SEAL put a bullet in Osama bin Laden’s chest and another in his head, one of the most secretive black-ops units in the American military suddenly found its mission in the public spotlight. It was atypical. While it’s well known that U.S. Special Operations forces are deployed in the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq, and it’s increasingly apparent that such units operate in murkier conflict zones like Yemen and Somalia, the full extent of their worldwide war has remained deeply in the shadows.
Last year, Karen DeYoung and Greg Jaffe of the Washington Post reported that U.S. Special Operations forces were deployed in 75 countries, up from 60 at the end of the Bush presidency. By the end of this year, U.S. Special Operations Command spokesman Colonel Tim Nye told me, that number will likely reach 120. “We do a lot of traveling -- a lot more than Afghanistan or Iraq,” he said recently. This global presence -- in about 60% of the world’s nations and far larger than previously acknowledged -- provides striking new evidence of a rising clandestine Pentagon power elite waging a secret war in all corners of the world.
The Rise of the Military’s Secret Military
Born of a failed 1980 raid to rescue American hostages in Iran, in which eight U.S. service members died, U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) was established in 1987. Having spent the post-Vietnam years distrusted and starved for money by the regular military, special operations forces suddenly had a single home, a stable budget, and a four-star commander as their advocate. Since then, SOCOM has grown into a combined force of startling proportions. Made up of units from all the service branches, including the Army’s “Green Berets” and Rangers, Navy SEALs, Air Force Air Commandos, and Marine Corps Special Operations teams, in addition to specialized helicopter crews, boat teams, civil affairs personnel, para-rescuemen, and even battlefield air-traffic controllers and special operations weathermen, SOCOM carries out the United States’ most specialized and secret missions. These include assassinations, counterterrorist raids, long-range reconnaissance, intelligence analysis, foreign troop training, and weapons of mass destruction counter-proliferation operations.
One of its key components is the Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC, a clandestine sub-command whose primary mission is tracking and killing suspected terrorists. Reporting to the president and acting under his authority, JSOC maintains a global hit list that includes American citizens. It has been operating an extra-legal “kill/capture” campaign that John Nagl, a past counterinsurgency adviser to four-star general and soon-to-be CIA Director David Petraeus, calls "an almost industrial-scale counterterrorism killing machine."
This assassination program has been carried out by commando units like the Navy SEALs and the Army’s Delta Force as well as via drone strikes as part of covert wars in which the CIA is also involved in countries like Somalia, Pakistan, and Yemen. In addition, the command operates a network of secret prisons, perhaps as many as 20 black sites in Afghanistan alone, used for interrogating high-value targets.
Growth Industry
From a force of about 37,000 in the early 1990s, Special Operations Command personnel have grown to almost 60,000, about a third of whom are career members of SOCOM; the rest have other military occupational specialties, but periodically cycle through the command. Growth has been exponential since September 11, 2001, as SOCOM’s baseline budget almost tripled from $2.3 billion to $6.3 billion. If you add in funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it has actually more than quadrupled to $9.8 billion in these years. Not surprisingly, the number of its personnel deployed abroad has also jumped four-fold. Further increases, and expanded operations, are on the horizon.
Lieutenant General Dennis Hejlik, the former head of the Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command -- the last of the service branches to be incorporated into SOCOM in 2006 -- indicated, for instance, that he foresees a doubling of his former unit of 2,600. “I see them as a force someday of about 5,000, like equivalent to the number of SEALs that we have on the battlefield. Between [5,000] and 6,000,” he said at a June breakfast with defense reporters in Washington. Long-term plans already call for the force to increase by 1,000.
During his recent Senate confirmation hearings, Navy Vice Admiral William McRaven, the incoming SOCOM chief and outgoing head of JSOC (which he commanded during the bin Laden raid) endorsed a steady manpower growth rate of 3% to 5% a year, while also making a pitch for even more resources, including additional drones and the construction of new special operations facilities.
A former SEAL who still sometimes accompanies troops into the field, McRaven expressed a belief that, as conventional forces are drawn down in Afghanistan, special ops troops will take on an ever greater role. Iraq, he added, would benefit if elite U.S forces continued to conduct missions there past the December 2011 deadline for a total American troop withdrawal. He also assured the Senate Armed Services Committee that “as a former JSOC commander, I can tell you we were looking very hard at Yemen and at Somalia.”
During a speech at the National Defense Industrial Association's annual Special Operations and Low-intensity Conflict Symposium earlier this year, Navy Admiral Eric Olson, the outgoing chief of Special Operations Command, pointed to a composite satellite image of the world at night. Before September 11, 2001, the lit portions of the planet -- mostly the industrialized nations of the global north -- were considered the key areas. "But the world changed over the last decade," he said. "Our strategic focus has shifted largely to the south... certainly within the special operations community, as we deal with the emerging threats from the places where the lights aren't."
To that end, Olson launched "Project Lawrence," an effort to increase cultural proficiencies -- like advanced language training and better knowledge of local history and customs -- for overseas operations. The program is, of course, named after the British officer, Thomas Edward Lawrence (better known as "Lawrence of Arabia"), who teamed up with Arab fighters to wage a guerrilla war in the Middle East during World War I. Mentioning Afghanistan, Pakistan, Mali, and Indonesia, Olson added that SOCOM now needed "Lawrences of Wherever."
While Olson made reference to only 51 countries of top concern to SOCOM, Col. Nye told me that on any given day, Special Operations forces are deployed in approximately 70 nations around the world. All of them, he hastened to add, at the request of the host government. According to testimony by Olson before the House Armed Services Committee earlier this year, approximately 85% of special operations troops deployed overseas are in 20 countries in the CENTCOM area of operations in the Greater Middle East: Afghanistan, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, and Yemen. The others are scattered across the globe from South America to Southeast Asia, some in small numbers, others as larger contingents.
Special Operations Command won’t disclose exactly which countries its forces operate in. “We’re obviously going to have some places where it’s not advantageous for us to list where we’re at,” says Nye. “Not all host nations want it known, for whatever reasons they have -- it may be internal, it may be regional.”
But it’s no secret (or at least a poorly kept one) that so-called black special operations troops, like the SEALs and Delta Force, are conducting kill/capture missions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Yemen, while “white” forces like the Green Berets and Rangers are training indigenous partners as part of a worldwide secret war against al-Qaeda and other militant groups. In the Philippines, for instance, the U.S. spends $50 million a year on a 600-person contingent of Army Special Operations forces, Navy Seals, Air Force special operators, and others that carries out counterterrorist operations with Filipino allies against insurgent groups like Jemaah Islamiyah and Abu Sayyaf.
Last year, as an analysis of SOCOM documents, open-source Pentagon information, and a database of Special Operations missions compiled by investigative journalist Tara McKelvey (for the Medill School of Journalism’s National Security Journalism Initiative) reveals, America’s most elite troops carried out joint-training exercises in Belize, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Germany, Indonesia, Mali, Norway, Panama, and Poland. So far in 2011, similar training missions have been conducted in the Dominican Republic, Jordan, Romania, Senegal, South Korea, and Thailand, among other nations. In reality, Nye told me, training actually went on in almost every nation where Special Operations forces are deployed. “Of the 120 countries we visit by the end of the year, I would say the vast majority are training exercises in one fashion or another. They would be classified as training exercises.”
The Pentagon’s Power Elite
Once the neglected stepchildren of the military establishment, Special Operations forces have been growing exponentially not just in size and budget, but also in power and influence. Since 2002, SOCOM has been authorized to create its own Joint Task Forces -- like Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines -- a prerogative normally limited to larger combatant commands like CENTCOM. This year, without much fanfare, SOCOM also established its own Joint Acquisition Task Force, a cadre of equipment designers and acquisition specialists.
With control over budgeting, training, and equipping its force, powers usually reserved for departments (like the Department of the Army or the Department of the Navy), dedicated dollars in every Defense Department budget, and influential advocates in Congress, SOCOM is by now an exceptionally powerful player at the Pentagon. With real clout, it can win bureaucratic battles, purchase cutting-edge technology, and pursue fringe research like electronically beaming messages into people’s heads or developing stealth-like cloaking technologies for ground troops. Since 2001, SOCOM’s prime contracts awarded to small businesses -- those that generally produce specialty equipment and weapons -- have jumped six-fold.
Headquartered at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida, but operating out of theater commands spread out around the globe, including Hawaii, Germany, and South Korea, and active in the majority of countries on the planet, Special Operations Command is now a force unto itself. As outgoing SOCOM chief Olson put it earlier this year, SOCOM “is a microcosm of the Department of Defense, with ground, air, and maritime components, a global presence, and authorities and responsibilities that mirror the Military Departments, Military Services, and Defense Agencies.”
Tasked to coordinate all Pentagon planning against global terrorism networks and, as a result, closely connected to other government agencies, foreign militaries, and intelligence services, and armed with a vast inventory of stealthy helicopters, manned fixed-wing aircraft, heavily-armed drones, high-tech guns-a-go-go speedboats, specialized Humvees and Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, or MRAPs, as well as other state-of-the-art gear (with more on the way), SOCOM represents something new in the military. Whereas the late scholar of militarism Chalmers Johnson used to refer to the CIA as "the president's private army," today JSOC performs that role, acting as the chief executive’s private assassination squad, and its parent, SOCOM, functions as a new Pentagon power-elite, a secret military within the military possessing domestic power and global reach.
In 120 countries across the globe, troops from Special Operations Command carry out their secret war of high-profile assassinations, low-level targeted killings, capture/kidnap operations, kick-down-the-door night raids, joint operations with foreign forces, and training missions with indigenous partners as part of a shadowy conflict unknown to most Americans. Once “special” for being small, lean, outsider outfits, today they are special for their power, access, influence, and aura.
That aura now benefits from a well-honed public relations campaign which helps them project a superhuman image at home and abroad, even while many of their actual activities remain in the ever-widening shadows. Typical of the vision they are pushing was this statement from Admiral Olson: “I am convinced that the forces… are the most culturally attuned partners, the most lethal hunter-killers, and most responsive, agile, innovative, and efficiently effective advisors, trainers, problem-solvers, and warriors that any nation has to offer.”
Recently at the Aspen Institute’s Security Forum, Olson offered up similarly gilded comments and some misleading information, too, claiming that U.S. Special Operations forces were operating in just 65 countries and engaged in combat in only two of them. When asked about drone strikes in Pakistan, he reportedly replied, “Are you talking about unattributed explosions?”
What he did let slip, however, was telling. He noted, for instance, that black operations like the bin Laden mission, with commandos conducting heliborne night raids, were now exceptionally common. A dozen or so are conducted every night, he said. Perhaps most illuminating, however, was an offhand remark about the size of SOCOM. Right now, he emphasized, U.S. Special Operations forces were approximately as large as Canada’s entire active duty military. In fact, the force is larger than the active duty militaries of many of the nations where America’s elite troops now operate each year, and it’s only set to grow larger.
Americans have yet to grapple with what it means to have a “special” force this large, this active, and this secret -- and they are unlikely to begin to do so until more information is available. It just won’t be coming from Olson or his troops. “Our access [to foreign countries] depends on our ability to not talk about it,” he said in response to questions about SOCOM’s secrecy. When missions are subject to scrutiny like the bin Laden raid, he said, the elite troops object. The military’s secret military, said Olson, wants "to get back into the shadows and do what they came in to do.”
This article is a collaboration between Alternet.org and TomDispatch.com.
Nick Turse is the associate editor of TomDispatch.com. His latest book is Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam. He is the author/editor of several other books, including The Changing Face of Empire: Special Ops, Drones, Spies, Proxy Fighters, Secret Bases, and Cyber Warfare, Terminator Planet: The First History of Drone Warfare, 2001-2050 (with Tom Engelhardt), The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives and The Case for Withdrawal from Afghanistan. Turse is currently a fellow at Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute. His website is Nick Turse.com. You can follow him on Twitter @NickTurse, on Tumblr, or Facebook.
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64 Comments so far
Show AllHow wonderful and no surprise. We have been the bully of the world for a long time.
You are so right. We are the Nazis. Like someone said, we didn't get rid of fascism after WWII, we merely exported it back to the US.
That's quite the article to wake up to here in Canada on a Thursday morning.
I remember a couple of years ago, blogging on the BBC World environment site, an American high-level businessman and former career military officer showed up on the blog and stayed for quite awhile. He was very knowledgeable about Diego Garcia, for example.
I had many conversations with him over the internet - he even got married while he was active on our site. He recommended I get a copy of "The Art of War", a Chinese classic, and I did.
It always seemed to me his real purpose on the blog was to make us aware that we were being watched.
Welcome to the western democracies.
Manysummits
========
Where does it stop? Will SOCOM one day get its own Extra Special Operations Command (ESOCOM), with even more elite soldiers and an even blacker budget?
Maybe one day there will be an EESOCOM, consisting of just one badass individual with a murderous agenda. Wait! We already have that! They're called lone nut assassins.
SOCOM is coming to a street near you.. In fact I imagine they are already all over the usa sneaking through the darkness.
And probably nobody knows the costs of these "shadow wars" that the Pentagon is waging. All the theater about "living within our means" and the U.S. debt, and of course not a word about what our gargantuan military - including all the hidden, secret and unknown costs, such as these secret troops operating in 120 countries, not to mention the 20-some odd Intelligence Agencies' secret budgets that nobody knows about - is costing US Taxpayers, and heaven forbid we even tough any of those astronomical expenditures. The ultimate irony, of course, is that all of our military adventures across the globe, costing trillions every year, yield not ONE SINGLE BENEFIT for the U.S., its economy, or its citizens or security. Quite the opposite - it creates more terrorists, more hatred towards the U.S., more disabled or killed soldiers, more ballooning debt. The ONLY benefit - and the entire purpose, which is never discussed in the MSM - is the expansion of U.S. corporate markets and increased U.S. corporate profits. PERIOD.
What a total joke the U.S. is.
Very well said Storm. Your ideas are the same ones that comprise a part of a presentation I intend make at a Tea Party meeting next week. You should try this, too. Your style here was logical and succinct, two all important things when speaking to a hostile audience... It's kinda fun too, if you have the right personity for it, (because believe me, no one applauds. But I have seen respect as a few suddenly start thinking again). Remember to be nice if you do. Educate, not humilate. They're actually trying to help and are not armchair patriots like so many people. (You should drop the last liine sarcasm IMHO.)
Congrats to Nick, too! What an excellent and informative article you put together. It's disheartening, but someone needs to tell the truth about our imperial war machine.
Thanks Dave. Wow, speaking progressive truths at a Tea Party meeting? I'm surprised they would let you in the door.Bet they don't invite you back after you speak.I must admit I doubt I would do well at such an event. One of my biggest flaws is my inability to stomach ignorance -especially self-imposed - so I have a feeling I would be throwing up halfway through listening to the Tea Partiers spew their brand. Need to work on that, I know. Kudos to you for having the strength of will to try and reach out to such folks. If you could get even one of them to pry open their closed minds even an inch, you will have accomplished quite a bit. Good luck.
Of course, most of us have been aware off the existence of this US reincarnation of the nazi SS. The scale of it, however, is worse than imagined and no doubt worse than reported.
These fascistic psychopaths mean business and the time for resistance is running short. Even if the people manage to reclaim the US government, will we be able to restrain these out-of-control systems?
Not to be too critical, but articles that rely on hyperbole and exageration to rile the reader are counterproductive. In one place above it is stated that soon it will be 120 countries, and in another is said "today in 120 countries..."
Whether it is 70 countries or 120 makes little difference. Any covert activities that contravene due process, legislative authority, and public awareness and concensus should be considered illegal. Rather, we should all be allowed to decide whether these operations are the will of the people and the expression of our national intent. The rest of Western civilization is also complicit as they allow the good ol USA do the dirty work they pretend to abhor but quietly encourage.
Of course all of this is just crap because this country is not a representative democracy - it is a criminal capitalist cartel.
Justaman,
Yep. But it is important to tell the people about their ACTUAL form of government.
Once a citizen accepts the reality of our dictatorship, all the flag waving, pro-war, faux patriotic BS delivered with religious fervor by the media falls flat on its' face.
"I pledge allegiance to the flag, and to the dictatorship for which it stands..." doesn't have a lot of mass appeal.
All our heroes have guns and/or super powers. We pin medals on ruthless baby killers and rapists. We pay our taxes to support murder and mayhem. Our children spend hour after hour killing virtual enemies, awaiting the day when real blood flows from their enemies and they dress up in their high tech starched uniforms of death. Threaten this powerful crime syndicate at your peril. They no longer care if their secret death squads are revealed. Who can stop them? They are trained to kill and follow orders. To seek peace and justice is to invite suspicion and worse.
So it's now official. The US has it's own SS and Gestapo paid for with taxpayer dollars.
The U.S. has had it's own Gestapo and SS officially since at least 1946. It was simply codified as the CIA and made lawful with the passage of the National Security Act of 1946. American taxpayers have been paying for this Gestapo/SS/Praetorian Guard at a cost unknown to them and most members of Congress since 1946.
This is an excellent article. Nick Turse provides evidence to support the argument of the great late political scientist Chalmers Johnson that the American empire of standing armies and military bases globally should be dismantled. There is no empirical evidence that America's maintenance of standing armies and military bases around the globe has made the nation more secure. America's maintenance of military bases around the globe and standing armies may have made our nation less secure.
These bases reek untold damage upon the environment of the civilian populations that live surrounding these bases. The civilian populations are often the victim of crimes perpetrated by American service members who are deployed at these military bases. Professor Johnson has reported that on the island of Okinawa an average of two sexual assaults per month are committed against Japanese civilians by American service members who are stationed at the many military bases that are found throughout the island.
American militarism and empire are direct threats to our democracy and the viability of the American Republic. Various legislation, such as the Patriot Act, that were passed in the aftermath of 9/11 have demonstrated the threat that militarism, empire, and our national security state mentality pose to our civil liberties.
American militarism and empire are not only bankrupting this nation morally, they are bankrupting this nation financially. As Demonstorm indicated in his post, the cost of these "shadow" wars is unknown by the American public and the vast majority of members of Congress. The budget of the CIA, the President's de facto Praetorian Guard, and the budget of the United States' various other intelligence agencies are also unknown by the American public and most of the members of Congress.
Within our very government, we have secret government that is not transparent to the American public and most of the members of Congress. It is accountable only to the President and select members of the Department of Defense. It is not subject to oversight by the Congress. In some cases, this secret government is even unknown to the President. It is compartmentalized to shield the President from its wrongdoing, and to provide the President with "plausible deniability".
Sometimes this secret government is exposed, such as it was in the aftermath of Watergate in Senate hearings chaired by the late Senator Frank Church. In these hearings the American public was made aware of some of the wrong doing of the CIA since its inception such as assassinations and the overthrow of democratically elected governments that the United States deemed were not friendly to American interests such as Iran, Guatemala, Chile and others.The secret government was also exposed during the Iran-Contra hearings.
Secret government is not characteristic of a republican democracy. Secret government is characteristic of fascist authoritarian states.
American militarism and empire are going to lead to the fall of the American Republic just as it contributed to the decline of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire.
Like the late Chalmers Johnson, I believe that the CIA and many of America's intelligence agencies should be abolished. The National Security Act of 1946 that created the CIA and the National Security Council has led to the proliferation of militarism, empire, and the widespread suffering of innocent people around the globe. It has made the United States a de facto national security police state. This odious act should be repealed.
This nation should have heeded the sage advice of George Washington who in his farewell address warned the young nation of the dangers of becoming involved in foreign entanglements, and the dangers of maintaining standing armies.
Photius: These bases reek untold damage upon the environment of the civilian populations that live surrounding these bases. - I agree, they stink to high heaven! ;-)
I agree Photius. This article is one of the best I've ever seen on this topic. And your commentary afterwards was also among the best I've ever seen! First rate! And dang, you should DEFNITELY crash some Tea Parties! (They're fond of having "open mike" at the end. Get in line early because the room thins out fairly soon.)
Empire USA, pretends benevolence with firm countenance, projecting its violence to any corner of the earth in what is supposed to be a war “against” terrorism while in fact it is prosecuting a war of “state” terrorism in which they give themselves licence to ignore any and all laws including their own. The government of the USA seems to say, “trust us, we know what we know, and we can promise you that `they´ are the bad guys and `we´ are the good guys.” Whereas, in fact, a history of lies, torture, kidnapping, wrongful detention of thousands for years, and outright murder has repeatedly proved that it is primarily the US’s imperialist hegemonic action that has been and is at the root and is the cause of global violence and aggression.
A giant violence machine with so many cells it cannot count the cost, at multiple levels working at both ends to the middle, with the a true aim of enrichment of the vast oligarchies of a military industrial, financial and media complex and the control of an ever more impoverished, battered, exploited, polluted, and terrorized global community, I thought that WWII was fought to rid the world of such a scourge.
Trust us – hypocritical words count for nothing, when measured on past reference?
We know what we know – yes, all conspiracies are made in the dark and mostly built on lies.
`They´ are the bad guys – well, that really depends on where one sits, now doesn’t it?
So, if we are being simplistic, it all boils down to the words of Bush, pronounced on 20th September 2001, after one of the most spectacular lies ever presented in history, namely the demolition of WTC 1,2 and 7 and the bombing of the Pentagon, "You're either with us or you are with the terrorists,"? By now, to any American, or a national of any country on this planet for that matter, capable of dialectic thought, the answer should be patently obvious. The Arabian proverb also made famous by Lawrence comes to mind, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend". And so that is how endless wars are ensured.
These secret forces allow the US to engage in any military actions it wants with impunity, without scrutinty, without accountability. That these forces show what American democracy is: a parody of itself, a means to fleece taxpayers to finance corporate militarism.
Solution? Don't vote. Until the system is turned on its head, voting only legitimizes the corrupt democracy that exists.
Voting in a new president will only see him/her coerced into perpetuating the military industrial complex's rule, so aptly foretold by Dwight Eisenhower.
In the humble opinion of this Canadian obverver.
So the "solution" is not to vote, huh. Any how many do you think will come to that conclusion and act on it sufficiently to not elect a president from any political Party?
This is one of the single most stupid posts I've read in a while on any website and that's going some.
A friend of mine said she will still vote, but she is going to use the write in box and simply put "None of the above."
It would be neat if a hundred million or so were to do the same thing!
minitrue,
Why not ask her to write in Harry Braun?
He is a scientist and he covers ALL the bases in his platform.
https://p3amendments.us/Home_Page.html
If a 100 million did that, we would have a real representative in the White House.
Instant runoff voting would be an even better alternative. (where marking a candidate as your zeroth choice would mean "not acceptable") Barring that, a "None of the above" choice should be required on every line of every ballot. And if Mr./Ms. None of the Above wins, the election should have to be redone with new candidates.
Neither of our two fascist parties would ever agree to it, but maybe it could be done through state referenda.
Sure, but insulting people who seem to be on our side isn't such a bright idea either, metal.
(If you're certain that freespeaker is a troll, that's a different matter. But even then the best to do is probably to just say so explicitly.)
Exuse me, but "don't vote" is precisely right on! No one reaching the presidential election is trustworthy, the latest example being "Natty-bumpkin-bama." Participate at local levels, participate in protests, etc., but don't lend your credentials to the farce of Presidential elections.
Not voting is no solution to anything. There are many good reasons to vote, if only for the state ballot initiatives and state assembly candidates. And while there, you might as well vote for your favorite 3rd party candidate for president. But have no illusions. Voting is only a stopgap measure. We need to build political consciousness, class consciousness, so that we can build a truly revolutionary populist movement. We will never achieve revolution through voting. But voting and elections can be one part of building a revolutionary movement.
I agree. Voting may do little good, but not voting is either a cop out, or is like cutting off your nose to spite your face. It makes you equivalent to the apathetic masses. It's also exactly what a right wing troll would advocate on a progressive web site (not that I'm accusing freespeaker of being a troll).
Instead of trying to figure out which single approach to take, we should pursue every method that has even the tiniest chance of success. You never know what might work, or when one seemingly insignificant gain might trigger much bigger changes elsewhere.
A corollary to this is buying into the "aid" organizations party line. YES, aid is needed in more places than are counted, but for aid to be offered without vocal statement of support for the voices, perspectives and lives of those subjected to the ravages of the global system of predatory capital is to cave to a monoculture of the mind. Our 'enemy' is an idea, a perspective of exceptionalism that still adheres to the Doctrine of Discovery. We are awakening to the extent to which prophetic reality transcends religion and delivers its witness in the interactions, 'products' and 'services' of everyday life. Resistance has been said to be futile, but resistance is a matter of living consciously, listening and engaging the reality that 'soul' is not an abstract but a dimension of everything we are and do. No written notion of this will ever grasp it in its entirety. Living simply so that others might simply live will eventually reveal how real the distiction is between 'pride' and 'dignity'. Pride is hyperbolic and unsustainable in the most elementary meaning. Dignity is seeing other as self and living accordingly. It is process rather than goal to be acquired.
A product of conservative's fears, this will result in blowback as it almost always seems to. http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Society/Conservatives_Deconstruct.html
American citizens and businesses are likely to be increasingly unwelcome overseas and very possibly in danger. Some of these countries have an armed citizenry, thanks in part to American arms dealers, who will look poorly on all American visitors and American collaborators.
Cons are turning Fortress America into a cage of skunks
"The loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or imagined, from abroad." -- James Madison
Take a careful read of this:
ACLU Seeks Details on Government Mobile Phone Tracking
in Massive Nationwide Information Request
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2011/08/03-3
Note especially this bit:
"Just last week, the general counsel of the National Security Agency suggested to members of Congress that the NSA might have the authority to collect the location information of American citizens inside the U.S. Also, this spring, researchers revealed that iPhones were collecting and storing location information in unknown files on the phone. POLICE IN MICHIGAN SOUGHT INFORMATION ABOUT EVERY CELL PHONE NEAR THE SITE OF A PLANNED LABOR PROTEST. [my caps--metal]
The NSA is very probably not just talking about tracking locations of U.S. citizens without a warrant in real time: They could extend that same anti-Constitutional "authority" to accessing i-phone files that have recorded location & movement maps of an individual over time of who knows how many millions of citizens. This is a potentially immense, constantly updated and expensive database they are pushing for.
Local pigs like those in Michigan could use the un-Constitutional "authority" described above to hire a privatize database firm to track labor union members taking part in protests over time and create the same sort of location & movement maps of an individual citizen that Apple's Big Brother App does automatically. Put together enough of these maps and you can map an entire union or any other lawful organization targeted as a political enemy by the neo-liberal tri-partisan Machine/Oligarchy.
In recent days there was also this:
Mobile Biometrics to Hit US Streets
Despite fuzzy legality, US law enforcement will soon be able
to perform mobile iris scans and fingerprinting.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/08/02-11
"A gadget attached to a mobile phone can photograph and plot key points and features on your face (breaking the numbers down into biometric data), scan your iris and take your fingerprints on the spot...By autumn, the Mobile Offender Recognition and Information System (MORIS), which will allow 40 law enforcement agencies across the US to carry out such biometric diagnostics, will be rolled out. So far, the 1,000 units on order - at $3,000 and 12.5 oz per device - will be going to sheriff and police departments.
"...given that two of the three functions of the MORIS could legally be considered to be the sort of "search and seizure" covered by the US Constitution's Fourth Amendment (meaning that a person could, in theory, decline to have their iris scanned or fingerprints taken), law enforcement's ability to use them as intended seems questionable.
"The collection of personal biometric data has many privacy and civil liberties concerns attached to it, including scalability, reliability, accuracy, and security of the data collected," said Amie Stepanovich, national security counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), a Washington DC-based public interest group focused on privacy and civil liberty issues.
"A KEY CONCERN, said Stepanovich, IS THAT THIS TECHNOLOGY WAS ESSENTIALLY DEVELOPED FOR A MILITARY ENVIRONMENT AND NOT FOR DOMESTIC USE...THE POTENTIAL OF THIS TECHNOLOGY FOR USE TO TRACK AND MONITOR INNOCENT INDIVIDUALS' PERSONAL INFORMATION CANNOT BE OVERSHADOWED. TO PREVENT MISUSE, WARRANT REQUIREMENTS MUST BE STRICTLY ENFORCED."
These news stories keep coming week after week after week lately. A couple of weeks back there were new revelations about the FBI's NEXT GENERATION IDENTIFICATION system and its spreading "interoperability" with other federal, State and local law enforcement agencies. In addition to the facial recognition scans and retinal scans (soon to be collected by your local pig or sheriff), this system will collect voice prints and DNA sample data.
15 States have already passed laws to take DNA samples from people guilty only of misdemeanors. 25 States have passed laws to take DNA samples from people arrested and charged BUT NOT CONVICTED of crimes. All these "authorities" and laws are profound and deep assaults on the letter and the spirit of the 4th Amendment to the Constitution which says:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
Some related links:
FBI Views Secure Communities as First Step in “Next Generation Identification” (NGI) Surveillance Project to Amass Expansive Database of Personal Biometric Information - Opt-Out Policy for Secure Communities set by Obscure FBI Panel, NOT BY LAW [my caps--metal]:
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2011/07/06-2
And this one about the FBI's new Constitutionally "relaxed" DOMESTIC INVESTIGATIONS AND OPERATIONS GUIDE:
Coming Soon To A Trash Bin Near You: The FBI
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/06/13/national/main20070845.shtml
My question: Who is going to watch the watchers to enforce such oversight? Santa Claus? The Duhhmurkan sheeple are fast asleep at the wheel of the collective armored Humvee of simpering empire.
1. To murder and get away with it has never happened on this earth and it never will.
2. I want to see this world's killers escape the wrath of those they have slain ... by never dying.
3. When you posit enemy it has to grow. There are no enemies. People who have "enemies" want to kill.
4. Every person who has a weapon is a killer waiting to die.
5. The sodomy taboo among Rectumite Males (Straight Men) is, was, of a world-destroying power. This taboo has to go; therefore, it will go.
6, There will be peace, universal and perpetual, up to and including the last word spoken by, the last breath of, the last person to be alive.
7. Who hates the thought hates the person.
-- "an almost industrial-scale counterterrorism killing machine." --
I point out that Public Law 107-40 is the basis of the President's power to surge the US militaries anywhere he pleases in order to prevent future terrorism. The Congress sold us down the river on this one.
I point out that this insane and DAFT war to prevent future terrorism forever cannot be won, and anyone who argues the opposite is obviously insane as well.
It's all one war, around the globe. Unless you want to protest 70 or 120 or 194 separate wars against future terrorism, I suggest that you help get the country to stop ignoring this law.
This article offers no solution to the problem that it illustrates all too well. Fewer and fewer articles recently seem to present solutions.
The insanity continues (10 years so far) and continues to get worse, and yet the law that causes this insanity continues to be ignored.
It would take 3 million people to start putting a serious end to this shit: 1 mil for the pentagon, another for Capital Hill and the final one for Wall Street. While we're at it, we could divy-up a fourth for the NYTimes, the Big 3 Networks, and the Little Ones who've spawned on cable.
Yeah, I know. In my dreams.
It's a damn fine dream and one well worth dragging into existence. Tent encampment protest next month beginning on Sept. 17th on Wall Street. Anti-war tent encampment protest beginning on Oct. 6th in D.C.
Be there or be square.
I read somewhere (CD?) that the tipping point for big things/revolutions to happen 10% of the population in question has to be on board. 9% won't do. If that's as large as the "early adopter" population gets, then eventually that 9% will just fade away to insignificance. (Think of the Forth computer language.) One out of 10 is the magic point where traction develops, things start changing quickly and an idea takes hold with the majority. Therefore, moonpie, maybe it's not just "in your dreams" after all. On the flip side, we have to keep a vigilant eye on the Tea Partiers, because there's potential future power in small initiial numbers.....BTW...Where's OUR "Tea Party"? There are more of us than them. Also, at the risk of sounding like an arrogant a-hole, we've got more on the ball than those guys. So why can't we learn from them and get something analogous going for the progressive side?
Revolution is the only solution. It is our moral obligation to resist this insidious evil. The Pentagon is the police force of International Megacorp.
The rebellion WILL/ IS, coming soon ! It IS all part of the collapse of the fascist amerikan empire !
Very ironic that what is perceived by most in the empire as amerikas great strength, its killing machine military, is its great weakness. The colossal suffering that amerikan imperialism has caused, and continuing... IS dragging the empire into the abyss ! The Karmic payback will be huge !
Viva La Revolucion !
response to METAL....... not voting on a massive scale will obviate the corruption that is the U.S. govt. If no one voted the world would see the Hypocrisy that is "democracy" U.S. style. Neither party will stop this military madness. Listen to Biden, "I am a Zionist" and after Osama was supposedly silenced, " We should go to Mass". Yes Joe, kill without a trial so no facts will be revealed and exterminate the Palestinians so AIPAC won't end your sad political career. As Emma said, " If voting changed anything, it would be illegal". Bye ,Bye American Pie happened on November 22,1963. God bless America and thank you for your service.
tara mcelvey has some very suspicious history, now nick is a fellow at harvard...
from the tone of the article, i would guess he has been made "an offer he couldn't refuse", if it had not already been made a long while ago...
Looking outside the Box,,,,,,,,,,,seems that the U.S. has the biggest band of TERRORISTS on the planet. More Imperial Storm Troopers,,,,,,,More "Star Wars" Weapons,,,,,,,,More lethal methods of torture.
The United States of America has gone over to the DARK SIDE.
//
Isn't that called a world war? As one person intimated, the Nazi's won WW2. The U.S., the original financial supporter of the Third Reich, absorbed Nazi's throughout the government. Therefore, that mentality was admired and enhanced. Who was the Nazi's most hated enemy? The Russians. Sound familiar? They're still pissed about the battle of Stalingrad and the massive push that eventually crushed Nazi Germany. Remember from the film that even Patton was criticized for putting Nazi's on his staff. He tried to brush away the criticism with the insinuation that joining the Nazi Party was like joining the Republican or Democratic parties in America. (Boy, how prescient.) One fascist mind appreciates another fascist mind, I suppose. Looks at our military today, willing to kill American civilians for the glory of political/corporate gain..This makes the American Nazi Party ("I hate Illinois Nazi's!") look like real idiots since they can't recognize Adolf Hitler's protege's in corporations and government. So either we have a new world war or WW2 never really ended.
Tom Hartman on his TV show on Free Speech TV last week was explaining how the Koch Brothers funded the campaigns of the crackpot fanatical Birchers who dominate the right wing of the already pretty much fascist Republican Party. It sounded very similar to the was Prescott Bush, H.W. Bush's father, "W's" grandfather, funded Hitler and the Nazis so they could get elected to the Reichstag, which they later burned in a false flag operation similar to 9/11 here in the United States.
So it is only natural that we would also have the modern equivalent of the SS.
Eventually someone is going to detonate a nuclear weapon somewhere in the U.S. if we don't knock it off.
Yes, it could happen here. For a chillingly plausible scenario, based on a future 9/11 and your premise, read The Shell Game, by Steve Alten. It is set in 2012. Even though he evidently thought McCain would win, that's trivial, since we really got McBomba anyway. Time for people to wake up, stare their terrors in the face, and realize who their real enemy is.
"as "the president's private army," today JSOC performs that role, acting as the chief executive’s private assassination squad, and its parent, SOCOM, functions as a new Pentagon power-elite, a secret military within the military possessing domestic power and global reach."
Personally I find that a little scary...
Not to mention this thought: "pursue fringe research like electronically beaming messages into people’s heads". - According to Bloomberg, June 7. 2011: "...“sonic projection” research to electronically beam a message into one person’s head that couldn’t be heard by others to confuse a hostage-taker or get a secret message to his captive."
Now I only wonder: who put that thought into their heads??
Death; the u.s.'s greatest export.
Go ahead, pay your taxes while you still can.
Watch a movie, crank up the a.c. and get a good night's sleep.
My 'don't vote' comment was taken quite seriously as if it were a serious option. What I can't fathom is how to reform a system that is wholely dedicated to continuing a corrupt power structure.
Sure, democracy was hard won and comes with responsibility, but what has happened that our governments, with the help of mainstream media, have carte blanche to engage in myriad military adventures, and only a few of us notice or care?
Keep voting third party, Democrat, or whatever. As one old farmer once put on his billboard in rural Alberta ( Texas North to you Americans), " don't vote, it only encourages them".
Don't agree, sure, but this is a consumer culture and you only get to choose what the big boys and girls offer. Otherwise, don't buy.
Several thoughts come to mind. First it shouldn't be any real surprise that the Special Forces have greatly expanded. Just take a look at their history and its easy to see why. These forces were originally created to give the political leadership in Washington more direct control over mission. Think back to JFK's Green Berets and Vietnam.
Another thought that crosses my mind is that the reasons so many of these institutions have become right wing reactionary … DOD, CIA, FBI, DHS, etc. is that by an large those who make a career out of them have conservative values. Those high enough in these organizations to effect policy don't reflect society as a whole.
Much as our nation has given up on the founders vision of citizen legislators who would not make a career out of politics which has led to political leaders who no longer represent the people, the people have been willing to let the leadership and management of these institutions to no longer represent a cross section of society.
Wow. Seems like a lot of effort and money just to protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and obey the legal orders of those appointed over them....
Hmmm
Whats makes these units "special" today is their ability to operate in secret. In other words they conduct operations behind the backs of the American people. 90% of the ops conducted would never be authorized if they were forced to submit to public scrutiny. In short the US special operations command is the number one terrorist organization in the world today. I am sure all their mothers are just so proud..........Oh and don't forget they are fully funded by your hard earned tax dollars.
As far as defending the Constitution is concerned I don't think waging wars against 3rd world countries half way across the globe are in any way shape or form a threat to our Constitution. SO what exactly are these units actually defending if not the Constitution and the American people?
ddearborn,
"SO what exactly are these units actually defending if not the Constitution and the American people?"
These units are defending corporate land grabbing and coercion of third world populations to ensure low wage slavery. This job formerly was done by the USMC in the Phillipines, Hawaii (before statehood), Central America, South America, and the Caribbean. The CIA (formerly OSI plus Standard Oil world wide intelligence network) stepped in after WWII. The manpower requirements of globalized planet rape for corporations required a more robust force so that's where SOCOM and JSOC came in.
I expect the introduction of bacterial or viral pathogens to depopulate areas will be added to the mission profiles when assassinations are not sufficient to keep the natives in line.
People like McRaven have lost any vestige of humanity they ever had.
..