KoKo
KoKo's JournalHow an ugly, brutally effective warplane won the battle for its future--Saving the Warthog
The Great Debate
How an ugly, brutally effective warplane won the battle for its future
By David Axe
November 24, 2015
U.S.-backed Syrian rebels launched an attack late last month on Islamic State militants near the town of Hawl in northern Syria. They regained control of roughly 100 square miles of territory, according to the U.S. Defense Department.
It was a fairly straightforward, conventional offensive operation, Army Colonel Steve Warren told reporters via video conference from Baghdad, where we estimated
several hundred enemy [fighters] were located in that vicinity.
Warren continued his description. There was a substantial friendly force well over 1,000 participated in the offensive part of this operation. And they were able to very deliberately execute the plan that they had made themselves.
Two types of U.S. warplanes, both optimized for precision attacks in close coordination with ground troops, were critical to the Syrian rebels success, Warren revealed. We were able to bring both A-10s and a Spectre gunship to bear, he said,
It can only be described as devastating
. it killed nearly 80 enemy fighters and wounded many more.
Video shot by a correspondent from the Kurdish Hawar News Agency showed A-10s wheeling over the battlefield as rebel fighters advanced.
The lumbering Spectre gunship, basically a cargo plane with side-firing guns, is one of the Air Forces favorite aircraft. Its the beneficiary of billions of dollars in new funding to buy new models and upgrade older ones.
But the twin-jet A-10, an ungainly-looking, single-pilot plane with thick, straight wings and a massive, nose-mounted cannon, is out of favor with Air Force leaders despite being vitally important to the U.S.-led campaign against Islamic State. The flying branchs top generals and civilian officials have fought for years to get rid of all 300 A-10s and divert their operators and budget to other initiatives. Meanwhile, a grass-roots effort led by current and former U.S. ground troops and bolstered by key lawmakers has protected the A-10, also known by its nickname Warthog.
Why the Warthog fell out of favor, and how the plane endures despite the Air Forces eagerness to retire it, reveals deep schisms within the U.S. military as it continues its war against Islamic extremists while also retooling to deter high-tech Russian forces.
The A-10 is one plane thats clearly helping Syrian fighters retake their homes from Islamic State. Yet its also a uniquely evocative symbol of strife inside the Pentagon.
World War II origins
Continued....a Good Read at....
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2015/11/24/how-an-ugly-brutally-effective-warplane-won-the-battle-for-its-future/
What Foreign Policy “Debate” Means on “Face the Nation” --Glenn Greenwald
What Foreign Policy Debate Means on Face the Nation
Glenn Greenwald
Nov. 29 2015, 10:46 a.m.
CBS Face the Nation is the most-watched Sunday morning news television show in the U.S., attracting roughly 3 million viewers each week. On this Sunday morning, the show is focused on foreign policy, as it interviews Ben Carson, Jeb Bush and Lindsey Graham on the issues of ISIS and refugees. As it always does, the program has assembled a panel of experts to discuss those matters; one of them, Jeffrey Goldberg, proudly announced its composition this morning:
In addition to host John Dickerson and Goldberg himself, the rest of the panel is composed of former Bush 43 speechwriter and current Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, and former Bush 41 speechwriter and current Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan.
Aside from the glaring demographic homogeneity all middle-aged-or-older white people who have spent their careers in corporatized Washington establishments there is a suffocating ideological and viewpoint homogeneity on this panel as well, particularly when it comes to foreign policy. All of the panelists, for instance, were vocal, aggressive advocates of the invasion of Iraq (as were all three GOP presidential candidates featured on this mornings show).
Goldberg, in a 2006 profile of Gerson, wrote that Gerson, like Bush, has never wavered. The people of the Middle East are not exceptions to this great trend of history, and, by standing up for these things, we are on the right side of history, he said. Ignatius repeatedly used his Post platform to argue for the war: Eight months after the invasion, he wrote a gushing profile of Paul Wolfowitz (a rare animal in Washington a genuine intellectual in a top policymaking job) and decreed, This may be the most idealistic war fought in modern times; in 2004, he proclaimed, I dont regret my support for toppling Hussein. Noonan, in February 2003, told Slate: I have come to the conclusion that we must move. I do not imagine an invasion will be swift and produce minimal losses. But I believe not stepping in is, at this point, more dangerous than stepping in.
Other than Tom Friedman, Goldberg himself was probably the journalist most responsible for tricking Americans into supporting the war by circulating blatant falsehoods under the guise of reporting, using his New Yorker perch to legitimize claims of the non-existent Saddam/al Qaeda alliance (which he continued to tout as late as 2010) and the Iraqi nuclear program. The Face the Nation host, John Dickerson, was a reporter for Time magazine at the time and therefore pretended not to express opinions about Iraq, but he disseminated objective reporting like this:
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Many have observed that no American journalists or pundits (let alone political officials) other than Judy Miller paid any career price whatsoever for their dissemination of falsehoods about Iraq and the use of their platforms to vocally cheer for one of the worst, most destructive crimes of their generation. Thats true, but its worse than that.
Continued at:
https://theintercept.com/2015/11/29/what-debate-means-on-face-the-nation/
Financial Market View from London about ISIS, Cameron, GB Politics, Max Keiser Reports
Edited:
Amusing, but from a Business View...Interesting.
In this episode of the Keiser Report, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss MOAR war as stock prices soar for defense contractors and the CIA gets involved in environmental activism as we sacrifice our freedoms so that nobody has reason to hate us while we play naked Twister. In the second half, Max interviews journalist and author Nick Kochan about ISIS - the most well financed terrorist organization ever. They look at the cash and dowry from Saddams treasury which sustains the terrorist group.
Episode 843
Published time: 1 Dec, 2015 09:32 --It will Buffer at the Beginning...but, try to hang in there Depending on Your Band Width...it's truly a Humorous Watch and Worth It!
http://www.maxkeiser.com/
Or...try this Link:
https://www.rt.com/shows/keiser-report/324089-episode-max-keiser-843/
And, Why Is This? We worked so Hard for Change......How can this be?
This afternoon, on CNN, there was a discussion that featured a rabid republican and a gentle Democrat, regarding the gross violence aimed at Planned Parenthood. Locally, I know for a fact that Planned Parenthood has offered free services to a number of young men, primarily in the context of couples considering family planning. But, even if PP only offered services to females, it is of such value that every man should be actively supporting it.
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And THIS from DU POST AND LINKS, Today?
And, Joe Bageant (Deer Hunting With Jesus & other books)
Website:
http://joebageant.net/
Rep. Keith Ellison has "Deer Hunting With Jesus" as one of his top Book Recommends:
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In Response to This Post:
The AGE of the DEMAGOGUES -- Chris Hedges -- MUST READ
http://www.truthdig.com/report/print/the_age_of_the_demagogues_20151129
excerpt:
The Republican business elites, which declared war on the liberal class call for cultural diversity, allied themselves with an array of protofascists in the Christian right, the tea party, groups such as the National Rifle Association and The Heritage Foundation, the neo-Confederate movement, the right-to-life movement and right-wing militias. The elites in the Republican Party, who needed an ideological veneer to mask their complicity in the corporate assault, saw these protofascists as useful idiots. They thought, naively, that by demonizing liberals, feminists, African-Americans, Muslims, abortion providers, undocumented workers, intellectuals and homosexuals they could redirect the growing rage of the masses, sending it against the vulnerable, as well as against the only institution that could curb corporate power, the government, while they greedily disemboweled the nation.
But what the Republican elites have done, as they now realize to their horror, is empower a huge swath of the publiclargely whitethat is gripped by magical thinking and fetishizes violence. It was only a matter of time before a demagogue whom these elites could not control would ride the wave of alienation and rage. If Trump fails in his bid to become the GOP presidential nominee, another demagogue will emerge to take his place. Trump is not making a political revolution. He is responding to one.
The corporate state was never threatened by the liberal class myopic preoccupation with cultural diversity or the right wings championing of supposedly Christian values. This was anti-politics masquerading as politics. The culture wars did not challenge imperialism, neoliberalism and globalization. The dictates of the market, the primacy of corporate profit and the military-industrial complex remained sacrosanct. The mounting distress of the underclass was ignored or manipulated during the culture wars. Liberals who embraced cultural diversity did so within a neoliberal framework. Feminism, for example, became about placing individual women in positions of powerthis is Hillary Clintons mantranot about empowering poor, marginalized and oppressed women. Post-racial America became about a black president.....
85http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027396652
It’s a $cam! The American Way of War in the Twenty-First Century --Tomgram Dispatch
Roads to Nowhere, Ghost Soldiers, and a $43 Million Gas Station in Afghanistan
By Tom Engelhardt
So much construction and reconstruction -- and so many failures. There was the chicken-processing plant built in Iraq for $2.58 million that, except in a few Potemkin-Village-like moments, never plucked a chicken and sent it to market. There was the sparkling new, 64,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art, $25 million headquarters for the U.S. military in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, that doubled in cost as it was being built and that three generals tried to stop. They were overruled because Congress had already allotted the money for it, so why not spend it, even though it would never be used? And dont forget the $20 million that went into constructing roads and utilities for the base that was to hold it, or the $8.4 billion that went into Afghan opium-poppy-suppression and anti-drug programs and resulted in... bumper poppy crops and record opium yields, or the aid funds that somehow made their way directly into the hands of the Taliban (reputedly its second-largest funding source after those poppies).
There were the billions of dollars in aid that no one could account for, and a significant percentage of the 465,000 small arms (rifles, machine guns, grenade launchers, and the like) that the U.S. shipped to Afghanistan and simply lost track of. Most recently, there was the Task Force for Business Stability Operations, an $800-million Pentagon project to help jump-start the Afghan economy. It was shut down only six months ago and yet, in response to requests from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, the Pentagon swears that there are no Defense Department personnel who can answer questions about what the task force did with its money. As ProPublicas Megan McCloskey writes, The Pentagons claims are particularly surprising since Joseph Catalino, the former acting director of the task force who was with the program for two years, is still employed by the Pentagon as Senior Advisor for Special Operations and Combating Terrorism."
Still, from that pile of unaccountable taxpayer dollars, one nearly $43 million chunk did prove traceable to a single project: the building of a compressed natural gas station. (The cost of constructing a similar gas station in neighboring Pakistan: $300,000.) Located in an area that seems to have had no infrastructure for delivering natural gas and no cars converted for the use of such fuel, it represented the only example on record in those years of a gas station to nowhere.
All of this just scratches the surface when it comes to the piles of money that were poured into an increasingly privatized version of the American way of war and, in the form of overcharges and abuses of every sort, often simply disappeared into the pockets of the warrior corporations that entered Americas war zones. In a sense, a surprising amount of the money that the Pentagon and U.S. civilian agencies invested in Iraq and Afghanistan never left the United States, since it went directly into the coffers of those companies.
Clearly, Washington had gone to war like a drunk on a bender, while the domestic infrastructure began to fray. At $109 billion by 2014, the American reconstruction program in Afghanistan was already, in today's dollars, larger than the Marshall Plan (which helped put all of devastated Western Europe back on its feet after World War II) and still the country was a shambles. In Iraq, a mere $60 billion was squandered on the failed rebuilding of the country. Keep in mind that none of this takes into account the staggering billions spent by the Pentagon in both countries to build strings of bases, ranging in size from American towns (with all the amenities of home) to tiny outposts. There would be 505 of them in Iraq and at least 550 in Afghanistan. Most were, in the end, abandoned, dismantled, or sometimes simply looted. And dont forget the vast quantities of fuel imported into Afghanistan to run the U.S. military machine in those years, some of which was siphoned off by American soldiers, to the tune of at least $15 million, and sold to local Afghans on the sly.
In other words, in the post-9/11 years, reconstruction and war have really been euphemisms for what, in other countries, we would recognize as a massive system of corruption.
And lets not forget another kind of reconstruction then underway. In both countries, the U.S. was creating enormous militaries and police forces essentially from scratch to the tune of at least $25 billion in Iraq and $65 billion in Afghanistan. Whats striking about both of these security forces, once constructed, is how similar they turned out to be to those police academies, the unfinished schools, and that natural gas station. It cant be purely coincidental that both of the forces Americans proudly stood up have turned out to be the definition of corrupt: that is, they were filled not just with genuine recruits but with serried ranks of ghost personnel.
Much More at........
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176068/tomgram%3A_engelhardt%2C_roads_to_nowhere%2C_ghost_soldiers%2C_and_a_%2443_million_gas_station_in_afghanistan
"Putin Ignored My Phone Calls:" Turkish President Erdogan in Exclusive Interview with "French 24"
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in an exclusive interview Thursday with FRANCE 24, said his country does not want tensions with Russia after Turkish planes downed a Russian fighter near the Syrian border.Erdogan, speaking to FRANCE 24s Marc Perelman in the Turkish capital, Ankara, struck a conciliatory tone but declined to apologise for Tuesday's incident, which has further heightened tensions in the conflict-ridden region.
He restated Turkeys stance that the Russian plane ignored repeated warnings over five minutes to leave Turkish airspace and had failed to identify itself.
Had we known it was a Russian plane we may have acted differently, he said. But our pilots know the rules of engagement and have to do their duty to protect Turkish airspace.
The Turkish leader said he had personally told Russian President Vladimir Putin at a G20 meeting to end Russian incursions into Turkeys airspace, warning that such incidents were likely to occur.
He added: No sovereign state can be expected to give up its right to protect [its airspace].
Russian officials have reacted furiously to the planes downing on Tuesday, which Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov described as a planned provocation.
The Russian government said Thursday it was preparing a raft of retaliatory economic measures and urged all Russian nationals to leave Turkey.
Moscow disputes Turkish claims that the Russian plane entered Turkish airspace, and has demanded a formal apology.
Erdogan said Turkey had communicated all military data on the incident to Russian military authorities, adding that data provided by our NATO allies confirm our own.
Sidestepping questions about whether he planned to apologise, the Turkish leader said Russia had failed to communicate its own data and that Putin had ignored his phone calls.
We need to talk about what happened [...], but Putin has not returned my call, he said.
Article Continues after scrolling past the two short You Tube snips....starting with:
Slander
http://www.france24.com/en/20151126-exclusive-interview-erdogan-turkey-russian-putin-jet-syria-islamic-state
Moscow has accused Turkey of helping Islamic State in the illegal oil trade--Pepe Escobar
Not Only Ankara Backs Daesh but Offers Also Logistical Support [//b] Pepe Escobarhttps://soundcloud.com/rttv/ankara-daesh
Moscow has accused Turkey of helping Islamic State in the illegal oil trade which helps finance the terrorist group. According to analysts, Russian airstrikes in Syria are disrupting the profitable deals for Turkish middlemen, including Ankara officials.
Media Confliction over Russia and US Airstrikes on ISIS Oil Facilities & Tankers in Syria
I've seen U.S. Media Claim that our forces. have bombed Oil Facilities and Tankers in Syria with no mention of Russia's air strikes on those facilities. I've seen Russia and Foreign Media report that Russia has struck Oil Facilites and Tankers in Syria with no mention of the U.S. I'm talking about the Mainstream U.S TV Media like CNN/MSNBC because I don't know what Fox News does because I never watched it
Has anyone else noticed this?
I did a quick search for sample article and it seems to me from the dates that we must be, and have been, working in coordination with Russia for these strike against the ISIS Oil Facilities and Tankers--yet our Mainstream TV Media seems to ignore Russia's part while a few newspapers like NYT, WaPo and others do mention both. I check out both MSNBC and CNN and I've not seen either talk about a coordinated effort in the bombing raids between US and Russia.
Anyway, maybe I'm just being nit picky but thought it interesting.
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Added on 8:54 AM ET, Thu November 19, 2015
Russian bombers strike ISIS' oil
Russia says it significantly reduced ISIS' export capabilities and income by striking oil tankers and storage facilities in Syria.
http://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2015/11/19/russia-bombs-isis-oil-orig-vstan-mobile.cnn
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AP November 20, 2015, 2:41 PM
Russian airstrikes blast ISIS oil facilities in Syria
MOSCOW -- The Russian military has destroyed numerous oil facilities and tankers controlled by ISIS in Syria, sharply cutting its income, Russia's defense minister said Friday.
Minister Sergei Shoigu reported to President Vladimir Putin on Friday that Russian warplanes destroyed 15 oil refining and storage facilities in Syria and 525 trucks carrying oil during this week's bombing blitz. He said this deprived ISIS of $1.5 million in daily income from oil sales.
Russia, which has conducted an air campaign in Syria since Sept. 30, sharply raised the intensity starting Tuesday following confirmation that the Russian Metrojet plane in Egypt was downed by a bomb, which ISIS said it had planted. All 224 people aboard the plane, mostly Russian tourists, were killed.
Putin has discussed cooperating on fighting ISIS during his meetings with President Barack Obama and other Western leaders at the sidelines of the Group of 20 rich and developing nations in Turkey this week.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/russian-airstrikes-blast-isis-oil-facilities-in-syria/
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Updated: Friday, September 26, 2014, 5:47 PM
BY Corky Siemaszko
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
U.S.-led coalition bomb ISIS oil sites in Syria for 2nd straight day as Britain, Belgium and Denmark announce they are joining the fight
The coalition dropped bombs on ISIS oil facilities overnight Thursday the second day of raids on the oil plants and the fourth of airstrikes in the region. The strikes aim to cripple one of the terrorists' primary sources of cash: black market oil.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/u-s-allies-bomb-isis-oil-sites-2nd-straight-day-article-1.1953649
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Middle East--November 16, 2015
U.S. Warplanes Strike ISIS Oil Trucks in Syria
By MICHAEL R. GORDON --NOV. 16, 2015
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/17/world/middleeast/us-strikes-syria-oil.html?_r=0
ISTANBUL Intensifying pressure on the Islamic State, United States warplanes for the first time attacked hundreds of trucks on Monday that the extremist group has been using to smuggle the crude oil it has been producing in Syria, American officials said.
According to an initial assessment, 116 trucks were destroyed in the attack, which took place near Deir al-Zour, an area in eastern Syria that is controlled by the Islamic State.
The airstrikes were carried out by four A-10 attack planes and two AC-130 gunships based in Turkey.
Plans for the strike were developed well before the terrorist attacks in and around Paris on Friday, officials familiar with the operation said, part of a broader operation to disrupt the ability of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, to generate revenue to support its military operations and govern its territory.
To disrupt that revenue source, American officials said last week that the United States had sharply stepped up its airstrikes against infrastructure that allows the Islamic State to pump oil in Syria.
Until Monday, the United States refrained from striking the fleet used to transport oil, believed to include more than 1,000 tanker trucks, because of concerns about causing civilian casualties. As a result, the Islamic States distribution system for exporting oil had remained largely intact.
The new campaign is called Tidal Wave II. It is named after the World War II effort to counter Nazi Germany by striking Romanias oil industry. Lt. Gen. Sean B. MacFarland, who in September assumed command of the international coalitions campaign in Iraq and Syria, suggested the name.
To reduce the risk of harming civilians, two F-15 warplanes dropped leaflets about an hour before the attack warning drivers to abandon their vehicles, and strafing runs were conducted to reinforce the message.
The area where the trucks assemble in Syria has been closely monitored by reconnaissance drones. As many as 1,000 trucks have been observed there, waiting to receive their cargo of illicit oil.
On Monday, 295 trucks were in the area, and more than a third of them were destroyed, United States officials said. The A-10s dropped two dozen 500-pound bombs and conducted strafing runs with 30-millimeter Gatling guns. The AC-130s attacked with 30-millimeter Gatling guns and 105-millimeter cannons.
The pilots saw several drivers running to a nearby tent and did not attack them, an American official said, and there were no immediate reports of civilian casualties.
Col. Steven H. Warren, the American-led coalitions spokesman in Baghdad, confirmed that A-10s and AC-130s had been used in the attack and that 116 tanker trucks had been destroyed.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/17/world/middleeast/us-strikes-syria-oil.html?_r=0
Obama Drafted to Fight Bush's War
Obama Drafted to Fight Bush's WarMichael Tomasky (AN "OLDIE BUT GOODY" READ)
How Far We Have Come:
Lets remember who got us into this mess in Iraq, despite plenty of warningsfrom Republicans, eventhat this is where it would all lead us. Blame Bush? In this case, absolutely.
A picture is coming into focus now, is it not? As I write the United States has launched more than 80 air strikes against the Islamic State. As the strikes have already expandedand in my view properly sobeyond the original goals of saving the Yazidis and protecting American people and property in Erbil, theres no clear telling of where and when they will end.
So let me run this depressing thought by you: They have every chance of ending with Barack Obama, and undoubtedly his successor as well, having to prosecute the war that George W. Bush and his geniuses made inevitable with their lies and errors and perversions of law and criminally irresponsible fantasies about this Iraq that they promised us would reveal itself before our eyes as painlessly and quickly and even beautifully as a rose coming to bloom in time-lapse photography.
Conservative readers are already tweeting: Here we go, blame Bush again. Well, in a word, yes. Im afraid these dots are preposterously easy to connect. But first, we have a date with the wayback machine.
I have been looking back over a few predictions about the Iraq War from back in 2002 and 2003. Recall Dick Cheney: Weeks rather than months. Also we will be greeted as liberators. Paul Wolfowitz: There's a lot of money to pay for this. It doesn't have to be U.S. taxpayer money. We are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon. Wolfowitz again, since he was to my mind the most Satanic of the bunch: It's hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and to secure the surrender of Saddam's security forces and his army. Hard to imagine.
Well, you know the rest. I could fill a book with these little memories. I could also fill another bookbut a slenderer one, since so many of our leading intellectuals and so much of our foreign-policy establishment types noted the prevailing winds and hyped themselves into a pro-war frenzywith grim predictions. But Ill limit myself to two.
The first: Possibly the most dire consequences would be the effect in the region. The shared view in the region is that Iraq is principally an obsession of the U.S. The obsession of the region, however, is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There would be an explosion of outrage against us. We would be seen as ignoring a key interest of the Muslim world in order to satisfy what is seen to be a narrow American interest.
And second: While we hoped that popular revolt or coup would topple Saddam, neither the U.S. nor the countries of the region wished to see the breakup of the Iraqi state. We were concerned about the long-term balance of power at the head of the Gulf. Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guidelines about not changing objectives in midstream, engaging in mission creep, and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs.
Continued at.............
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/23/obama-drafted-to-fight-bush-s-war.html
In Mali and Rest of Africa, the U.S. Military Fights a Hidden War--The Intercept
In Mali and Rest of Africa, the U.S. Military Fights a Hidden War--The Intercept
Nick Turse
Nov. 20 2015, 11:15 a.m.
THE GENERAL LEADING the U.S. militarys hidden war in Africa says the continent is now home to nearly 50 terrorist organizations and illicit groups that threaten U.S. interests. And today, gunmen reportedly yelling Allahu Akbar stormed the Radisson Blu hotel in Malis capital and seized several dozen hostages. U.S. special operations forces are currently assisting hostage recovery efforts, a Pentagon spokesperson said, and U.S. personnel have helped move civilians to secured locations, as Malian forces clear the hotel of hostile gunmen.
In Mali, groups like Ansar Dine and the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa have long posed a threat. Major terrorist groups in Africa include al Shabaab, Boko Haram and al Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb (AQIM). In the wake of the Paris attacks by ISIS, attention has been drawn to ISIS affiliates in Egypt and Libya, too. But what are the dozens of other groups in Africa that the Pentagon is fighting with more special operations forces, more outposts, and more missions than ever?
For the most part, the Pentagon wont say.
Brigadier General Donald Bolduc, chief of U.S. Special Operations Command Africa, made a little-noticed comment earlier this month about these terror groups. After describing ISIS as a transnational and transregional threat, he went on to tell the audience of the Defense One Summit, Although ISIS is a concern, so is al Shabaab, so is the Lords Resistance Army in Central Africa and the 43 other illicit groups that operate in the area
Boko Haram, AQIM, and other small groups in that area.
Bolduc mentioned only a handful of terror groups by name, so I asked for clarification from the Department of Defense, Africa Command (AFRICOM), and Special Operations Command Africa (SOCAFRICA). None offered any names, let alone a complete accounting. SOCAFRICA did not respond to multiple queries by The Intercept. AFRICOM spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Anthony Falvo would only state, I have nothing further for you.
While the State Department maintains a list of foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs), including 10 operating in Africa (ISIS, Boko Haram, Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, al Shabaab, AQIM, Ansaru, Ansar al-Din, Ansar al-Sharia in Tunisia, as well as Libyas Ansar al-Sharia in Benghazi and Ansar al-Sharia in Darnah), it does not provide the DoD any legal or policy approval, according to Lt. Col. Michelle Baldanza, a Defense Department spokesperson.
The DoD does not maintain a separate or similar list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations for the government, she said in an email to The Intercept. In general, not all groups of armed individuals on the African continent that potentially present a threat to U.S. interests would be subject to FTO. DoD works closely with the Intel Community, Inter-Agency, and the [National Security Council] to continuously monitor threats to U.S. interests; and when required, identifies, tracks, and presents options to mitigate threats to U.S. persons overseas.
This isnt the first time the Defense Department has been unable or unwilling to name the groups its fighting. In 2013, The Intercepts Cora Currier, then writing for ProPublica, asked for a full list of Americas war-on-terror enemies and was told by a Pentagon spokesman that public disclosure of the names could increase the prestige and recruitment prowess of the groups and do serious damage to national security. Jack Goldsmith, a professor at Harvard Law School who served as a legal counsel during the George W. Bush administration, told Currier that the Pentagons rationale was weak and there was a very important interest in the public knowing who the government is fighting against in its name.
CONTINUED AT:
https://theintercept.com/2015/11/20/in-mali-and-rest-of-africa-the-u-s-military-fights-a-hidden-war/
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