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Great article over at Fair.org
Militarization of State Dept. Stirs Little Media Interest
Posted by Steve Rendall on 09/10/10 at 3:25 pm
When Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies appeared on FAIR's radio show CounterSpin last week, she challenged Barack Obama's assertions that U.S. combat in Iraq was ending and that the last combat brigade was leaving the country, describing the plans the U.S. actually has in store for Iraq: The policy has not changed. It is true that the number of troops are significantly lower than they were at their height of 165,000; it's now down to about 50,000. That's a good thing. Reduction in troops is a good thing. But the notion that this troop reduction somehow means that all combat brigades, let alone combat troops, are out of Iraq is just specious.
The 50,000 troops that are in Iraq now are combat troops. The Pentagon has, in their own words, remissioned them. They have given combat troops a new mission, which is for training and assistance of the Iraqi military. But they remain combat troops, ready to reengage in combat at any given moment.
We heard from President Obama about the Fourth Stryker Brigade, which is, as he described it, the last combat brigade leaving Iraq. We didn't hear about the 3,000 new combat troops, more combat troops, from Fort Hood in Texas, who were just deployed to Iraq about 10 days ago. We also didn't hear about the 4,500 special forces, which have the job, one, of continuing its counterterrorism operation, meaning using its capture-or-kill list to run around the country and capture or kill people. The other is to train their Iraqi counterparts, the Iraqi Special Operations Force, which is shaping up to be something that looks suspiciously like an El Salvador-style death squad. This is not the end of combat.
This was newsworthy enough, though few other media outlets challenged the White House "end of combat" hype. But Bennis had something even more troubling to add. When CounterSpin pointed out that John Pilger was reporting in the New Statesman that U.S. policy with regard to airstrikes and bombings would be unaffected by the "new" policy, and that U.S. military contractors would be increasing in numbers, Bennis responded: "Absolutely. The number of contractors is quite disturbing, both in its own right and because it's the beginning of a process underway of militarizing U.S. diplomacy."
You can read the whole article at fair.org
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