Topher Morrison
PurpleSerf.com
Special operations forces span the globe in the War on Terror.
Photo credit: ABP World Group LTD.
"The Special Operations Command's (SOCOM) overall strength now stands at 60,000. Of these, some 13,000 were deployed last week in 79 countries." - Kenneth McGraw, Spokesman for SOCOM, according to The Daily Beast - June 25th, 2011
With Osama Bin Laden now officially dead, the World Wide War on Terror has entered its next phase. What began with relatively conventional warfare in Afghanistan and Iraq characterized by large troop deployments, aerial "shock and awe" bombardments, and the expensive ancillary civil reconstruction efforts has morphed into a multidimensional high tech operation blending covert and overt tactics extending into "79 countries" around the world.
The US military in Afghanistan allegedly still pursues the "Doctor of Death", Ayman Al Zawahiri, who has purportedly been tapped (by whom or by what mechanism it is not known) to take over as Supreme Ultimate Commander of all disgruntled Islamic radicals around the world (a.k.a Al Qaeda). Yemen, however, is the US military's growing priority as it plays host to the enigmatic American, Anwar al-Awlaki of Las Cruces, New Mexico, commander of the Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) franchise, and the US' new counterinsurgency warfare lab.
Although GQ noted that a May 5th attempt on al-Awlkai was the "first drone attack in Yemen in a decade" this "lab", according to the Daily Beast last week, is where a "covert war has raged for nearly three years" (keep in mind if this is true, it precedes both the Ft. Hood Shooting and the Christmas Day Bomber both of which al-Awlaki is charged with orchestrating. Any argument using al-Awlaki and his purported connections with these events as a pretext for intervention in Yemen should be viewed as highly dubious).
Working in tandem with US trained Yemeni forces is Delta Force, SEAL Team Six, CIA paramilitary groups, the amphibious mini-carrier USS Boxer, its cruise missile laden submarine chaperone, and "an armada of drones many of designs (and sizes) that are still classified." We can, however, quantify the breadth of this drone army. According to the New York Times, "from blimps to bugs...the Pentagon now has some 7,000 aerial drones compared with fewer than 50 a decade ago." With names like Global Hawk, Predator, Reaper, Shadow, popularized names like the "Beast of Kandahar", and deploying nefarious sounding technologies like the "Gorgon Stare" one has to wonder whether the Armies of Freedom are in fact becoming viewed as something else.
Insect drones like this one will be designed
to hide in the shadows while recording in swarms.
A Predator drone armed for action.
Posted at Wired.com.
As a part of a larger $45 million aid package to Somalia relatively new "Raven" drones are being outsourced in America's ever expanding shadow war to Burundi and Ugandan "peacekeepers" in order to cut costs and diversify the counter terrorism efforts there, according to Danger Room. While it may seem odd that the US would give up operational control it looks as if the Pentagon is merely riding shotgun on this one as they are to purchase an unspecified $17.7 million aircraft for the US base in Djibouti, ostensibly a staging ground for the aforementioned drone war raging in Yemen.
The larger portion of the foreign military aid package will be distributed to other corners of the empire, according to the Air Force Times, and will fund and equip foreign security forces with biometric instrumentation, weapons, night vision, armor, etc. in countries like Bangladesh, the Philipines, Maldives, Oman, Malaysia, Kenya, and Mali. Evidently what we're seeing here is just another routine wealth and weapons transfer in the charitable business of military welfare.
While some hawks may hem and haw over "cuts" to the defense budget because of a bad economy and the political appeal of austere budgets on Capitol Hill, most recently evidenced in the reduction of DARPA's budget (a paltry 5%), one must keep in mind the grand strategy of wartime finance. Even though Secretary of Defense Robert Gates humbly claims "as budgets draw down, we have no option but to learn to fight smarter with less" these musings must be consumed while keeping in mind Gates recently ordered the Pentagon to come up with $100 billion in savings and redirected to combat forces (special forces included).
Dubious statements like "budget draw down[s]" must be balanced with the facts. Although DARPA may lose $150 million, Obama has on the other hand asked for a 5.7% increase in the Special Operations budget amounting to $6.5 billion on top of $3.5 billion already requested this year. Therefore, not only is Sec. Gates to funnel massive savings back into various combat theaters around the world, Obama is doubling down on top of it - not exactly austere. This can, however, be appended to Obama's stimulus package; it takes 19 analysts and one or two pilots to operate a drone's mission from take off to analysis. If all 7,000 of the Pentagon's drones were called into action it would mean 133k jobs, imagine that!
World War is defined as "war that spans multiple countries on multiple continents, with battles fought in multiple theaters, and last for multiple years" according to Wikipedia. With the United States officially involved in Pakistan, Yemen, Somolia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and unofficially in the rest of the "79 other [unknown] countries" do we doubt at all that this is in fact a world war? This is merely the style of war in the 21st century, fought not by proxy, but by small elite forces under the aegis of incredible technology. The body counts may be lower, but the same principles remain. One major difference between WWIII and its predecessors, however, is this war is also being fought on American soil so don't be alarmed when a swarm of insect drones accompanies you to a town hall meeting, its for your protection - see "Planes, trains, and automobiles: TSA's ever expanding jurisdiction."
For an excellent documentary on the issue of covert remote controlled war visit "Remote Control War's" Facebook fan page and find out how to watch the mind bending documentary.
UPDATE 8/8/11: New article by Al Jazeera details the US military's secret armies.
