American Boots Hit the Ground in Africa after Drone Attacks

[American Patriot]

What a joke. I ask you for your opinion, and i'm 'trolling'? If one asks for clarification FROM YOU, wouldn't that place the onus of responsibility for a fair and honest and factual answer ON YOU?

You say 'I stand by what I said', but you HAVEN'T SAID ANYTHING.

Well... now you know how I feel when I keep asking you for facts.

I've been asking for several days.

Again. I'm finished playing your game.

it is a liberal tactic to refuse to answer questions then try to point to the adversary and ask "Why aren't you answering my questions".

if you want "answers" then you start with giving answers to questions I've asked. Otherwise, leave me alone.

[American Patriot]

What other answers do you SPECIFICALLY want me to reply to on and about ths thread?

Specifically? Go back and read where I asked you a half dozen questions, not only this thread but all the others you're jumping around in.

To quote someone, "I'm not going to do your work for you".

if you can't follow a simple conversation without jumping from subject to subject, incorrect conclusion to incorrect basis for an argument, then I can't help you.

[American Patriot]

Let's just start over and limit this to the thread topic in particular; do you favor military intervention, aside from that force used against piracy, against certain forces in and native to Africa?

I absolutely favor military intervention where there are pirates attacking US flagged vessels, US citizens.

Yes, I absolutely expect the US Military to step foot on the soil in Somalia and rescue/free Americans held hostage.

If they so happen to be in the area when someone is yelling into the radio for help against Pirates then YES I fully expect a US Navy ship to steam to the rescue regardless of the flag of the vessel or the occupants.

Against "certain forces in and native to Africa"? I don't know, you didn't specify which forces, location or why.....


As far as the start of this thread, I have no idea why we're sending drones there, attacking ground troops, putting US troops there. But if we are there in the area, then STOP THE PIRATES.

That's all I've ever said in the whole thread.

[American Patriot]

When it comes to "boots on the ground" Michael, the line stops at something called "Rules of Engagement".

But occasionally, one has to go against even those to protect one's life.

When you're in another country doing whatever you went there to do, and they are trying to kill you - you kill them back, only first. It no longer matters to the guys on the ground because THEY know who the bad guys are.

We've known for a LONG fucking time that the Afghans hate our asses. But unfortunately, there's this little set of rules that prevent us from getting the job done, forcing us to "respect" their "way of life" (even if it is killing people, stoning women, murdering little kids and women or getting killed by the local police who are supposed to be working with us).

The "easy answer" is to get out, leave the country, never go back.

But that isn't the RIGHT answer.

[vector7]

Wag the Ugandan Dog



by John Galt
March 13, 2012 05:15 ET



The video “Kony 2012!” has managed to wind it’s way into the hearts and minds of American citizens everywhere, evoking the “We are the World” mentality which is consistent with the American character and creating a further demand for action by the U.S. government to find and capture or kill the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) leader, Joseph Kony. The question that has not been asked is why this campaign is suddenly receiving massive attention from the U.S. mainstream media.

In October of 2011, President Obama’s team announced the deployment of roughly 100 U.S. Special Forces personnel with drones to the tiny African nation to find, capture, or kill Joseph Kony and terminate the actions of the LRA by assisting the Ugandan military (See VOA article from 2011 at this link). What is not being discussed is the sudden urgency to deploy troops to this region nor the appearance of the video above going viral after being released on March 5, 2012. The Ugandan people actually question this themselves because for decades now the military has maintained a state of emergency against first the Holy Spirit Movement and now the LRA. The Uganda military has used this national emergency to justify incursions and allegations of brutality into neighboring countries but that is ignored by the U.S. media as the video highlights a problem which may or may not continue to exist to a great extent.

The Ugandan newspaper, The Daily Monitor, addresses this question today in the article:


What Jason didn’t tell Gavin and his Army of Invisible Children

(click on the title above to access article in full)

This portion of the story may tell a larger story:

Now Invisible Children has joined the ranks of those calling for the US to press for a military solution – presumably supported by a mostly children’s army of over 65 million viewers of its video, Kony 2012! What is the LRA that it should merit the attention of an audience ranging from Hollywood celebrities to “humanitarian interventionists” to Africom to children of America?

The LRA is a raggedy bunch of a few hundreds at most, poorly equipped, poorly armed, and poorly trained. Their ranks mainly comprise those kidnapped as children and then turned into tormentors. It is a story not very different from that of abused children who in time turn into abusive adults. In short, the LRA is no military power.


Addressing the problem called the LRA does not call for a military operation. And yet, the LRA is given as the reason why there must be a constant military mobilisation, at first in northern Uganda, and now in the entire region, why the military budget must have priority and, now, why the US must sent soldiers and weaponry, including drones, to the region. Rather than the reason for accelerated military mobilisation in the region, the LRA is the excuse for it.


The reason why the LRA continues is that its victims – the civilian population of the area – trust neither the LRA nor government forces.


Sandwiched between the two, civilians need to be rescued from an ongoing military mobilisation and offered the hope of a political process.


Alas, this message has no room in the Invisible Children video that ends with a call to arms. Thus one must ask:


Will this mobilisation of millions be subverted into yet another weapon in the hands of those who want to militarise the region further? If so, this well-intentioned but unsuspecting army of children will be responsible for magnifying the very crisis to which they claim to be the solution.

If the people of Uganda wish to solve this problem without further bloodshed and to calm the situation in their nation, then why the sudden emergency and massive public relations campaign encouraged by the United States liberal mainstream media? Perhaps the answer can be found in another Ugandan newspaper, New Vision, and this article published yesterday:


Oil refinery land set for demarcation

(click on the title above to access article in full)

Uganda has apparently become the latest African nation to see a large oil discovery and gone from the rarely mention back pages of American media to the forefront as a cause celeb not because children have been murdered there for over thirty years now, exploited by militants and the governments alike. No, this is about securing natural resources and the individuals who produced Kony 2012! are simply being used by this government to create a justification for further military intervention to protect the areas in the map from Tullow Oil, PLC:




Until the video was produced then “suddenly” promoted by the mainstream media, I would wager that ninety percent of the U.S. population had no clue as to who Joseph Kony was, where Uganda was on a map, or that there was even an internal conflict there. Yet those in the investing world and with the monies to promote and purchase government influence via political donations understand the competitive nature of seeking and securing petroleum resources. The sad part about this is that it has nothing to do with securing more oil for the U.S. consumer but instead protecting the operations of FINA Total and CNOOC, a French and Chinese oil conglomerate respectively. Thus the sudden sense of urgency to deploy millions of dollars worth of resources to eradicate an estimated 400 combatants brings forward the idea that the U.S. military is being used on “for hire” or mercenary missions at the behest of international corporations instead of their Constitutionally mandated mission of protecting the United States of America.

Perhaps DeNiro and Hoffman can make a sequel to fit the occasion with a title of Wag the Ugandan Dog.

[vector7]

Report: US expands secret 'shadow war' in Africa

By msnbc.com staff

The U.S. military is using small spy aircraft disguised as private planes as it expands secret intelligence operations across Africa, The Washington Post reported late Wednesday.

The surveillance missions are part of a "growing shadow war against al-Qaida affiliates and other militant groups," the newspaper said.

Citing a former U.S. commander, the Post said about dozen air bases have been set up for the unarmed spy planes in Africa since 2007. The newspaper said they include sites in Burkina Faso, Uganda, Ethiopia and Kenya as well as in the Seychelles.

The report added:

"The surveillance is overseen by U.S. Special Operations forces but relies heavily on private military contractors and support from African troops.

The surveillance underscores how Special Operations forces, which have played an outsize role in the Obama administration’s national security strategy, are working clandestinely all over the globe, not just in war zones. The lightly equipped commando units train foreign security forces and perform aid missions, but they also include teams dedicated to tracking and killing terrorism suspects."

The Post said that the U.S. Africa Command declined to comment on "specific operational details."

However, the command confirmed that it worked "closely with our African partners ... to conduct missions or operations that support and further our mutual security goals."

[American Patriot]

There was a report on Bill Bennett this morning that yet MORE leaks were out in, if I recall, the Washington Post this morning. A WHOLE LIST of "Africa countries" "some of which I can't even pronounce", said Bennett that were places we have American troops on the ground and equipment, bases and so on.

[vector7]

U.S. Army Hones Antiterror Strategy for Africa, in Kansas

\
Steve Hebert for The New York Times
Members of the Army’s First Infantry Division have been called on to conduct more than 100 missions in Africa over the next year.

By ERIC SCHMITT

Published: October 18, 2013 71 Comments

FORT RILEY, Kan. — Here on the Kansas plains, thousands of soldiers once bound for Iraq or Afghanistan are now gearing up for missions in Africa as part of a new Pentagon strategy to train and advise indigenous forces to tackle emerging terrorist threats and other security risks so that American forces do not have to.

The first-of-its-kind program is drawing on troops from a 3,500-member brigade in the Army’s storied First Infantry Division, known as the Big Red One, to conduct more than 100 missions in Africa over the next year. The missions range from a two-man sniper team in Burundi to 350 soldiers conducting airborne and humanitarian exercises in South Africa.

The brigade has also sent a 150-member rapid-response force to Djibouti in the Horn of Africa to protect embassies in emergencies, a direct reply to the attack on the United States Mission in Benghazi, Libya, last year that killed four Americans.

“Our goal is to help Africans solve African problems, without having a big American presence,” said Lt. Col. Robert E. Lee Magee, a West Point graduate and third-generation Army officer whose battalion has sent troops to Burundi, Niger and South Africa in the past several months, and whose unit will deploy to Djibouti in December.

The American commando raids this month against terrorist operatives in Libya and Somalia underscore the spreading extremist threat in Africa, and a renewed urgency to choke off insurgent cells before they can grow, according to counterterrorism specialists. Teams from the brigade here have already helped train forces in Kenya and Tanzania, which are battling fighters from the Shabab militant group in Somalia.

“Africa is one of the places,” President Obama said at a news conference three days after the commando raids, “that you’re seeing some of these groups gather. And we’re going to have to continue to go after them.”

For that reason, it is no surprise that the military’s Africa Command is the test case for this new Army program of regionally aligned brigades that will eventually extend to all of the Pentagon’s commands worldwide, including in Europe and Latin America next year. These forces will be told in advance that their deployments will focus on parts of the world that do not have Army troops assigned to them now — creating a system in which officers and enlisted personnel would develop regional expertise.

Gen. Ray Odierno, the Army chief of staff, said in an interview that the goal was to field an Army that could be “engaged regionally in all the combatant commands to help them shape their theaters, set their theaters, in order to sustain and execute our national security strategy.”

Even as soldiers prepare for tasks as far-ranging as combat casualty care in Chad or radio training in Mauritania, in a recent visit here they were also conducting target practice in their M1A2 battle tanks on a sprawling firing range, to keep their skills sharp for a future land war against an unforeseen foe. Chad and Mauritania are both combating Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, an offshoot of the main terrorist group.

But with the United States military out of Iraq and pulling out of Afghanistan, the Army is looking for new missions around the world. “As we reduce the rotational requirement to combat areas, we can use these forces to great effect in Africa,” Gen. David M. Rodriguez, the head of the Africa Command, told Congress this year.

Missions that were once performed largely by Special Operations Forces, including the Army’s Green Berets, are now falling to regular infantry troops like members of the Second Armored Brigade Combat Team here at Fort Riley, nicknamed the Dagger Brigade.

This summer, nearly two dozen of the brigade’s soldiers deployed to Niger, in West Africa, to help train troops for United Nations peacekeeping duty in neighboring Mali. The Americans set up tents on a government-owned farm two hours north of the capital, Niamey, shooing away the goats, cows and chickens.

For 10 weeks, they weathered sandstorms and temperatures that soared beyond 110 degrees to teach the Nigerien troops marksmanship, patrolling skills and medical care. The troops drilled in the morning, rested from the midday heat, and then resumed classes in the evening. Among the worries in Niger is the threat posed by Boko Haram, an Islamic militant group with ties to Al Qaeda.

“We’re never going to teach them anything about Boko Haram they don’t already know, but we can help them develop their capacity as a military,” said Maj. Bret Hamilton, 38, an Iraq and Afghan war veteran who led the team in Niger.

The Americans’ credibility with their counterparts in Niger was cemented just as the training began.

Terrorists using suicide car bombs attacked a Nigerien military compound and a French-operated uranium company in the country’s north, not far from the training site. Some diplomats and training forces from other countries retreated to the safety of the capital, but the Americans stayed put and helped the Nigeriens bolster their defenses.

“We’re trying to build a rapport and a lasting relationship with them,” said Sgt. First Class Christopher Bunnell, 31, a platoon leader from Lake Station, Ind.

Before deploying, the troops in Kansas receive six days of cultural training and instruction from Africa-born graduate students at nearby Kansas State University. “The soldiers trained are able to ask about things not in their books,” said Daryl Youngman, an associate professor at the university who oversees the instruction.

Some Africa specialists say that if the goal is to build a cadre of regional specialists, this training seems lacking. “There needs to be a concentrated effort for these forces to have sustained regional language training and expertise,” said Lesley Anne Warner, an Africa analyst with CNA’s Center for Strategic Studies in Alexandria, Va., who has studied the regional brigade concept. “Not having such training defeats part of the rationale for having regionally aligned forces.”

In a separate three weeks of training in South Africa last summer, 350 brigade soldiers trained with troops there using mock exercises. The soldiers worked together to analyze an enemy and how it would react, and in the end seized a rebel base.

For the South Africans, it was a chance to learn tactics and techniques that American troops refined in Iraq and Afghanistan. For the Americans, it offered an opportunity to gain new insights on African counterinsurgency.

“When the tire meets the tar, that’s when you actually learn the most lessons,” Brig. Gen. Lawrence Reginald Smith, the South Africa force commander there, said in a telephone interview. “What we bring to the table is knowledge of the indigenous people and the rebels who come from those people, including how they act.”