2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumNew Obama Doctrine, A Six-Point Plan for Global War
New Obama Doctrine, A Six-Point Plan for Global War
Nick Turse
Op-Ed
Like a scene out of a Hollywood movie. In the inky darkness, men in full combat gear, armed with automatic weapons and wearing night-vision goggles, grabbed hold of a thick, woven cable hanging from a MH-47 Chinook helicopter. Then, in a flash, each fast-roped down onto a ship below. Afterward, Mike, a Navy SEAL who would not give his last name, bragged to an Army public affairs sergeant that, when they were on their game, the SEALs could put 15 men on a ship this way in 30 seconds or less.
Once on the aft deck, the special ops troops broke into squads and methodically searched the ship as it bobbed in Jinhae Harbor, South Korea. Below deck and on the bridge, the commandos located several men and trained their weapons on them, but nobody fired a shot. It was, after all, a training exercise.
All of those ship-searchers were SEALs, but not all of them were American. Some were from Naval Special Warfare Group 1 out of Coronado, California; others hailed from South Koreas Naval Special Brigade. The drill was part of Foal Eagle 2012, a multinational, joint-service exercise. It was also a model for -- and one small part of -- a much publicized U.S. military pivot from the Greater Middle East to Asia, a move that includes sending an initial contingent of 250 Marines to Darwin, Australia, basing littoral combat ships in Singapore, strengthening military ties with Vietnam and India, staging war games in the Philippines (as well as a drone strike there), and shifting the majority of the Navys ships to the Pacific by the end of the decade.
That modest training exercise also reflected another kind of pivot. The face of American-style war-fighting is once again changing. Forget full-scale invasions and large-footprint occupations on the Eurasian mainland; instead, think: special operations forces working on their own but also training or fighting beside allied militaries (if not outright proxy armies) in hot spots around the world. And along with those special ops advisors, trainers, and commandos expect ever more funds and efforts to flow into the militarization of spying and intelligence, the use of drone aircraft, the launching of cyber-attacks, and joint Pentagon operations with increasingly militarized civilian government agencies.
Much of this has been noted in the media, but how it all fits together into what could be called the new global face of empire has escaped attention. And yet this represents nothing short of a new Obama doctrine, a six-point program for twenty-first-century war, American-style, that the administration is now carefully developing and honing. Its global scope is already breathtaking, if little recognized, and like Donald Rumsfelds military lite and David Petraeuss counterinsurgency operations, it is evidently going to have its day in the sun -- and like them, it will undoubtedly disappoint in ways that will surprise its creators.
MORE at.........
http://www.nationofchange.org/http://www.nationofchange.org/
Laelth
(32,017 posts)-Laelth
KoKo
(84,711 posts)he is in the hands of his "Handlers" and like Clinton before him (who was about to be put in prison for lying about Monica after a RW Corrupt Repug Part went after him...like they did with Carter before and other Dem Candidates after they Wiped out the Kennedy Family...
Obama has the Sword of Kennedy Killings waiting for his neck...
But, does that mean we DEMOCRATS JUST GIVE UP?
Should we GIVE UP because of FEAR? WHY?
Laelth
(32,017 posts)Giving up is not in my nature, and there is nothing Obama could do to make me give up. Same goes for the Democratic Party.
-Laelth
Major Hogwash
(17,656 posts)It's really weird that you mentioned a "Sword of Kennedy Killings".
KoKo
(84,711 posts)Why would you ask?