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A Small Secret Airstrip In Africa Is the Future of America's Way of War
HughPickens.com writes: Reuters reports that the Pentagon is quietly building up a small airstrip in a remote region of east Africa that is a complex microcosm of how Washington runs military operations overseas — and how America's way of war will probably look for the foreseeable future. Chabelley Airfield is less than 10 miles from the capital of the small African nation of Djibouti but the small airport is the hub for America's drone operations in the nearby hotspots of Somalia and Yemen as part of its war against Islamic militants. "The U.S. military is being pressured into considering the adoption of more of a lily pad basing model in the wake of so much turbulence and warfare across the region," says Dr. Geoffrey Gresh. "Djibouti is a small, relatively safe ally that enables the U.S. special operators to carry out missions effectively across the continent." In September 2013, the Pentagon announced it was moving the pilotless aircraft from its main base at Camp Lemonnier to Chabelley with almost no fanfare. Africom and the Pentagon jealously guard information about their outposts in Africa, making it impossible to ascertain even basic facts — like a simple count — let alone just how many are integral to JSOC operations, drone strikes, and other secret activities. However a map in a Pentagon report indicates that there were 10 MQ-1 Predator drones and four larger, more far-ranging MQ-9 Reapers based at Camp Lemonnier in June 2012 before the move to Chabelley.
The Pentagon does not list Chabelley in its annual Base Structure Report, the only official compendium of American military facilities around the world. "The Chebelley base [is] a reflection of the growing presence of the U.S. military in Africa," says Dr. David Vine, author of 'Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World". "The [U.S.] military has gone to great lengths to disguise and downplay its growing presence in Africa generally in the hopes of avoiding negative attention and protests both in the U.S. and in African countries wary of the colonial-esque presence of foreign troops." American drones fly regular missions from Chabelley, an airstrip the French run with the approval of the Djiboutian government. Washington pays Djibouti for access to Paris' outpost. Part of the reason for this circuitous chain of responsibility could be the fact that the Pentagon's drone missions are often controversial. Critics contend targeted strikes against militants are illegal under American and international law and tantamount to assassination. "The military is easily capable of adapting to change, but they don't like to stop anything they feel is making their lives easier, or is to their benefit. And this certainly is, in their eyes, a very quick, clean way of doing things. It's a very slick, efficient way to conduct the war, without having to have the massive ground invasion mistakes of Iraq and Afghanistan."
The Pentagon does not list Chabelley in its annual Base Structure Report, the only official compendium of American military facilities around the world. "The Chebelley base [is] a reflection of the growing presence of the U.S. military in Africa," says Dr. David Vine, author of 'Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World". "The [U.S.] military has gone to great lengths to disguise and downplay its growing presence in Africa generally in the hopes of avoiding negative attention and protests both in the U.S. and in African countries wary of the colonial-esque presence of foreign troops." American drones fly regular missions from Chabelley, an airstrip the French run with the approval of the Djiboutian government. Washington pays Djibouti for access to Paris' outpost. Part of the reason for this circuitous chain of responsibility could be the fact that the Pentagon's drone missions are often controversial. Critics contend targeted strikes against militants are illegal under American and international law and tantamount to assassination. "The military is easily capable of adapting to change, but they don't like to stop anything they feel is making their lives easier, or is to their benefit. And this certainly is, in their eyes, a very quick, clean way of doing things. It's a very slick, efficient way to conduct the war, without having to have the massive ground invasion mistakes of Iraq and Afghanistan."
Why the heck did a purely-political article like this one end up on the front page of Slashdot?!
Is it just to stir up argument, to try to get more ad impressions?
It's hilarious that we see so many good Slashdot comments modded "Troll" or "Flamebait" so often, when it's stories like this that are far worse than those comments ever are.
And before anyone wastes their time pointing out that this submission is about drones, let me remind you that it isn't. It's about nothing more than the politics around drones. The technology itself is playing second fiddle in this story, well behind the politics.
Enough with the political articles, Hugh and the editors. We want real stories here, not junk like this!
Have gnu, will travel.
"Chabelley Airfield is less than 10 miles from the capital of the small African nation of Djibouti"
So much for the secret base
Same as the stories about Hillary and Flint, GMO crops, etc., etc.
In the past, force multipliers like rifles, grenades, and rockets were used to up the death toll while keeping the participants hands from being as bloodied, and it is unclear this has been for the better.
A rational young man forced to war by draft or patriotism is much, much more likely to quickly have his fill of it standing close to the death and horror.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
It seems like whatever moral victory was obtained in the decolonization process in the 50s and 60s was lost (and then some) in the chaos and kleptocracy that followed.
Were the British colonies horrible, apartheid-style military dictatorships or were they something perhaps paternalistic but not repressive? Were many of them evolving in terms of local autonomy or civil rights, or just staying repressive?
I guess I'm trying not to assume their past was rosy, but I wonder how many adults who remember 1950s Rhodesia look back from Mugabe's Zimbabwe and think maybe being Rhodesian wasn't so bad.
I'd have to guess that access to the UK economy would have been beneficial and that the colonial officials would have made sure the roads and electricity worked.
Totally agree. I love technology. For politics and shit there is the everyday news
30 people die for every "terrorist" killed by a drone
Citation?
The goal is destabilization to scare off competing 'investments' and keep the Russians in a box. Mission accomplished!
Small, distributed bases make a lot of sense. A lesson I would hope was learned in Pearl Harbor. You know, *eggs in one basket*, etc. And not just for the drones, they blend in a tiny bit better... Could even make them unmanned, with automated fueling spigots and and weapons loading, operating in the dark.
When does Genesis launch?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
has been around for years. The US gets "invited" in by some emerging democracy, leader and builds a small camp with a runway.
Just like in another few nations in the region.
Just how very "very slick" and "efficient" can be found in the Drone Papers https://theintercept.com/drone...
The Pentagon's New Generation of Secret Military Bases (Jul. 16, 2012)
How the Pentagon is quietly transforming its overseas base empire and creating a dangerous new way of war.
http://www.motherjones.com/pol...
As for the US 'French" connection? Clinton Email Shows that Oil and Gold Were Behind Regime Change In Libya (01/09/2016)
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/...
Will the US vision of a remote war work? For that the US needs constant signals intelligence ie people have to walk around with electronics that is "on" and been in use. Shared electronics or electronics thats just been driven around randomly could be another part of the puzzle.
Another method was to hand out tagging and tracking systems to local "freedom fighters" or US trained "moderates" to then place near people of interest. Such efforts can get used to quickly settle local issues rather than the US expected role for easy leadership decapitation.
The US is still trying to reduce flight time and get more loitering time.
Great news for the contractors and mercenaries working hours. Just like the Vietnam war base funding, pacification ideas and search and destroy zones but no complex draft politics back home.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
There are many articles about the poor ratio of intended targets vs. "collateral damage" or civilian deaths.
http://mic.com/articles/16949/...
http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/25/...
But you know that because you can Google too.
The US now prefers killing poor people in 3rd world countries with robots. Not very brave or noble. Not very good for our standing in the world. Not good for poor people in 3rd world countries.
In fact, it isn't good for anyone but defense contractors.
A brain is a terrible thing to waste... Mind? That's debatable.
I don't like this kind of stuff very much. It seems like this administration is willing to get us involved in every conflict on the globe... but not very much involved. Enough to piss all the locals off, but not enough to affect the outcome of whatever is going on. I'd rather see the US adhere to the so-called "Powell Doctrine" (much older than Powell) - stay out of other peoples' business until significant national interests are really at stake. And if you have to go to war you don't do it half-assed.
It's not much of a "war" if your opponent has no way to defend themselves much less retaliate against your attacks.
Considering we also have a problem with cruelty, being able to determine when we are bombing a hospital and stopping the act, and making little kids fear the sky, I don't think assassination goes quite far enough to describe the US governments use of drones in combat. It's pure murder, caused by people who have gone insane with power, accountable to no one. Who will complain? The dead victims families? Who never saw the attacks coming? Who would take responsibility? A government that places no value on the lives of others during war, and places so much money into their war machine that attempting to get them to back down would require support from the entire world? No one should be able to kill like that. Not an individual, not a government, no one. The US government should be condemned and punished for their actions and the use of these things. I say that as a US Citizen, albeit as an AC, as even I would fear those drones being used on us.
The US now prefers killing poor people in 3rd world countries with robots. Not very brave or noble. Not very good for our standing in the world. Not good for poor people in 3rd world countries.
In fact, it isn't good for anyone but defense contractors.
It's also absolutely brilliant for Al Qaeda and friends, even more so than the defence contractors. The US achieves essentially zero through their robot assassination programs for themselves (on the off chance that they do hit something other than women, children, and old people, they're quickly and easily replaced), but creates a hugely visible motivation for recruitment into terrorist organisations to avenge the killings.
Of course then you need even more drone strikes to deal with that, so perhaps that's the whole plan, the more terrorists your drone strikes recruit, the more drones General Atomics and friends get to sell...
The idea was that internal secret police had to be used to keep independence movements contained. The US did not want to be seen in public supporting such a role in post ww2 Africa. The US liked the idea of supporting new nations that would then be totally dependant on the US and its brands, services with no political issues.
The UK and some other EU powers tried to stay on for as long as they could under their own local leaders or more direct rule.
The West was even ready to swap to military dictatorships as long as their NSA and GCHQ stations got to stay in the region.
eg Silvermine, HMS Vacoas, Heliopolis, Kagnew Ethiopia.
Keeping a massive secret police was expensive for the UK. Other EU powers had cash flow issues after ww2 into the 1970's.
The wider media started to note the methods needed to keep independence movements down and what local leaders did under the cover of their colonial masters.
The cost and optics started to catch up with EU nations selling a freedom loving message into the 1950-70's.
Local autonomy or token civil rights was not freedom from another nations monarchy, rules, taxation, military.
Would any nation like to have its leadership, faith, courts ruled from another nation?
For the West it was often just about trade and mil access at the lowest cost. Full independence and huge new bank loans was cheaper than troops been lost on the ground.
Re "UK economy would have been.. " The UK did not have the free cash to run, police control parts of Africa and support its own internal post ww2 rebuilding.
Too many camera crews would have seen the results of UK police or mil actions and told the world after the 1950's.
The UK role in more Mau Mau Uprising like events would not have made for good TV every night if seen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Other nations had the same raw materials much cheaper or new advanced materials became more interesting globally.
Now the US has to go back and do the same deals with local leaders for bases.
China, even Vietnam had the real smarts when it came to supporting Africa. Help the locals with growing food, building rail, energy, mines, jobs ie not just huge cash loans that the West liked giving nations leadership so much.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
"It's hilarious that we see so many good Slashdot comments modded "Troll" or "Flamebait" so often, when it's stories like this that are far worse than those comments ever are."
Because Troll == 'I strongly disagree' and Flamebait == "Not only do I strongly disagree, but the poster might even be a Republican."
The CNN report indicates, at worst, about a 1:3 ratio of civilian deaths to combatant deaths. "TBIJ reports that from June 2004 through mid-September 2012, available data indicate that drone strikes killed 2,562 - 3,325 people in Pakistan, of whom 474 - 881 were civilians, including 176 children. TBIJ reports that these strikes also injured an additional 1,228 - 1,362 individuals," This is bad. We should talk about whether it is worth killing one innocent person for each combatant. But this is a very different conversation than the 30:1 conversation suggested by the AC.
'cause STAR TREK already did this! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Because (frequent) submitter runs Peace Corp Online.
I come here for the love
Got us to read the whole bloody article...
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
the more terrorists your drone strikes recruit, the more drones General Atomics and friends get to sell...
This is the "military–industrial complex" Eisenhower warned about in action.
Your second citation completely contradicts your claim-
"TBIJ reports that from June 2004 through mid-September 2012, available data indicate that drone strikes killed 2,562 - 3,325 people in Pakistan, of whom 474 - 881 were civilians, including 176 children. TBIJ reports that these strikes also injured an additional 1,228 - 1,362 individuals," according to the Stanford/NYU study.
Your first citation takes a claim from the second, that only 2% of people killed are "high value targets" and twists that into "only 2% of people killed are terrorists". That is not at all true. A rank and file ISIS member is definitely a terrorist, but not a high value target. Only management level people earn that distinction.
I bought some badasss UAVs for my nephews and youngest son at Christmas for a hundred quid ($142.50) per kid including some spare parts ans extra batteries. The poor US unmanned bunch pays $40 million US per MQ-1 Predator.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
It's a curious argument, but Rome did colonize Africa. Most of North Africa was controlled by Rome and largely part of the Roman empire after the fall of Carthage and the Jugurthine war. And the Romans controlled most of the middle East, although beyond Damascus it was frequently challenged by the Parthians.
And pretty much all of those places are a train wreck now, with plenty of tribal conflicts. In fact, bribing tribal leaders to abandon loyalty to al Qaeda was one of the principal counterinsurgency strategies of the US in Iraq.
You might make the argument that the Romans didn't really eliminate tribalism, but what they did was Romanize them so that while they may have remained kind of tribal they adopted enough Roman culture that their commonalities outweighed their tribal differences to the point where trade and cooperation made the whole greater than the sum of its parts.
Debunking venerated myths or persons is also unwelcome: viz
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
There should be a new mod category for this: -1, Apostasy.
"Slick and efficient if you don't happen to be someone who lives in the affected countries"
Yes, it's in the abstract: "It's a very slick, efficient way to conduct the war".
But wasn't war that little thing the president should announce and get approved by the Congress? When did USA declare war to Somalia and Yemen?
And killing people not at war with without due process, wasn't assassination, a crime both under USA and international laws?
LOL! +1, insightful!! :)
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
There have always been politics on Slashdot?
You must be new here.
It turns out you can be a nerd about warfare, too.
Killing the enemy is killing, not murder. They decided they wanted to make war on the US and it allies and now they are paying the price.
Your lines about "people who have gone insane with power" and "accountable to no one" are bullshit.
You don't like it? Vote for someone else. I'll let you in on a secret - pretty much anyone likely to win will do the same thing. The US isn't going to let them kill American citizens and allies without paying a price.
Yes and no. Killing an enemy in a time of war is by definition not murder, but is killing with legal justification. (I.e. a designated enemy in a time of war, plus usually in self-defense or defense of others if the war is legal, since almost every legal war today is couched in self-defense).
That does not necessarily mean "They decided they wanted to make war on the US and it allies and now they are paying the price." Because (1) the guy you're killing is almost never the one who made that decision, and (2) sometimes you kill the wrong guy. Someone can be an enemy and be just as honorable as an American soldier, just like an American soldier can be just as dishonorable as someone acting on behalf of a bad guy.
Dehumanizing the enemy is as old as war.
I'm not defending ISIS--the shit they've pulled, every decision-maker deserves more than whatever happens to him. But some guy holding an AK who's standing near one of the decision-makers may just not want to get his family shot.
This is the "military–industrial complex" Eisenhower warned about in action.
Not really, no. The MIC that Eisenhower warned about account for about 40% of GDP at the end of WW2. Since then it has fallen to about 4.5% of GDP. If the MIC were all powerful would it have lost that much economic power? No. The simple fact is that both the military and military spending have scaled to the need. There was huge need in WW2, after that it dropped. There have been occasional spikes, such as Viet Nam, and during the 80s, but the overall trend has been decline since the height of WW2. The end of the Cold War brought significant cutbacks as well.
The US spends twice as much for social welfare spending than it does for military spending.
The Military-Industrial Complex is mainly a boogeyman for rousing and scaring progressives.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Well, no. They're not at all robots, just remotely-piloted aircraft. How would this be different if the aircraft were a F/A-18E instead?
Also for fighting endless wars.
Says the right-wing crybaby whose parent comment is currently at +5
Witness right-wing fragility in action, people.
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
Why the heck did a purely-political article like this one end up on the front page of Slashdot?!
Drones?
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
It's a very slick, efficient way to conduct the war, without having to have the massive ground invasion mistakes of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Have we gone completely schizo now. I thought the narrative was it was the surge and boots on the ground that finally brought some order to those places, or are we only talking about the narrow context of defeating the traditional military forces there?
Given the great success that Libya, Yemen, Syria, and to a lessor extent Iraq and Afghanistan I am not see much in the form of experiences we want to repeat. This whole air-power only strategy does not seem to be securing the outcomes we want. I think we could argue that its done little but destabilize the region going all the way back to William Cruise-missile Clinton.
I am of the opinion if we are not willing to put troops on the ground to create a reasonable security situation after we disrupt whatever it is that is going on we probably have no business meddling. If various groups around the world are upset at our presence and don't like our bases nearby I saw we pack up and go home. My suspicions are they will change their tune when they experience what its like to not have us there. The economic impacts of not having US troops and facilities to create demand in their local economies, our not being a deterrent to the ambitions of would be local bad actors, the suddenly greater influence of regional powers like Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc, and finally the influence of other world powers China, Russia; I suspect all of these things would have them begging for us to come back.
Much like Russia/(old USSR) did ( intentionally or otherwise ) the best thing we could do is retreat from the world stage for awhile. We have enough lead in weapons tech, and plenty of money and economic influence still to re-assert ourselves once are detractors realize how good things were.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
you will know full well that this war machine is coming and you may contribute by providing negative test cases.
get to work! we expect many bug reports.
You can Google this too.
https://theintercept.com/drone...
Our government says that virtually no civilians are killed by drones, and we know from as far back as Vietnam that the military lies when it comes to casualties and deaths. If they want to make it sound like the war is going well, they boost the number of enemy killed. If they want to make the drone program sound precise, they lie about the civilian casualties. That's their business model.
A brain is a terrible thing to waste... Mind? That's debatable.
MIC jobs are one of the last holdouts of the middle class. Many of those jobs have to be done in the US. By shifting that money to other areas of the economy, then it goes to a sector that can be outsourced and it does magically disappear, at least from the US.
https://theintercept.com/drone...
A brain is a terrible thing to waste... Mind? That's debatable.
The pilots would possibly be endangered. I knew someone here would complain that I used the term robot. UAVs are remote controlled robots.
In my opinion, and that of many others, killing people overseas when there is no declared war is a war crime. A very, very serious war crime.
A brain is a terrible thing to waste... Mind? That's debatable.
the poster might even be a Republican
It's funny, because I would have said "socialist/Democrat" or "SJW". Soylent might actually be on to something with the Disagree mod, but the troll voting blocks would probably ignore it because it doesn't count as a -1.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Heh, sorry, I wasn't complaining; I've encountered a few people who think that UAVs are evil but a manned jet is just peachy. I should have higher expectations for /.
As far as pilots being in danger, it's pretty unlikely given who we're currently after. Manned or unmanned, we're out of range of anything they have, with the exception of low-flying aircraft, like the A-10 or helos.
The US hasn't declared war since FDR. AUMFs, like them or not, are the "new normal." (That's not an argument in favor of drone strikes; merely saying that declaring war, or even saying the word "war," is politically unpopular.)
Agreed. The US is no longer occupying the moral high ground. We only attack countries that can't defend themselves, and then when someone tries to strike back with a terrorist attack we act shocked. Personally, I believe that the US is trying to instigate more terror attacks in order to justify our obscene military budget and aggression around the world. It's job security for the military-congressional-defense contractor complex. They should at least be honest and change the name from the "defense dept." to either the "offense dept." or the "war dept.". We aren't defending anything, but we sure are attacking lots of things.
A brain is a terrible thing to waste... Mind? That's debatable.
It really depends on who has mod points at the time, I think. I find that a lot of those controversial articles see everyone get modded down, with maybe a few exceptions. People seem to like modding opposing opinions down more than supporting opinions up.
I also think most Democrats don't get modded down a lot, unless they're really far left. Moderate left seems to fair better than moderate right here, although YMMV.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
While I agree that drone strikes aren't as surgical as the administration is making them out to be - and should be far better - both articles you cited are misleading. The CNN article, for instance, says that only 1 in 50 people killed is a "high-level" target. That means the ratio of enemy combatants to civilians is probably much better, seeing as high-level targets are often accompanied by lower-level targets. The Mic article references a NYT article that makes the same mistake.
That isn't to say I support the drone strikes - I do think there's still an unacceptable level of off-target kills. I also think that it's an easy choice for the US to make, as it's much cheaper and easier to stop if they want to, but I think ultimately it hurts both innocent civilians and US interests in the long term.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
Where's the war on illiteracy
You mean the public education system? Or the many literacy programs that public libraries offer?
on mental illness, on unwanted pregnancies, on homelessness
How would a "war on mental illness" be fought? Should there be taxpayer-funded clinics for people to get lithium, etc.? As for unwanted pregnancies - ever hear of Planned Parenthood? Sex Ed could be a lot better in many US states, true, but the Feds don't have the authority to force that issue. Homelessness is tough to deal with, true, and we should be doing more.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
The US has a habit of setting bad precedents these days and that is especially true of drone assassinations. Now every country will want a drone fleet, and we have given them all the excuses they need to employ them to "kill terrorists". Of course, like us, they will be the ones who decide what a terrorist is. UK courts just decided that journalists should not be considered terrorists, indicating that we are in a world of hurt when that question even comes up.
http://www.theguardian.com/com...
How can the US complain when other countries deploy drones to "kill terrorists"? It can be done much cheaper than our drone program, and with much less high-end technology. You just need a video camera on an RCA big enough to carry an explosive payload. What goes around comes around. But then again, I am sure that is the whole point. The US wants instability, or we wouldn't be forcing regime change all over the place. I can't imagine that the government hasn't figured out that regime change leads to conflict, civil war and refugee crises. In fact, it happens every time.
A brain is a terrible thing to waste... Mind? That's debatable.
but the overall trend has been decline since the height of WW2...
Not according to the Washington Post
You're awarethat the US has the world's largest military budget aren't you?
You're wrong.
Where's the war on illiteracy, on mental illness, on unwanted pregnancies, on homelessness?
It's doing about as well as the war on drugs from what I hear.