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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
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.
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.
"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 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.
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.
There should be a new mod category for this: -1, Apostasy.
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