JOSHUA KEATING: Forever Wars Don’t End. They Just Go Corporate.

By Dilip -
The U.S. increasingly relies on private contractors in a vast number of overseas military operations, creating a status quo that both obscures the extent of the U.S. military’s reach and creates a host of new dangers. If Trump moves ahead with troop withdrawals - the Pentagon is reportedly considering a major drawdown in Africa even as conflicts with jihadi groups in Somalia and West Africa intensify - these contractors could take on an even greater role.

 President Donald Trump speaks frequently about his desire to bring U.S. troops home from places like Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan and bring a close to the “endless wars” he inherited. Just last Wednesday he boasted that “we left Syria.” This isn’t even true in an official sense, but troop numbers also only tell part of the story. Some boots are not being counted at all.

In a stunning report on Wednesday, the New York Times revealed details of a Jan. 3 attack by the Somali jihadi group Al-Shabab on a base in neighboring Kenya that left three Americans dead. The Pentagon was so alarmed by the incident that it quickly deployed 100 troops to restore security at the base at Manda Bay. But it got almost no attention in the United States, perhaps because it occurred in the aftermath of the killing of another contractor, in Iraq, which set off the tit-for-tat cycle that nearly brought the U.S. and Iran to war. Two of the three Americans were civilian contractors.... read more:
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/01/military-contractors-iraq-kenya-syria.html

 see also
Is Donald Trump the Second 9/11? Or Is He the Third? By Tom Engelhardt
Chauncey DeVega: Trump is mentally ill but our real sickness runs much deeper
Trump, Troll-in-Chief, wags the Impeachment Dog by Going to War with Iran
Donald Trump has blundered into a crisis of his own making with Iran. By Mohamad Bazzi
Victor Jara murder: ex-military officers sentenced in Chile for 1973 death
Andrew Bacevich: High Crimes and Misdemeanors of the Fading American Century
Lucian Truscott: Trump wants to end the forever wars - except the one about oil and money
William Astore: The U.S. Military’s Lost Wars // Chris Hedges: The American Empire Will Collapse Within a Decade, Two at Most
Tom Dispatch - William Astore, From Deterrence to Doomsday? // C. Wright Mills on The Structure of Power in American Society (1958) // The Week the World Almost Ended by Nate Jones and J. Peter Scoblic
Sam Kriss: 'Neoliberalism' isn't a left-wing insult but a monstrous system of inequality
Andrea Mazzarino, How War Targets the Young
Keeping up with China: US Navy orders $22 billion worth of submarines // World military expenditure grows to $1.8 trillion in 2018
World military expenditure grows to $1.8 trillion in 2018
MONEY TO BURN: Over 300 banks and investors back 6 of the world’s most harmful agribusinesses to the tune of $44bn
John Sentamu - It’s time to act against the oil companies causing death and destruction
Capitalism and war: The money behind Sudan's most powerful militia
Michael Roberts: The top 1% own 45% of all global personal wealth; the bottom 50% own less than 1% // Global Economic Volatility and Socio Political Reactions
From Siberia to Australia: the age of fire is the bleakest warning yet


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