Taking the Adam Curry view of the world, when al-Qaeda is eliminated in all these places, these forces will be left in place to enforce our control over those countries as the One World Government program of the Bilderberg Group and others pick up steam.
President Obama has secretly sanctioned a huge increase in the number of US special forces carrying out search-and-destroy missions against al-Qaeda around the world, with American troops now operating in 75 countries.
The dramatic expansion in the use of special forces, which in their global span go far beyond the covert missions authorised by George W. Bush, reflects how aggressively the President is pursuing al-Qaeda behind his public rhetoric of global engagement and diplomacy.
[…]
According to The Washington Post, Mr Obama has also approved pre-emptive special forces strikes to disrupt terror plots, and has given the units powers and authority that was not granted by Mr Bush when he occupied the White House.It also emerged yesterday that Robert Gates, the US Defence Secretary, has ordered the Pentagon to find savings of more than $100 billion (£68 billion) over the next five years to redistribute more funds for combat forces — including special operations units. […] The effort to provide more money for combat forces in Afghanistan and Iraq — including special operations units — is likely to lead to a clash with Congress, and also with the defence industry if favoured equipment programmes are scrapped.
Awww. The poor Senators and Congressmen can’t get their kickbacks… er, um… campaign contributions from defense contractors for weapon systems we don’t need.
lets see..
Japan, we are still there.
Pacific islands? we have bases all over them
Korea..Dont think so..
Viet Nam, yep we are still there.
Britain? I think we have a base there.
Israel.. yep, base there..
Turkey?? yep..
Turkey and Israel are having problems, we need another base in the middle east.
In case nobody has noticed our national guard has been doing one heck of a lot of combat time in war zones. Being full time professional soldiers during ??peace?? time wasn’t exactly what most of them signed up to do.
We need more regular military and a lot fewer pen pushers. The “no front lines/behind enemy lines” kind of fighting we’ve been doing for the last several years is exactly the kind of combat special forces are trained to do.
The entire military assigned to the Middle East is getting special forces training, if not from the brass, then by surviving their tours of duty.
Doesn’t a little cabin on a dirt road, about 30 miles from any town sound good about now? Of course, you would have to have a car and buy gasoline to travel to get your groceries, but no Internet, no newspapers, no Jehovah’s Witnesses. AHhhhhhh.
How are we going to support this giant military when the economy finally collapses into Great Depression II? Make no mistake about it the shit has yet to really hit the fan. All the stimulus money has just delayed it a bit.
I wonder how the creepy shrills like Dallas and Obamaforever are going to spin this.
Remember this promise?
“My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.”
http://whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/transparencyandopengovernment/
This is smart. This is how you want to fight a war against a terrorist organization. You don’t fight 10,000 terrorists in 100 countries by invading 2 and sending 100,000 of thousands. This makes military sense and is how it should have been done.
Troll baiting.
I didn’t vote for Obama but the idea that he would broadcast all military moves for “openness” in government is ludicrous and support him in this area. Heck, I even remember some of Fox News military analysts calling for this back in the Bush/Cheney days.
#6 and #8 are thinking the right way.
The New York Times won’t leak things if a Democrat is President, so a good move.
Isn’t Obama supposed to be the Hope and Change wonder of the New America??
Bowing to every two-bit dictator, apologizing to the world for ills of the evil American Empire, and kissing everybody’s ass?
Holding hands and singing kumbaya while heralding the new and everlasting universal peace?
So how are these “search and destroy special ops” any different than the CIA death squads and mercenary armies of ages past? So exactly how are they any different than American support for the Afghan Mujaheedin, Salvadoran Death Squads, or the Nicaraguan Contras??
And that worked out so well!!
Piling on with 6, 8, and 9.
If the threat is an international network of radicals who are soft targets why would you ever need the Big Army?
Once you figure out who and where they are a handgun is going to be more useful than a tank.
#12: correct, though a Predator or other precisely aimed weapon might be/has been better in some cases. A tank, bomb, or other large weapon would be overkill.
#1 ECA
One of the most important bases in the pacific was located in Subic Bay the Philipines. Every ship that crossed the pacific stopped there. They had airbase, shipyards, R’N’R for horny sailors, the whole 9 yards. Unfortunately after the people knocked over the chump dictator Ferdinand Marcos, that the US of course was propping up, they kicked us out of there.
Myself I stopped believing in war and military solutions even before I finished my 4+ years in the USNavy.
As soon as everyone is dead, so will the terrorists be.
You gotta love armchair generals. We created Al-CIADA and now we have to kill the monster. And we never fucking learn anything…ever.
Wowee zowee. Either we go out and kill these bastards, or we don’t. Which side are you Pinkos on, anyway???
Yes, McCullough.
You nailed it here.
Are we not responsible, in a very real way, for Osama Bin Laden? Didn’t we give him and Al-Qaeda a start by making him a Mujaheedin war hero through our covert war in Afghanistan?
Didn’t we help create the monster Saddam Hussein by propping him up during the Iran-Iraq war?
Talking about Iraq, didn’t we screw the pooch there as well??
All problems of our own invention.
And now Obama is devising new and creative ways to give us MORE of the same?
#1 ECA – Turkey? We don’t need Turkey for a military base, anymore. Why do you think we fought the war in Kosovo? The US built a “temporary” base in Kosovo. I invite you to fire up Google Earth and look for Camp Bondsteel. Anything about it look temporary to you?
Obama is pursuing the only practical strategy. Combat the terrorist covert war with a superior covert force – special forces.
The Cheney and Rumsfeld administration strategy of fighting terrorism with tanks and howitzers to fight terrorism was expected from a pair of relics from the Vietnam war.
Cleary this strategy is effective, efficient and scalable to fight where the need to be. Furthermore, the great commander in chief that he is, he has eliminated the red tape by empowering the commanders in the field. Again, this is unlike the decision making from Cheney’s bunker.
Only the conservative simpletons would advocate the tired, expensive carpet bombing of camels that Cheney liked.
>> Ah_Yea said, on June 5th, 2010 at 10:44 am
>> Isn’t Obama supposed to be the Hope and Change wonder of the New America??
>> Bowing to every two-bit dictator, apologizing to the world for ills of the evil American Empire, and kissing everybody’s ass?
>> Holding hands and singing kumbaya while heralding the new and everlasting universal peace?
Dude, you need to take a break from the right wing psycho talk. Only the right wing nutcases where saying that about Obama and you seem to actually believe it.
Seriously, step away from the right wing media. Too much of it makes you stupid.
I don’t have a problem with the president telling people that if you want to be friends, we can be friends. If you want to attack us then you will be dead, and Special Forces is the right way to do it.
Also I’m sick to death of hearing about how “we” created all this. We just aren’t all that powerful, sorry to the folks that think we are in “control” of everything.
It’s time to get over ourselves and admit that the world is not in our control and that we do the best we can. If thats not good enough for you, then run for office and make it better.
I KNEW the Obamabot nutjobs would finally get here!
Hello Dallas and GregAllan.
How about actually discussing the issue that Obama is following and expanding the GW Bush playbook, which both of you acolytes crucified Bush for doing.
Didn’t both of you follow the Pre-Obama Democratic party line that these types of attacks increase radicalization of Muslims, thereby creating more terrorist? How overjoyed you were that Obama was not going down the same road??
Oh, I forgot. If Bush did it, it’s bad. If Obama does it, it’s good.
Silly me.
The US can’t be international police.
The main reason we try to be international police is big business due to international corporations who make a lot of political contributions yet their US divisions never make a profit and therefore don’t pay taxes.
The idea of the US maintaining a permanent war against “terrorism” is insane. It isn’t our responsibility, we don’t have the money and it won’t achieve results until helping us go broke counts as a “result”.
Learn from history; empire building always and without exception leads to a collapse.
It hurts me to see the US falling into this trap.
When those troops come home their guns will be pointing at the American people. Everything is going exactly as the true powers had planned it. Obama, is a politician and as such has no power, nor did Bush, or any of their predecessors. They obey their masters. Masters who have become more ambitious and won’t be content until they control us all. Revolution is the only thing they fear. So they keep the people fearful and paranoid and prepare for that which they cannot avoid.
#26 Agree the US is and has been going down the slippery slope of empire building. This Republican led strategy is costing > half trillion annual to sustain and a big business (Haliburton, Ratheon,..) propping up republican thugs in Congress.
The Bush Iraq war has been quite the boon as we all know. However, don’t confuse fighting true enemies with empire building – Pres Obama knows the difference.
The Busheeple in here like to blend the two to support the GOP’s rebranding plans of tying Bush’s policy with Obama’s.
Warmly smile, speak softly, and put a maverick missile in their front door.
I’m starting to really like Obama.
Dallas said, “Obama is pursuing the only practical strategy. Combat the terrorist covert war with a superior covert force – special forces.”
Yes, the 30k troop increase in Af was mostly spec forces. ROFLMAO!
Keeping shilling for Obie I.