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IPFS News Link • United States

A Day in the Life of the Empire by Charles Goyette

• https://www.lewrockwell.com - Charles Goyette

On March 9, 2015 President Obama formally declared a new national emergency.

Most Americans went about their business that day without ever suspecting that what the White House called "an unusual and extraordinary threat to our national security" had suddenly popped up.

It wasn't as though the United States was insufficiently engaged in war at the time.  That very day the U.S. Central Command announced that in the period of just a few hours beginning the previous day it had conducted five new air strikes in Syria and nine in Iraq as part of Operation Inherent Resolve.

At the time Saudi Arabia was within weeks of going to war in Yemen with airstrikes that would rely on U.S. targeting and surveillance support.  U.S. drone attacks had been ongoing in Yemen for years

President Obama's declaration of a national emergency occurred on the same day, March 9, that the Pentagon announced the deployment of 3,000 troops to the Baltics for military exercises.  The mission, "Operation Atlantic Resolve," included some 750 US Army tanks, fighting vehicles, and other equipment.  The deployment coincided with two weeks of NATO naval exercises in the Black Sea that got underway the next day.

Meanwhile, as a part of Operation Atlantic Resolve, Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, commander of United States Army forces in Europe, was busy preparing for the launch of "Operation Dragoon Ride."  In less than two weeks he would send convoys of armored vehicles and soldiers rolling across Eastern Europe.  Altogether U.S. European operations in the spring and summer of 2015 consisted of some two dozen training missions, exercises, and deployments.  U.S. activities culminated with Operation BALTOPS, a NATO Baltic Sea exercise with 50 warships and 5,6oo participants from 17 nations.

It was on March 9 as well, that Defense News reported on a $1 billion administration funding package called European Reassurance Initiative, linked to Operation Atlantic Resolve, which included $70 million in May – September U.S. Army construction projects in Eastern Europe.  A follow-up story described projects in six countries — Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria –  that demanded the shipment of 160 pieces of heavy engineering equipment overseas, and include the construction of two-lane tanks trails, storage facilities and other buildings.  Such projects are designed in part as wealth transfer programs to ingratiate the U.S. with allies by subsidizing local economies with infrastructure, resource, and local payroll spending.

Also that day, March 9, Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations was busy urging European countries to increase their military commitments to the U.N.   Speaking in Brussels, Power cited U.S. military personnel already involved in around 100 countries around the world.  Even at that number Power understated the case.

At the same time the administration was busy preparing more military aid for the government that it helped install in the 2014 Ukraine coup.  Vice President Joe Biden called President Poroshenko two days later to announce the news of a $75 million package consisting of 30 armored Humvees and 200 other Humvees, along with radios, counter-mortar radar, night-vision devices and aerial drones.

As it happened, on the very day that President Obama revealed an extraordinary new threat to our national security, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected appeals in cases involving U.S. treatment of detainees in Guantanamo Bay, including a suit over torture of a Syrian man.

Asia is included in the global appetite of the U.S. warfare state.  On the day at issue, March 9, the U.S. Naval Institute published a piece urging the establishment of a Navy International Maritime Operations Center headquartered in Indonesia "to showcase the Navy's commitment to the Asia-Pacific, monitor maritime developments in the South China Sea and Indian Ocean and serve as a new mechanism to meet China's rise."

Also on March 9, the U.S. Africa Command(!) wrapped up three weeks of its Operation Flintlock military exercises in Chad, with additional operations in Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon and Tunisia.  The Special Operations Forces exercises involved more than 1,000 personnel from over 20 countries.  Unknown to most Americans, missions in Africa are soaring.  Nick Turse, author of  Tomorrow's Battlefield: U.S. Proxy Wars and Secret Ops in Africa, wrote that in 2014, "U.S. troops were carrying out almost two operations, exercises, or activities — from drone strikes to counterinsurgency instruction, intelligence gathering to marksmanship training — somewhere in Africa every day."

It wasn't until the brouhaha surrounding President Trump's call of condolence to the widow of La David Johnson, one of four U.S. soldiers killed Oct. 4, 2017 in action in Niger, that even congressmen had any idea of the breadth of US military activities in Africa. Befuddled senators like Chuck Schumer and Bob Casey admitted they did not even know there were US troops in Niger.  "We don't know exactly where we're at in the world, militarily, and what we're doing," said Lindsay Graham.

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