BBC: Rusland 'misbruikt humor' om Russiagate te ontkrachten..... ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!

Caitlin Johnstone publiceerde gisteren een artikel met de titel 'Don't Laugh: It's giving Putin What He Wants'.

In haar artikel schenkt Johnstone aandacht aan wat Olga Robinson van het Britse propaganda apparaat BBC heeft gesteld: Rusland gebruikt (ze bedoelt: misbruikt) humor om wat westerse regeringen haar ten laste leggen, te ridiculiseren >> ofwel humor om de ten laste leggingen die zijn gemaakt in het Russiagate sprookje...... Robinson noemt dit een vorm van 'trolling...' ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! (het zal haar bedoeling niet zijn, maar de leugens van Robinson en die van de BBC in het algemeen, zijn regelmatig uiterst humoristisch, zoals deze stompzinnige insinuatie!)

In feite beschuldigt Robinson Rusland van het gebruiken van humor tegen de enorme berg aan leugens over zaken als Russiagate, het Brexit referendum en het onafhankelijkheidsreferendum van de Catalanen, waarin Rusland 'met haar manipulaties' de beslissende factor was, die tot de gewenste winst leidde...... Ofwel Rusland heeft Trump het presidentschap gegeven en heeft de boel zo gemanipuleerd dat de voorstanders van de Brexit het referendum wonnen en het Catalaanse referendum positief uitviel voor de onafhankelijkheidswens van de bevolking in die 'Spaanse provincie'.

Robinson heeft het gore lef e.e.a. te stellen terwijl er voor al deze zaken niet één steekhoudend bewijs is gevonden en dat na 2 jaar lang Rusland demoniseren door o.a. de BBC en de rest van de westerse reguliere media in het groot (uiteraard gesteund door het grootste deel van de westerse politici die de leugens keer op keer blijven herhalen.....)

Inderdaad Robinson als je in acht neemt wat jij en de BBC al hebben durven zeggen en schrijven over Russiagate, kan je veelal niet anders dan lachen, keihard lachen!!!

Don’t Laugh : It’s Giving Putin What He Wants

by Caitlin Johnstone

The BBC has published an article titled "How Putin's Russia turned humour into a weapon" about the Kremlin's latest addition to its horrifying deadly hybrid warfare arsenal: comedy.

The article is authored by Olga Robinson, whom the BBC, unhindered by any trace of self-awareness, has titled "Senior Journalist (Disinformation)". Robinson demonstrates the qualifications and acumen which earned her that title by warning the BBC's audience that the Kremlin has been using humor to dismiss and ridicule accusations that have been leveled against it by western governments, a "form of trolling" that she reports is designed to "deliberately lower the level of discussion".

Mark Ames

✔@MarkAmesExiled

Turns out jokes are a Russian disinformation conspiracy.
Is nothing safe? What will those barbarian Others think of next? Weaponizing our tears? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-46567364 …

581

5:45 PM - Dec 15, 2018

 

How Putin's Russia turned humour into a weapon

Russia's government wants people to have a laugh - as long as it's at its opponents' expense, and not Mr Putin's.

bbc.co.uk

"Russia's move towards using humour to influence its campaigns is a relatively recent phenomenon," Robinson explains, without speculating as to why Russians might have suddenly begun laughing at their western accusers. She gives no consideration to the possibility that the tightly knit alliance of western nations who suddenly began hysterically shrieking about Russia two years ago have simply gotten much more ridiculous and easier to make fun of during that time.

Couldn't possibly have anything to do with the emergence of a demented media environment wherein everything around the world from French protests to American culture wars to British discontent with the European Union gets blamed on Russia without any facts or evidence. Wherein BBC reporters now correct guests and caution themagainst voicing skepticism of anti-Russia narratives because the UK is in "an information war" with that nation. Wherein the same cable news Russiagate pundit can claim that both Rex Tillerson's hiring and his later firing were the result of a Russian conspiracy to benefit the Kremlin. Wherein mainstream outlets can circulate blatantly false information about Julian Assange and unnamed "Russians" and then blame the falseness of that reporting on Russian disinformation.

Wherein Pokemon Go, cutesy Facebook memes and $4,700 in Google ads are sincerely cited as methods by which Hillary Clinton's $1.2 billion presidential campaign was outdone. Wherein conspiracy theories that Putin has infiltrated the highest levels of the US government have been blaring on mainstream headline newsfor two years with absolutely nothing to show for it to this day.

Nope, the only possibility is that the Kremlin suddenly figured out that humor is a thing.

The fact of the matter is that humorous lampooning of western establishment Russia narratives writes itself. The hypocrisy is so cartoonish, the emotions are so breathlessly over-the-top, the stories so riddled with plot holes and the agendas underlying them so glaringly obvious that they translate very easily into laughs. I myself recently authored a satire piece that a lot of people loved and which got picked up by numerous alternative media outlets, and all I did was write down all the various escalations this administration has made against Russia as though they were commands being given to Trump by Putin. It was extremely easy to write, and it was pretty damn funny if I do say so myself. And it didn't take any Kremlin rubles or dezinformatsiya from St Petersburg to figure out how to write it.

"Ben Nimmo, an Atlantic Council researcher on Russian disinformation, told the BBC that attempts to create funny memes were part of the strategy as 'disinformation for the information age'," the article warns. Nimmo, ironically, is himself intimately involved withthe British domestic disinformation firm Integrity Initiative, whose shady government-sponsored psyops against the Labour Party have sparked a national scandal that is likely far from reaching peak intensity.

"Most comedy programmes on Russian state television these days are anodyne affairs which either do not touch on political topics, or direct humour at the Kremlin's perceived enemies abroad," Robinson writes, which I found funny since I'd just recently read an excellent essay by Michael Tracey titled "Why has late night swapped laughs for lusting after Mueller?"

"If the late night ‘comedy’ of the Trump era has something resembling a ‘message,’ it’s that large segments of the nation’s liberal TV viewership are nervously tracking every Russia development with a passion that cannot be conducive to mental health – or for that matter, political efficacy," Tracey writes, documenting numerous examples of the ways late night comedy now has audiences cheering for a US intelligence insider and Bush appointee instead of challenging power-serving media orthodoxies as programs like The Daily Show once did.

If you wanted the opposite of "anodyne affairs", it would be comedians ridiculing the way all the establishment talking heads are manipulating their audiences into supporting the US intelligence community and FBI insiders. It would be excoriating the media environment in which unfathomably powerful world-dominating government agencies are subject to less scrutiny and criticism than a man trapped in an embassy who published inconvenient facts about those agencies. It certainly wouldn't be the cast of Saturday Night Live singing "All I Want for Christmas Is You" to a framed portrait if Robert Mueller wearing a Santa hat. It doesn't get much more anodyne than that.

Russia makes fun of western establishment narratives about it because those narratives are so incredibly easy to make fun of that they are essentially asking for it, and the nerdy way empire loyalists are suddenly crying victim about it is itself more comedy. When Guardian writer Carole Cadwalladr began insinuating that RT covering standard newsworthy people like Julian Assange and Nigel Farage was a conspiracy to "boost" those people for the advancement of Russian agendas instead of a news outlet doing the thing that news reporting is, RT rightly made fun of her for it. Cadwalladr reacted to RT's mockery with a claim that she was a victim of "attacks", instead of the recipient of perfectly justified ridicule for circulating an intensely moronic conspiracy theory.

Ah well. People are nuts and we're hurtling toward a direct confrontation with a nuclear superpower. Sometimes there's nothing else to do but laugh. As Wavy Gravy said, "Keep your sense of humor, my friend; if you don't have a sense of humor it just isn't funny anymore."

_________________________

That was fun. So, the best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for my website, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My articles are entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of my sweet new merchandise, buying my new book Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone, or my previous book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers.

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Caitlin Johnstone | December 16, 2018 at 2:51 am |

Tags: BBC, comedy, disinformation, humour, laughter, propaganda, Putin, Russia |

Categories: Article | URL: https://wp.me/p9tj6M-1tV

==========================================
Zie ook:
'Massamedia VS vallen keihard door de mand met 'vers' geschoten Russiagate bok >> publiek wordt om vertrouwen gevraagd'

'Jacht in VS op alternatief (echt) nieuws in volgend stadium: journalist wordt vastgehouden zonder aanklacht'

'NewsGuard, het nieuwste wapen van Big Brother VS tegen de alternatieve media'

'Netflix censureert aflevering van humoristisch programma, 'na een geldig verzoek' op grond van Saoedische wetgeving....'

'Lichtgelovige 'atheïst' gelooft Russiagate leugens....'

'Britse militaire geheime dienst bedient zich van moddergooien en andere manipulaties om Europese en VS politiek te manipuleren, zo blijkt uit gelekte documenten'

'Bedrijf dat voor 'Russische bots' waarschuwde, heeft een leger met nep-Russische bots'

''Fake news': alternatieve media en bloggers in het westen zouden onzin brengen, echter niet als dit soort groepen wat roepen in landen die het westen niet welgevallig zijn'

'Waarom de burgers van de VS de illegale oorlogen steunen'

'Democraten deden zich voor als Russen in false flag operatie om Roy Moore (Republikein) zwart te maken tijdens verkiezing.....'

'Der Spiegel, groot bestrijder van 'fake news' bracht zelf jarenlang dit soort 'nieuws''

'Russiagate: de westerse massamedia gebruiken propaganda om het volk te manipuleren, precies waar ze Rusland van beschuldigen'

'Uitgelekte telefoongesprekken tussen Trump en Putin bewijzen dat 'Russiagaters gelijk hebben......''

'Russiagate en Assange: The Guardian wordt nu zelfs door collega's voor zot uitgemaakt'

The Guardian: ondanks een enorme misser (fake news) gaat men door met de valse beschuldigingen t.a.v. Assange......'

'WikiLeaks belooft The Guardian 1 miljoen dollar als het haar leugens i.z. Assange en Russiagate kan bewijzen.......'

''Banden van Trump met Rusland' gebaseerd op FBI operatie om VS 'burger' (CIA) in Iran vrij te krijgen......'

'Russiagate? Britaingate zal je bedoelen!'

'New York Times 'bewijzen' voor Russiagate vallen door de mand......'

'Facebook gebruikte 'fake news' beschuldiging om de aandacht voor schandalen af te leiden'

'Politico rapport bevestigt: Russiagate is een hoax'

'Obama gaf toe dat de DNC e-mails expres door de DNC werden gelekt naar Wikileaks....!!!!'

'De Israëlische manipulatie van de VS presidentsverkiezingen, gaat veel verder dan wat men Rusland in de schoenen schuift.....'

'FBI, de spin in het Russiagate web........'

''Russiagate' een complot van CIA, FBI, Hillary Clinton en het DNC...........'

''Russiagate' een verhaal van a t/m z westers 'fake news.....''

'Russiagate sprookje ondermijnt VS democratie en de midterm verkiezingen'

'Britse en VS manipulaties van verkiezingen en stimulatie van conflicten middels psychologische oorlogsvoering' (voor VS manipulaties van verkiezingen elders, liggen er 'metersdikke' dossiers, o.a. in te zien op WikiLeaks)

'FBI Director Comey Leaked Trump Memos Containing Classified Information'

'Publicly Available Evidence Doesn’t Support Russian Gov Hacking of 2016 Election'

'Murray, ex-ambassadeur van GB: de Russen hebben de VS verkiezingen niet gemanipuleerd'

''Russische manipulaties uitgevoerd' door later vermoord staflid Clintons campagneteam Seth Rich......... AIVD en MIVD moeten hiervan weten!!'

''Russiagate': Intel-raport over Russische bemoeienis met verkiezingen opgebouwd met leugens en is politiek gemotiveerd, aldus Matlock, voormalig VS ambassadeur in Moskou'

'Mocking Trump Doesn’t Prove Russia’s Guilt'

'CIA deed zich voor als het Russische Kaspersky Lab, aldus Wikileaks Vault 8.....'

'WikiLeaks: Seth Rich Leaked Clinton Emails, Not Russia'

'Hillary Clinton en haar oorlog tegen de waarheid........ Ofwel een potje Rusland en Assange schoppen!'

'CIA chef Pompeo waarschuwt voor complot van WikiLeaks om de VS op alle mogelijke manieren neer te halen....... ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!'

'VS 'democratie' aan het werk, een onthutsende en uitermate humoristische video!'

'Flashback: Clinton Allies Met With Ukrainian Govt Officials to Dig up Dirt on Trump During 2016 Election'

'Russia Is Trolling the Shit out of Hillary Clinton and the Mainstream Media'

'Russische 'hacks' door deskundigen nogmaals als fake news doorgeprikt >> Intel Vets Challenge ‘Russia Hack’ Evidence'

'Rusland krijgt alweer de schuld van hacken, nu van oplichters Symantec en Facebook....... ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!'

'Russiagate, of: hoe de media u belazeren met verhalen over Russische bemoeienis met de VS presidentsverkiezingen........'

'Campagne Clinton, smeriger dan gedacht............' (met daarin daarin opgenomen de volgende twee artikelen: 'Donna Brazile Bombshell: ‘Proof’ Hillary ‘Rigged’ Primary Against Bernie' en 'Democrats in Denial After Donna Brazile Says Primary Was Rigged for Hillary')

'Clinton te kakken gezet: Brazile (Democratische Partij VS) draagt haar boek op aan Seth Rich, het vermoorde lid van DNC die belastende documenten lekte'

'Kajsa Ollongren (D66 vicepremier): Nederland staat in het vizier van Russische inlichtingendiensten....... ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!'

'Ollongren gesteund door Thomas Boesgaard (AD), 'Rusland verpakt het nepnieuws gekoppeld aan echt nieuws.....' Oei!!'

'RT America één van de eerste slachtoffers in een heksenjacht op westerse alternatieve media en nadenkend links......'

'Rusland zou onafhankelijkheid Californië willen uitlokken met reclame voor borsjt.......'

'Alarm Code Geel: Lara Rense (NOS) voedt Rusland-haat'

''Russiagate' een nieuwe ongelooflijke aanklacht van de Democraten.......'

'VS demoniseert Russiagate critici als Jill Stein.....'

'De Russiagate samenzweringstheorie dient de machthebbers.........'
=========================================

En terzijde:
'Facebook gebruikte 'fake news' beschuldiging om de aandacht voor schandalen af te leiden'

'Trump (Republikeinen) wint de midterm verkiezingen, alsook de Democraten, het verschil voor mensen elders in de wereld, die onder VS terreur moeten leven, is nul komma nada.......'

'The Attack on ‘Fake News’ Is Really an Attack on Alternative Media'

'The Lie of the 21st Century: How Mainstream Media “Fake News” Led to the U.S. Invasion of Iraq'

'Mediaorgaan Sinclair dwingt 'TV ankers' propaganda op te lezen (Sinclair bedient rond de 70% van de VS bevolking van 'lokaal nieuws')'

'Ex-CIA agent legt uit hoe de VS schaduwregering en deep state werken, ofwel de machinaties achter de schermen......'

'New York Times: eerste Israëlische inval in Gazastrook sinds 2014 >> fake news!'

'Noord-Koreaans 'bedrog met nucleaire deal' is fake news o.a. gebracht door de New York Times'

''Fake News' misbruikt door dictaturen en de reguliere (massa-) media'

'Twitter weert waarheid: Paul Craig Roberts in de ban, Roberts >> de grote criticus van de illegale oorlogen die de VS voert'

Geheime oorlogvoering van de VS in Afrika duurt voort, het aantal VS operaties in Afrika is zelfs groter dan in het Midden-Oosten

Het bericht met deels de bovenstaande kop lag tot mijn schaamte nog op de stapel concepten, ik vond het terug bij nazoeken van een artikel dat afgelopen woensdag werd gepubliceerd op Vice News door Nick Turse, het eerdere artikel van dezelfde schrijver is getiteld: 'U.S. SECRET WARS IN AFRICA RAGE ON, DESPITE TALK OF DOWNSIZING'. Zoals gezegd: afgelopen woensdag publiceerde Turse het ander artikel over de VS oorlogsvoering in Afrika, dit keer met de titel: 'EXCLUSIVE: THE U.S. HAS MORE MILITARY OPERATIONS IN AFRICA THAN THE MIDDLE EAST'. Als eerste het artikel van Turse dat op 26 juli jl. werd gepubliceerd, daarna een korte inleiding tot het laatste artikel van Turse. (waarin wordt gesteld dat de militaire operaties in de VS niet geheim moeten worden gehouden en dat door een hoge VS militair)

Oktober vorig jaar liepen 4 VS militairen in een hinderlaag waarbij ze omkwamen, dit gaf nogal wat ophef in de VS, waarop het Pentagon aangaf het aantal troepen in Afrika te verminderen...

Niet eens een jaar later blijkt er van dit voornemen, troepenvermindering in Afrika, niets terecht te zijn gekomen....... De VS vecht (dat vechten wordt ontkend, ondanks alle bewijzen daarvoor, zoals de 4 militairen die in Niger werden gedood) in de volgende Afrikaanse landen Kameroen, Kenia, Libië, Mali, Mauritanië, Niger, Somalië en Tunesië...

Vreemd ook dat in het rijtje landen Zuid-Soedan ontbreekt, terwijl ook daar VS militairen opereren....... De president van Soedan, Omar al-Bashir, is bepaald geen vriend van de VS en ondanks dat de VS een wapenembargo heeft ingesteld tegen Zuid-Soedan*, werkt de VS, in het 'niet-zo-geheim', samen met het terreurbewind in Zuid-Soedan.......

Generaal Thomas Waldhauser, hoofd Africa Command (AFRICOM), zei tijdens een Pentagon conferentie afgelopen mei, dat ondanks alle moeilijkheden de VS militairen hun werk geweldig doen over het hele continent Afrika....... (beter had hij gezegd: dat de VS militairen hun werk uiterst gewelddadig doen, immers het gaat om grootschalige terreur in landen waar de VS niets te zoeken heeft, terreur waarmee de VS zelfs terreur kweekt! Tja als je dat erbij zou zeggen kan je moeilijk volhouden dat de VS goed werk verricht in Afrika....) 

Lees het volgende artikel van Nick Turse, zoals eerder geplaatst op The Intercept:

U.S. SECRET WARS IN AFRICA RAGE ON, DESPITE TALK OF DOWNSIZING

 Nick Turse July 26 2018, 7:15 p.m.

LAST OCTOBER, FOUR U.S. soldiers – including two commandos – were killed in an ambush in Niger. Since then, talk of U.S. special operations in Africa has centered on missions being curtailed and troop levels cut.

Press accounts have suggested that the number of special operators on the front lines has been reduced, with the head of U.S. Special Operations forces in Africa directing his troops to take fewer risks. At the same time, a “sweeping Pentagon review” of special ops missions on the continent may result in drastic cuts in the number of commandos operating there. U.S. Africa Command has apparently been asked to consider the impact on counterterrorism operations of cutting the number of Green Berets, Navy SEALs, and other commandos by 25 percent over 18 months and 50 percent over three years.

Analysts have already stepped forward to question or criticize the proposed cuts.

“Anybody that knows me knows that I would disagree with any downsizing in Africa,”

Donald Bolduc, a former chief of U.S. commandos on the continent, told Voice of America.

While the review was reportedly ordered this spring and troop reductions may be coming, there is no evidence yet of massive cuts, gradual reductions, or any downsizing whatsoever. In fact, the number of commandos operating on the continent has barely budged since 2017. Nearly 10 months after the debacle in Niger, the tally of special operators in Africa remains essentially unchanged.

According to figures provided to The Intercept by U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), 16.5 percent of commandos overseas are deployed in Africa. This is about the same percentage of special operators sent to the continent in 2017 and represents a major increase over deployments during the first decade of the post-9/11 war on terror. In 2006, for example, just 1 percent of all U.S. commandos deployed overseas were in Africa – fewer than in the Middle East, the Pacific, Europe, or Latin America. By 2010, the number had risen only slightly, to 3 percent.

Today, more U.S. commandos are deployed to Africa than to any other region of the world except the Middle East. Back in 2006, there were only 70 special operators deployed across Africa. Just four years ago, there were still just 700 elite troops on the continent. Given that an average of 8,300 commandos are deployed overseas in any given week, according to SOCOM spokesperson Ken McGraw, we can surmise that roughly 1,370 Green Berets, Navy SEALs, or other elite forces are currently operating in Africa.

The Pentagon won’t say how many commandos are still deployed in Niger, but the total number of troops operating there is roughly the same as in October 2017 when two Green Berets and two fellow soldiers were killed by Islamic State militants. There are 800 Defense Department personnel currently deployed to the West African nation, according to Maj. Sheryll Klinkel, a Pentagon spokesperson. “I can’t give a breakdown of SOF there, but it’s a fraction of the overall force,” she told The Intercept. There are now also 500 American military personnel – including Special Operations forces — in Somalia.  At the beginning of last year, AFRICOM told Stars and Stripes, there were only 100.

“None of these special operations forces are intended to be engaged in direct combat operations,” said Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Robert S. Karem, while speaking about current troop levels in Niger during a May Pentagon press briefing on the investigation into the deadly October ambush. Despite this official policy, despite the deaths in Niger, and despite the supposed curbs on special operations in Africa, U.S. commandos there keep finding themselves in situations that are indistinguishable from combat.

In December, for example, Green Berets fighting alongside local forces in Niger reportedly killed 11 ISIS militants in a firefight. And last month in Somalia, a member of the Special Operations forces, Staff Sgt. Alexander Conrad, was killed and four other Americans were wounded in an attack by members of the Islamist militant group Shabaab. Conrad’s was the second death of a U.S. special operator in Somalia in 13 months. Last May, a Navy SEAL, Senior Chief Petty Officer Kyle Milliken, was killed, and two other American troops were wounded while carrying out a mission there with local forces.

Between 2015 and 2017, there were also at least 10 previously unreported attacks on American troops in West Africa, the New York Times revealed in March. Meanwhile, Politico recently reported that, for at least five years, Green Berets, Navy SEALs, and other commandos — operating under a little-understood budgetary authority known as Section 127e that funds classified programs — have been involved in reconnaissance and “direct action” combat raids with local forces in Cameroon, Kenya, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Somalia, and Tunisia. Indeed, in a 2015 briefing obtained by The Intercept, Bolduc, then the special ops chief in Africa, noted that America’s commandos were not only conducting “surrogate” and “combined” “counter violent extremist operations,” but also “unilateral” missions.

While media reports have focused on the possibility of imminent reductions, the number of commandos deployed in Africa is nonetheless up 96 percent since 2014 and remains fundamentally unchanged since the deadly 2017 ambush in Niger. And as the June death of Conrad in Somalia indicates, commandos are still operating in hazardous areas. Indeed, at the May Pentagon briefing, Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, the chief of U.S. Africa Command, drew attention to special operators’ “high-risk missions” under “extreme conditions” in Africa.  America’s commandos, he said, “are doing a fantastic job across the continent.”

Top photo: An American Special Forces soldier trains Nigerien troops during an exercise on the Air Base 201 compound, in Agadez, Niger, on April 14, 2018.

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* Volgens de NRC exporteerde de VS al minimaal wapens naar Zuid-Soedan...... ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! Het is de redactie blijkbaar nog niet opgevallen dat de VS ook via omwegen een land vol kan proppen met wapens (zoals de CIA al zo vaak heeft geregeld), desnoods (of zelfs het liefst) aan elkaar bekampende groeperingen......
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De VS heeft meer militaire operaties in Afrika dan in Midden-Oosten

Hier het tweede artikel van Nick Turse op Vice News, een artikel dat zoals gezegd afgelopen woensdag werd gepubliceerd. Met iets meer actuele informatie. Gezegd moet worden dat Turse bij de aanvang van dit bericht een fout maakt, hij doelt duidelijk op een hinderlaag die in oktober 2017 plaatsvond, terwijl je uit z'n schrijven zou kunnen opmaken dat het om oktober 2018 gaat, in het artikel hierboven wordt ook oktober 2017 aangehaald.

In dit bericht schrijft Turse over het grote aantal militaire operaties die de VS uitvoert in Afrika, operaties die de operaties van de VS in het Midden-Oosten ver overtreffen, al is het aantal VS militairen in het Midden-Oosten veel groter.

Mijn excuus voor de belabberde weergave, krijg het niet op orde.

EXCLUSIVE: THE U.S. HAS MORE MILITARY OPERATIONS IN AFRICA THAN THE MIDDLE EAST

By Nick Turse Dec 12, 2018

The deadly ambush in Niger last October that left four U.S. serviceman dead prompted months of hand-wringing inside the Pentagon. But that botched operation, which drew national attention to U.S. counterterror operations throughout Africa should not have shocked military leadership, the former commander of U.S. Special Operations forces in Africa told VICE News.

“These weren’t the first casualties, either. We had them in Somalia and Kenya,” said retired Brig. Gen. Donald Bolduc, who served as commander of Special Operations Command Africa (SOCAFRICA) from April 2015 to June 2017, in an interview with VICE News. “We had them in Tunisia. We had them in Mali. We had them in Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon, and Chad. But those were kept as quiet as possible. Nobody talked about it.”

Indeed, two separate military efforts — named Juniper Shield and Obsidian Nomad — that were set to intersect but failed to on the night of the deadly ambush near Tongo Tongo in Niger were part of a pattern of expansion on the African continent that has made it the most active U.S. military theatre in the world. The United States has conducted more than 30 named operations and activities in Africa over the last three years, according to documents obtained by VICE News. While more troops are deployed to, and engaged in combat in, the Greater Middle East, the sheer number of named efforts in Africa actually surpasses that region.

VICE News reviewed documents from the U.S. Army, Africa Command, and Special Operations Command Africa, and conducted interviews with current and former military personnel and experts familiar with America’s “war on terror” in Africa. These documents and testimony paint a startling picture of a sprawling, labyrinthine, and at times chaotic shadow war on the African continent, in which commandos are endangered by a lack of resources and “assistance” operations blur with combat.

“Africa has more named operations than any other theater, including CENTCOM [the command that oversees the Middle East],” Buldoc confirmed to VICE News. “But remains under-resourced for doing what it’s been directed to do.”

SECRETIVE AND SPRAWLING

In 2017, U.S. troops carried out an average of nearly 10 missions per day —3,500 exercises, programs, and engagements for the year — across the African continent, according to Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, the AFRICOM commander.

These efforts — carried out in at least 33 countries — range from capture-or-kill commando raids to more banal training missions. Americans are also gathering intelligence, involved in surveillance and reconnaissance missions carried out by drones, engaged in construction projects, and accompanying allies on tactical operations.

There are also now 34 U.S. military outposts on the continent, concentrated in the north and west and the Horn of Africa, according to a recent report by The Intercept.

This March 2018 briefing authored by Africa Command Science Advisor Peter Teil outlines current U.S. military operations throughout the African continent. (Nick Turse for VICE News).

Through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), AFRICOM provided VICE News with a list of 21 named operations conducted between January 1, 2016 and September 25, 2018. According to a separate March 2018 briefing, authored by Africa Command Science Advisor Peter Teil and also obtained via FOIA, eight current operations in North and West Africa were aimed at countering the Islamic State and Boko Haram and assisting local allies and French counterterrorism efforts. Six operations in East Africa focused on defeating al Shabaab, assisting the African Union Mission in Somalia, and counter-piracy. Two theater-wide efforts focused on crisis response in the event U.S. government personnel or facilities are threatened, while one operation — Echo Casemate — provides support to French and U.N. forces in the troubled Central African Republic.

A separate Defense Department document, marked “For Official Use Only,” that appears to have been posted online inadvertently, lists 12 named activities not on AFRICOM’s list, including eight in the east and another four in the northwest.

Taken together, these documents represent the most current and complete record of named U.S. operations and activities recently conducted on the continent, offering a window into a collection of little-understood, often overlapping, military efforts unknown to most Americans.

SPREAD THIN, AND BLURRING LINES

Somali soldiers are on patrol at Sanguuni military base, where an American special operations soldier was killed by a mortar attack on June 8, about 450 km south of Mogadishu, Somalia, on June 13, 2018. - More than 500 American forces are partnering with African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM) and Somali national security forces in counterterrorism operations, and have conducted frequent raids and drone strikes on Al-Shabaab training camps throughout Somalia. (MOHAMED ABDIWAHAB/AFP/Getty Images).

The proliferation of so many concurrent counterterrorism efforts courts danger, said Bill (William) Hartung, the director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy (ASPCIP).

“Running so many operations with combat implications without making them known to the American public is both unwise and ultimately undemocratic. It is no way to run foreign policy in a democracy,” he said. “And running sensitive operations that are secret, or simply not widely publicized, increases the risks of failure, because they are not subject to public debate or adequate scrutiny.”

Bolduc also criticized the lack of transparency on the part of AFRICOM. “What we’re doing shouldn’t be a mystery,” he said.

Alice Hunt Friend, the principal director for African affairs in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy from 2012 to 2014, said the risks are compounded by the way these operations tend to blur between “assistance” and combat.

“If the primary military activity in a country is assistance, then as we saw in Niger, U.S. combat-related resources are not readily on hand,” Friend explained.

Among the operations that provide “assistance” are the classified 127e programs. These secretive efforts are “aimed at assisting foreign forces who support U.S. counterterrorism operations,” said Friend.

But these activities often consist of far more than assistance, said Bolduc. Classified 127e programs are “direct action” efforts, which are defined by the Pentagon as “short-duration strikes and other small-scale offensive actions conducted as a special operation in hostile, denied, or diplomatically sensitive environments.”

Such direct-action missions were carried out in Cameroon, Kenya, Libya, Mali, Niger, Somalia, and Tunisia in recent years, as well as two nations where the 127e programs have now ended, Ethiopia and Mauritania, said Bolduc.

Through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), AFRICOM provided VICE News with a list of 21 named operations conducted between January 1, 2016 and September 25, 2018. Above is the list. (Nick Turse for VICE News.)

The Department of Defense declined to provide details about these activities because many were “ongoing,” said Navy Commander Candice Tresch, a Pentagon spokesperson.

“We are extremely lucky that there have not been more situations like Niger,” said Hartung. “Running dozens of missions where U.S. troops are liable to be thrust into combat roles is an extremely risky approach, putting both their lives and our interests at risk.”

Buldoc expressed particular concern over what he explained was a persistent lack of support from the Pentagon. “When I left command, I had 96 missions and 886 tasks associated with those missions in 28 different countries, in an area that was two and a half times the size of the United States,” Bolduc said. “I was under-resourced in personnel recovery. I was under-resourced in ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets]. And I was under resourced in medical support — the three key things that I needed.”

For years, the special operations community and its supporters have expressed concern over deployment rates, operations tempo, and the amount of resources being allocated to direct action missions. “Most SOF units are employed to their sustainable limit,” General Raymond Thomas (III), the Special Operations Command chief, told members of Congress last spring.

In June, the New York Times reported that Secretary of Defense James Mattis and Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had grown concerned that commandos across the globe were spread too thin. And the resources afforded to the team ambushed in Niger in 2017, for example — who relied on contracted medical evacuation services, French airpower, and lightly armored vehicles — have been criticized as inadequate and dangerous.

Bolduc, the former SOCAFRICA commander, laid much of the blame of the Niger ambush on such deficits and a failure to adequately support local allies. “That lack of resources — as well as fundamentally misunderstanding the environment, the situation, and the threat — meant that we were unable to help our partners solve a regional problem. Because we didn’t provide an adequate military and security response, the threat got stronger and more effective. The direct result was the ambush of our SOF team in October 2017.”

Africa Command's official investigation, however, concluded that the “direct cause of the enemy attack in Tongo Tongo is that the enemy achieved tactical surprise there, and our forces were outnumbered approximately three to one,” according to AFRICOM’s former chief of staff, and now the head of the U.S. Army in Africa, Maj. Gen. Roger Cloutier.

DRAWING DOWN — SORT OF

The Pentagon told VICE News that the total number of troops assigned to AFRICOM — about 7,200 personnel — would be cut by less than 10 percent over several years, as it reviews its priority areas on the continent and reorients itself toward great power rivals.

There are, by comparison, roughly 24,000 troops deployed to Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, although President Trump recently suggested that U.S. troops might be withdrawn from the Middle East due to lower oil prices.

President Donald Trump with, from left, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, Trump, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford and Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert Neller, speaks during a briefing with senior military leaders in the Cabinet Room at the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2018. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Pentagon spokesperson Tresch said that the ambush in Niger had nothing to do with the Defense Department’s decision to modestly decrease troop levels in Africa. She said the move is predicated on the National Defense Strategy, released earlier this year, which calls for increased focus on near-peer competitors. The Trump administration is reportedly poised to unveil a broader strategy for Africa specifically focused on countering the influence of Russia and China on the continent.

“As we prioritize where we need to place concentrations of troops, there were certain specialties — especially in the Special Operations arena — that we didn’t necessarily need employed in Africa,” AFRICOM’s Senior Enlisted Leader Chief Master Sergeant Ramon Colon-Lopez told VICE News.

Few, if any, troops will be cut from hotspots like Libya and Somalia, nor Djibouti, whose bases also play a pivotal role in U.S. operations in Yemen and the greater Middle East. Nor will any region of the continent see all U.S. forces removed. Troop drawdowns in West Africa will be marked by a shift from tactical-level support to a greater emphasis on advising, training and intelligence-sharing, the Pentagon said.

Bolduc, who supports robust military and diplomatic engagement on the continent, warned that any significant cuts to special operations forces would irreparably harm U.S. interests in Africa. 

“We’re becoming risk averse and it’s slowing down the amount of support we provide to our partner nations in training, advising, assisting, and accompanying them,” he said. “We’re basically ceding our strategic leverage and relationship with our African partners to the Chinese and the Russians.”

But Friend said there was greater risk in small teams of special operators conducting far flung and secretive missions on the continent.

“The fact that American forces were out in the field like that made them vulnerable to [ISIS in the Greater Sahara] attacks. If they’re not forward and not out there, it’s much harder to attack them,” she said. “So, one of the choices in front of DoD decision-makers is ‘do we want to keep forces forward?’ and therefore ‘what kind of support do we need to give them?,’” Friend said.

Cover image: Malian soldiers take part in training at the Kamboinsé general Bila Zagre military camp near Ouagadougo in Burkina Faso during a military anti-terrorism exercise with US Army instructors on April 12, 2018. (ISSOUF SANOGO/AFP/Getty Images)

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'VS illegaal militair ingrijpen in Niger, ofwel de uitspattingen van een imperium met expansiedrift'

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