(ANTIWAR.COM) — The Pentagon, already struggling to manage growing concern about the US military operations ongoing in Africa, is now facing a second problem. Last week, it was revealed that the Pentagon had kept a number of recent clashes in Niger a secret. Pentagon officials are now trying to defend not just the war effort, but the idea […]
In the first hour JP Sottile of News Vandal joins me to discuss the latest political machinations in Washington DC. We begin with the latest developments regarding Trump lackey Jared Kushner. JP and I talk about his recent loss of Top Secret security clearance and what this may or may not mean going forward. JP then discusses the latest revelations about Kushner and his ties to both Qatar and the UAE.
In the shadows, the U.S. special operations war on “terrorists” keeps on expanding around the globe, now reaching into Africa where few detectable American “interests” exist, writes Jonathan Marshall. By Jonathan Marshall If national-security reporters are ever replaced by robots…Read more →
Opinion — In our military-revering culture, it’s a strange thing for a president to start a war of words with the grieving families of slain soldiers.
Strange, yes. But from Donald Trump’s campaign season feud with the parents of Humayun Khan, who died protecting fellow soldiers in Iraq, to his recent feud with the mourning widow of La David Johnson, who died on patrol in Niger, it’s no longer surprising.
Three weeks after four US special forces soldiers were killed in a firefight in the landlocked West African nation of Niger, information has surfaced indicating that the American troops and their Nigerien counterparts were involved in a “capture-kill” mission aimed at the leader of a local Islamist militia operating on the Niger-Mali border.
With Pentagon officials offering the first details on the Niger ambush incident, they also revealed details about the ongoing U.S. war in Niger, including the revelation that there is an ongoing U.S. war in Niger.
Nobody seems to have known about it.
Empires of scale are often spread thinly across fields of operations. Vast, often opaque functions on the ground are not necessarily conveyed with accuracy to the metropolitan centre. Command structures, for all the sophistication of instant modern communication, do not eliminate human error, let alone enlighten.
The four US army deaths in Niger have been shrouded by the bickering unfolding between President Donald Trump and the widow of Sgt. La David Johnson. John F. Kelly, the White House chief of staff, has also been catapulted into the sordid business.
The October 4 ambush in Niger that killed four US Special Forces members forced the Pentagon to admit that they had been routinely carrying out ground patrols inside Niger, but African command (AFRICOM) may be cashing in on the incident.
With the revelation that there are US military operations ongoing in Niger and countless other countries, AFRICOM is noting that they’d requested a lot more military equipment than they got, and some of that might conceivably have come in handy during the ambush.
