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Enduring Bases, Enduring War in the Middle East
Enduring Bases, Enduring War in the Middle East
Meet the hottest new commander in the increasingly secretive world of American warfare, Lieutenant General Raymond “Tony” Thomas. A rare portrait in the Washington Post paints him as a “shadowy figure” — an appropriate phrase for the general who has been leading the U.S. military’s “manhunters,” aka Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC. They are considered the crème de la crème among America’s ever-larger crew of Special Operations forces, now at almost 70,000 and growing. Thomas is reportedly slated to take over Special Operations Command, or SOCOM, and so head up that now massive secret military cocooned inside the U.S. military. To put its ranks in perspective, think of the active duty militaries of Argentina (73,000), Australia (56,000), Canada (66,000), Chile (61,000), or South Africa (62,000). In other words, our secret “warriors” now outnumber the military contingents of major nations.
As America’s leading counterterror general, Thomas has a reputation for bluntness. In a rare public interview last April, he offered these striking comments about the country’s global war on terror: “[Y]ou can’t look at the array [of metrics] right now and not sense that we’re losing — we’re losing right across the board from the North African littoral through to Afghanistan and Pakistan. There are some good news stories… [but] across the board we’re not winning and I don’t think you need a lot of empirical data to tell you that.” TomDispatch has longsaid the same thing, of course, but never better.
Still, if you’re trying to imagine what a man with such views sees in his crystal ball when it comes to America’s failing wars and conflicts, don’t for a second think that he’s in favor of cutting back.
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Retired General: Drones Create More Terrorists Than They Kill, Iraq War Helped Create ISIS
Retired General: Drones Create More Terrorists Than They Kill, Iraq War Helped Create ISIS
Flynn, who in 2014 was forced out as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, has in recent months become an outspoken critic of the Obama administration’s Middle East strategy, calling for a more hawkish approach to the Islamic State and Iran.
But his enthusiasm for the application of force doesn’t extend to the use of drones. In the interview with Al Jazeera presenter Mehdi Hasan, set to air July 31, the former three star general says: “When you drop a bomb from a drone … you are going to cause more damage than you are going to cause good.” Pressed by Hasan as to whether drone strikes are creating more terrorists than they kill, Flynn says, “I don’t disagree with that.” He describes the present approach of drone warfare as “a failed strategy.”
“What we have is this continued investment in conflict,” the retired general says. “The more weapons we give, the more bombs we drop, that just … fuels the conflict.”
Prior to serving as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Flynn was director of Intelligence for the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. During his time in Iraq, Flynn is credited with helping to transform JSOC into an intelligence-driven special forces operation, tailored to fight the insurgency in that country. Flynn was in Iraq during the peak of the conflict there, as intelligence chief to Stanley McChrystal, former general and head of JSOC. When questioned about how many Iraqis JSOC operatives had killed inside the country during his tenure, Flynn would later say, “Thousands, I don’t even know how many.”
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