{"id":4883,"date":"2015-01-26T07:47:04","date_gmt":"2015-01-26T12:47:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=4883"},"modified":"2015-01-26T07:47:04","modified_gmt":"2015-01-26T12:47:04","slug":"the-us-dark-empire-has-secret-operations-in-over-100-countries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=4883","title":{"rendered":"The US&#8217; Dark Empire Has Secret Operations in Over 100 Countries"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"headline\">\n<h3 class=\"node-title\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.alternet.org\/world\/us-dark-empire-has-secret-operations-over-100-countries\" target=\"_blank\">The US&#8217; Dark Empire Has Secret Operations in Over 100 Countries<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"teaser\">\n<div class=\"field field-name-field-teaser field-type-text-long field-label-hidden\">\n<div class=\"field-items\">\n<div class=\"field-item even\"><strong>The United States deployed special forces to 70 percent of the nations on earth.<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><span class=\"Apple-style-span\">In the dead of night, they swept in aboard V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft.\u00a0 Landing in a remote region of one of the most volatile countries on the planet, they raided a village and soon found themselves in a life-or-death firefight.\u00a0 It was the second time in two weeks that elite U.S. Navy SEALs had attempted to rescue American photojournalist Luke Somers.\u00a0 And it was the second time they failed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>On December 6, 2014, approximately 36 of America\u2019s\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2014\/12\/06\/world\/meast\/yemen-u-s-hostage-killed\/\">top commandos<\/a>, heavily armed,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/time.com\/3622579\/navy-seal-raid-luke-somers-yemen\/\">operating<\/a>\u00a0with intelligence from satellites, drones, and high-tech eavesdropping, outfitted with night vision goggles, and backed up by elite Yemeni troops, went toe-to-toe with about six militants from al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.\u00a0 When it was over, Somers was dead, along with\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2014\/12\/07\/world\/middleeast\/hostage-luke-somers-is-killed-in-yemen-during-rescue-attempt-american-official-says.html?_r=0\">Pierre Korkie<\/a>, a South African teacher due to be set free the next day.\u00a0 Eight civilians were also killed by the commandos, according to local reports.\u00a0 Most of the militants escaped.<\/p>\n<p>That blood-soaked episode was, depending on your vantage point, an ignominious end to a year that saw U.S. Special Operations forces deployed at near record levels, or an inauspicious beginning to a new year already on track to reach similar heights, if not exceed them.<\/p>\n<p>During the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.senate.gov\/reference\/glossary_term\/fiscal_year.htm\">fiscal year<\/a>\u00a0that ended on September 30, 2014, U.S. Special Operations forces (SOF) deployed to 133 countries &#8212; roughly 70% of the nations on the planet &#8212; according to Lieutenant Colonel Robert Bockholt, a public affairs officer with U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM).\u00a0 This capped a three-year span in which the country\u2019s most elite forces were active in more than 150 different countries around the world, conducting missions ranging from kill\/capture night raids to training exercises.\u00a0 And this year could be a record-breaker.\u00a0 Only a day before the failed raid that ended Luke Somers life &#8212; just 66 days into fiscal 2015 &#8212; America\u2019s most elite troops had already set foot in 105 nations, approximately 80% of 2014\u2019s total.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The US&#8217; Dark Empire Has Secret Operations in Over 100 Countries The United States deployed special forces to 70 percent of the nations on earth. In the dead of night, they swept in aboard V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft.\u00a0 Landing in a remote region of one of the most volatile countries on the planet, they raided [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2937,525,2935,827,834,844,2936],"class_list":["post-4883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-covert-military-operations","tag-military","tag-secret-operations","tag-united-states","tag-us","tag-us-military","tag-us-military-operations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4883"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4884,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4883\/revisions\/4884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}