Do you know what the U.S. military has been doing recently in your name?

Unless you work in the military, there's no way that you can answer that question.
But every once in a while we get a glimpse of what our generals have been up to.
Thanks to a South African Mail & Guardian investigation, we now have a better idea.

In 2019, US Special Operations forces were deployed in 22 African countries: Algeria, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Chad, Côte D’Ivoire, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Libya, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Somalia, Tanzania and Tunisia.

This accounts for a significant proportion of US Special Operations forces’ global activity: more than 14% of US commandos deployed overseas in 2019 were sent to Africa, the largest percentage of any region in the world except for the greater Middle East.

africa.jpg

That's very interesting, but the Mail & Guardian buried the lead. The real story is a little further down.

An interview with Donald Bolduc, a retired brigadier general and head of Special Operations Command Africa (SOCAFRICA) until 2017, shed further light on these operations. He said that as of 2017, US Special Operations forces had seen combat in 13 African nations. America’s most elite troops continued to be active in 10 of those countries — Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Kenya, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Somalia and Tunisia — last year.

WTF! We've been engaged in thirteen wars in Africa, under Obama, and continue to be engaged in ten wars under Trump, and no one has bothered to tell the American people!
Do these wars even have names?
What exactly have these 6,000 troops at 29 bases located in 15 different countries been up to? What are they doing in our name?

Their presence in African countries is rarely publicly acknowledged, either by the US or host nations; citizens are not told what these elite troops are doing on their land.

The US military is tight-lipped about exactly what its elite forces do in each country, but special operators have long conducted missions that range from capture-or-kill commando raids to training missions.

So they are killing people in secret wars in Africa, as opposed to spending the money on preventing millions of Americans from becoming homeless. Just great.

Wait! There's more news from Syria.
When you last heard about Syria the Democrats had a meltdown because Trump wanted to pull out our troops. So what have they been up to since?

Operation Inherent Resolve officials want to double the size of some proxy forces in Syria and finish training a 2,200-man “oilfield guard” unit in the northeastern part of the country, according to an OIR inspector general report released Aug. 4.
... And “the critical petroleum infrastructure security forces” that protect sites in northeastern Syria “will number 2,200 once fully-manned and trained,” the IG report added.

The oilfield guard force is under the PRISF, which “undertake a broad range of border security tasks,” as well as security at ISIS prison sites. The PRISF have a desired end-strength of approximately 22,000, but it is not clear how close they are to reaching that goal.

So we are building a proxy army in Syria to protect Syrian oil from the Syrian government. Under what authority, exactly?
And who will manage the oil?

James Cain, a former US ambassador to Denmark during the George W. Bush administration and one of the co-founders of Delta Crescent Energy.
Cain's two other partners in the company are James Reese, a retired Delta Force Army officer who used to run his own private security firm, and John Dorrier, a veteran oil executive with years of experience operating in the Middle East.

The trio formed the new company for the sole purpose of securing this deal in Syria and have worked intensely with State Department officials for more than a year, sources tell CNN. In April, the company received a license from the Treasury Department exempting it from the vast sanctions regime the US has placed on Syria in order to isolate the Assad regime, sources told CNN.
The State Department and the Pentagon have officially sought to distance themselves from the project, but sources tell CNN that behind the scenes the State Department was active in making the deal happen.

Yeh, that doesn't look sketchy at all. It's totally not pillaging and illegal under international law.
As for the SDF, the guys who we are building that proxy army with, the Pentagon had this to say recently.

On Thursday, the Lead Inspector General issued a report on Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR), launched by a US-led international coalition against Daesh in Syria and Iraq, indicating that the SDF militia continues to arrest and recruit children from refugee camps in the areas it controls in north-eastern Syria.

Nice. What are the chances that these child soldiers are part of that proxy army we are building?

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ZimInSeattle's picture

operations in 53 of the 54 countries that make up Africa. I appreciate them keeping us safe over here. /s

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"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." - JFK | "The more I see of the moneyed peoples, the more I understand the guillotine." - G. B. Shaw Bernie/Tulsi 2020

Turkey

Turkey and the Syrian regime condemned reports of a deal by an American oil company linked to oil fields in eastern Syria. The Syrian regime claimed the deal was stealing Syrian oil. At the same time, Turkey, which illegally occupies part of northern Syria and whose Syrian rebel allies have been accused of ethnically cleansing minorities from Afrin, slammed the deal as well. Ankara claimed the US was ignoring “international law” and that the US position would never be accepted or legitimized.

Egypt

Egypt has sent nearly 150 soldiers to Syria to fight in the ranks of the Assad regime, military sources told Anadolu Agency.

The soldiers had been sent to the Aleppo countryside, Idlib area in coordination with Iranian Revolutionary Guards via the Hama Military Airport.

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The Liberal Moonbat's picture

I'm sure he's heard 'em all....

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In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

wendy davis's picture

documents', okayyyyyy. good to know; i learned from Crossed Crocodiles (in ghana) in 2014 about the bastard, evil step-child of nato: Africom, and have been blogging about it ever since (even thrice here). i will admit that i tweak their stated mission statement to my own purposes. some of their videos have been deleted, like 'seabasing' (off shore so 'host nations don't have to be bothered..."

but yes, it's refreshing to read an MSM report. not just alternative media like ajamu baraka, Moon of alabama, nick turse at tom dispatch, and so on.

thanks for bringing it. gjohnsit.

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@wendy davis
THIRTEEN WARS!!!!

Is no one surprised?

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@gjohnsit

Surprised it’s not more. This country has a sickness in it.

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travelerxxx's picture

@gjohnsit

Is no one surprised?

Yeah, I am. I'm surprised it's not more than thirteen. Hell, it probably is; we just don't know about the others.

Sometimes I'm amazed that the whole rest of the world doesn't attack us in order to stop this shit.

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wendy davis's picture

@gjohnsit

the lede yourself: 'formerly secret AFRICOM documents'.

i can't say that 13 wars is close to the truth, but in my media files i have this graphic of amerikan military bases in 2015 and i can't find a newer version.

the way i'd tweaked their official mission statement was: "To create the internal chaos via special ops and CIA...we will save you from; install puppet leaders to the US's advantages in the resource wars".

let's see what their recent cons are about: oh,look! their poster boy is a black pilot!

Covid! Covid! and again, their mission statement:

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snoopydawg's picture

if he wins. After all it was HisBoss' idea to overthrow Assad. Especially if he gives Rice the SoS position. Oh boy ain’t it swell that no matter who we 'elect' as president we still get more war?

Biden will have a huge conflict of interest if he pushes Germany to not get gas from Russia, but from us instead because lots of the gas will come from Ukraine and especially Burisma. Doh! Guess that all rides on whether Barr gets to go after the folks from the Obama Administration? Stay tuned. I think we’re going to see another whitewash of crimes. Apparently Brennan hasn’t even been interviewed by Durham yet. Sure what’s the rush?

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

wendy davis's picture

@snoopydawg

but also: Syrian government condemns oil deal between Kurds and US firm as 'theft'; The deal comes months after president Trump expressed interest in the country's lucrative oil fields, middleeasteye.net, aug 2, 2020

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo confirmed during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Thursday what he described as a "very powerful" deal penned between a US firm and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which was backed by the US in the war to oust the Islamic State group (IS) from the region.

The SDF, a Kurdish-led paramilitary alliance, backs a semi-autonomous administration in northeastern Syria and controls the country's biggest oilfields, still claimed by Damascus.

The Syrian foreign ministry statement, published on state media, said the agreement was set “to steal Syrian oil... supported by the US administration."

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mimi's picture

But they couldn't care less. Nothing more easily done than buying and bribing and manipulating banana people in banana republics, i.e those shithole countries.

I had no precise knowledge about their activities, but a clear understanding about the underlying distrust and scepticism of those, who took the bribes.

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