Showing posts with label Empire. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Empire. Show all posts
Friday, March 21, 2014
Sunday, February 16, 2014
Saturday, January 4, 2014
WE THE PEOPLE [1/3] SCAMMED under the ROMAN EMPIRE CONSTITUTION - PHOENIX RISING
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WE THE PEOPLE [1/3] SCAMMED under the ROMAN EMPIRE CONSTITUTION - PHOENIX RISING
Monday, October 28, 2013
Empire - The Debate - A German Europe? The Union disunited
Empire - The Debate - A German Europe? The Union disunited
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Sunday, October 27, 2013
How Sriracha Accidentally Became an Empire
How Sriracha Accidentally Became an Empire
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You might imagine the CEO of Huy Fong Foods is a ruthless, number-crunching business genius. In just 33 years, its Sriracha sauce has become for Asian chili sauce what Heinz is to ketchup, and it’s still posting double-digit growth every year. But David Tran tells Quartz that he never intended…Money from Newser
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Friday, October 18, 2013
Empire Building, the Debt Ceiling, the Budget Deficit and the “Samson Solution”
Introduction
US and world political and economic leaders are faced with what they describe as a ‘systemic catastrophe’: the inability to pay global creditors, including domestic and foreign banks, investors and governments, who hold $ 16.7 trillion in US Treasury notes. There is a related crisis: the government cannot secure passage of a budget to finance its military and civilian agencies and activities, including large-scale payments to military contractors, the financing of business, agriculture and banking operations and social programs. The raising of the debt-ceiling is central to the functioning of the financial ruling class as it extracts hundreds of billions of tax dollars in interest payments from the US Treasury. Raising the debt ceiling allows the State to keep borrowing and pay its billionaire creditors. In turn, as long as the US Treasury has liquidity, it remains a ‘safe haven’ for investors thus providing guaranteed profits. In addition, as long as the dollar remains the principle currency for global transactions, it allows the US Treasury to print money at will and to borrow at a lower cost – at the expense of its competitors and adversaries.
Financing the budget deficit requires borrowing, which involves the sale hundreds of billions of dollars worth of US government bonds through Wall Street – but at a cost to the taxpayer. The common denominator is that the entire edifice of finance capital and all of its support structures depend on debt financing by the State. By borrowing and then taxing its citizens the Treasury extracts wealth from the vast majority of Americans.
To understand the fight to raise the debt ceiling and to pass a deficit budget it is necessary to analyze the long-term, large-scale sources of State debt.
Imperial Wars, the Ascendancy of Finance Capital and the Debt Crisis
The ever-increasing debt and the constant raising of the debt ceiling is a result of long-term, large-scale military spending to build the US Empire. The imperial enterprise has generated a huge deficit: the cost/benefit ratio has been overwhelmingly negative. Contrary to militarist propaganda, the empire has not been ‘self-financing’: Wars and occupation in Iraq , Afghanistan and elsewhere have cost the US taxpayers trillions of dollars, not off-set by incoming imperial plunder or domestic economic expansion.
Parallel to the cost of wars and occupations, the rise of finance capital has largely resulted from the pillage of the US Treasury. Huge bailouts, low interest loans, large-scale interest payments on bonds, subsidies and tax exemptions have created a financial ruling class based on maintaining a debt-laden, interest-paying State, which meets its obligations to the creditors while it privatizes (and eliminates) social programs. The result is a ‘poor indebted State’ and a rich and prosperous Wall Street. Wall Street stands to gain trillions with the privatization of the multi-billion dollar health (Medicare) and retirement plans (Social Security): this will form an integral component of the “Grand Bargain” to raise the debt ceiling.
Who are the Beneficiaries of Raising the Debt Ceiling?
The principle and immediate beneficiaries of increasing the debt ceiling are the wealthy, bond-holders and the medium and long-term beneficiaries are the military-intelligence-empire-builders who can continue to secure over $ 700 billion in annual budget allocations. The principle strategic losers from raising the debt ceiling will be the hundreds of millions of beneficiaries of social programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and their family members. As part of the ‘Grand Bargain’ struck by the Democratic President and Republican Congress – between $ 1.3 trillion and $ 1.4 trillion in social cuts will take effect over the next ten years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The cuts in Social Security will occur by raising the age of eligibility for full benefits to 70 years, resulting in a loss of $ 120 billion, as many older retired workers would be expected to die before drawing a single payment while millions of Americans will be forced to delay retirement and work an extra five years.
Secondly, the earliest age of eligibility for partial benefits will increase from 62 to 64 years – resulting in an additional loss of $ 144 billion dollars from workers.
Thirdly, the cost of living index would be reduced – a ten- year loss of $ 112 billion dollars.
Fourthly, the calculation for initial benefits would discard the wage-based method for a so-called “price-index”, resulting in American workers losing another $ 137 billion dollars over 10 years. In sum, workers’ social security benefits would be reduced by more than half a trillion dollars – an enormous transfer of wealth to the billionaire creditors, investors and empire builders – all in the name of ‘debt reduction’.
The cuts in MEDICARE and MEDICAID would result in an even more retrograde class polarization. The ‘Grand Bargain’ could lead to additional losses of over $ 419 billion dollars.
The biggest cost to the workers will come in the form of an increase in their monthly premium for physician services (MEDICARE Part B) from the current 25% to 35%, resulting in a loss of $ 241 billion dollars. The second biggest loss to workers will result from raising the age of eligibility for MEDICARE from 65 to 67 years costing workers an additional S125 billion dollars. The third loss for workers will be a $ 53 billion hit from restricting the use of MEDIGAP insurance – supplementary policies that cover MEDICARE cost sharing requirements.
Further cuts of $ 187 billion in MEDICAID– the medical plan for the poor and disabled– would result when the federal government shifts its direct funding to block grants to the states that would severely cut services for the poor – a plan first proposed during the Clinton Administration with regard to welfare funding.
Once these reactionary cuts in basic social programs are in place, the beneficiaries, who are able, will be forced to buy alternative supplementary private medical insurance and private retirement plans, while the poor will go without. The running down of public social services by Wall Street has been a deliberate, cynical strategy to cause popular discontent paving the way for the gradual privatization of services: adding costs, eliminating options and limiting medical treatment, surgery and procedures, especially for the elderly. The privatization of Social Security, MEDICARE and MEDICAID, will maximize insecurity while minimizing services and lead to untreated and under-treated illness, greater suffering and economic distress. Bi-partisan Congressional –White House agreements via the “Great Bargain” to raise the debt ceiling will widen and deepen inequalities in the United States .
In sum, “the Grand Bargain” will cause American workers to lose over $ 1.119 trillion dollars over the next 10 years, leading to a sharp decline in life expectancy, access to health care, living standards and quality of life.
The Samson Solution
Given the harsh terms, which accompany the “Grand Bargain” to raise the debt ceiling, it would be better if no agreement were reached. The financial elite is counting on the ‘Grand Bargain’ to leverage their debt collection over the lives and welfare of hundreds of millions of Americans. It would be better to shake the pillars and pull down this Temple of Mammon (the ‘Samson Solution’) making them pay a price!
The ‘shock and awe’ induced by default would shake the very foundations of the financial pillage of the US Treasury and the taxpayers; default would seriously undermine the financial basis for imperial wars, spying, torture and death squads. The entire empire building project would crumble.
True, in the short-run, the workers and middle class would also suffer from a default. But the discredit of the ruling political parties, the political elite and Wall Street, could lead to a new political alignment, which would fund social programs by, in David Stockman’s phrase, “soaking the rich” – raising corporate taxes by 50%, imposing a financial transaction tax of 5%, uncapping the social security tax and collecting taxes on overseas US multi-nationals’ profits. Additional billions would be saved by ending imperial wars, closing bases and canceling military contracts. Tax reform, imperial dismantlement and increased domestic investment in productive activity would generate domestic growth leading to a budget surplus, extending MEDICARE to all Americans, reducing the age of retirement to 62 and providing a living wage for all workers!
Empire Building, the Debt Ceiling, the Budget Deficit and the “Samson Solution”
Empire, Blood, and Banking
Empire, Blood, and Banking
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ROCKWELL: Good morning. This is the Lew Rockwell Show. And what an honor it is to have as our guest, Dr. Ron Paul. What do we say about Dr. Paul? Because I could take up the entire podcast just describing — (laughing) — his qualifications and his achievements and not even begin to go over them. I’ll just simply say he’s the great leader for liberty and for free markets, Austrian economics, who has influenced millions of people all over the world, young people especially.
So, Ron, it’s great to have you with us. And I thought we’d get started by talking about your wonderful last column where you discussed the Neo-Cons, the people who seem to want perpetual war, the role of Bill Kristol and similar intellectuals in promoting the warfare state and the empire.
PAUL: Yeah, Kristol had written this recent article and he was lamenting the fact that the problem with Americans is they get war weary. Yeah, after 10 years or more –
(LAUGHTER)
– and many, many deaths and hundreds of thousands of people suffering and an epidemic of suicides. Yeah, and people getting sick and tired of it, and he’s crying about it. But he goes in and tries to expand on this that we didn’t even end World War II right. You know, we didn’t fight Vietnam long enough; 60,000 lives lost weren’t enough. So he goes on and on. But, hopefully, he’ll lose credibility. Unfortunately, the Neo-Cons have a lot to say about the war propaganda that gets out and converts the people into a pro-war stance. But maybe he’s over the top this time. But I’m not holding my breath because, so often, the American people start off being quite opposed to a war. I mean, just look at the Iraqi War. You know, 60% to 70% of the people were opposed to it and then the war propagandists, the Neo-Cons came in and changed that. Even before World War II, most Americans were opposed to us getting involved until things were orchestrated in a certain way that the people more or less had to join in.
But, no, I think the Neo-Con should lose credibility, which means that he doesn’t want us to ever leave Iraq, ever leave Afghanistan. He wants us to continue to build up in Syria. And he’s the kind of guy that’s anxious for us to march on to Iran. And it’s scary. I wish the people would wake up.
But I’m sort of subtly optimistic that this will have to end, in a sad sort of way, in one sense, in that this country will be bankrupt and will have to quit. More of less, how the Soviets had to give up their empire. So maybe some good can come out of a bit of a financial crisis that will come. And we have to admit that this financial crisis has been perpetuated and accentuated by the fact that we spend all this money on the military and on all these useless wars.
ROCKWELL: You know, it’s interesting, the Kristols of earlier times, of course, used to complain about war weariness, too. But it began much earlier, before the Federal Reserve, because people were simply being taxed. So they got sick and tired of the high taxes for wars as well as all the other reasons that, of course, they should have been against the wars. So it’s very difficult for governments to maintain these long-term wars. With the coming of the Fed, they can just print up the money for the defense budget. There’s not even — I mean, I remember when they were going to war against Iraq or whatever, except for you, nobody was raising the question of costs. I mean, how much was this thing going to cost in addition to the moral and other issues having to do with war? Because, you know, they just phoned Greenspan and he turned on the printing presses.
PAUL: That’s what’s so sinister about, you know, the Federal Reserve accommodating the warmongers is that the payment is delayed. There’s no doubt it’s a benefit to those who want to perpetuate and promote big government, whether it’s for welfare or the warfare. A direct tax to make people pay for these wars would bring it to a halt a lot sooner. But it’s very convenient to put it off. Then nobody knows exactly who the victims are. Even the victims don’t realize it, you know, that their cost of living is going up. And then they’re convinced, oh, it’s those rich people, it’s the oil people; they’re gouging us, everybody is gouging us with high prices. It’s never the government’s fault, nor is it the fault of the mentality that supports these endless wars and endless spending and the printing of money. So they’re interconnected.
And you know me well enough to know that, when I first started, I talked a lot more about — you know, economics motivated me, you know, during the ’70s and the Bretton Woods and that sort of thing. But as years went on, I became more and more convinced of the interrelationship with financing these wars, how it’s related to the financial system, not only because of taxes and every penny you spend on militarism comes out of the peoples’ hide here at home, it hurts the economy. At the same time, the ability to do this and hide the cost I think is what’s been so detrimental to this country. But it’s all interconnected.
And that’s why I think the philosophy of liberty and the things that we have talked about brings us all together. Whether it’s personal liberty on how people should run their lives or allowing other countries to solve their own problems, it all comes together once an individual understands what the concept of personal liberty is all about.
ROCKWELL: And, Ron, don’t you think — or at least it’s certainly my impression that the young people that you’ve attracted to these ideas don’t like the wars. I mean, they don’t like the Fed and they don’t like other things, too. They don’t like the wars. And maybe they’re realizing as you’re explaining it to them that, in addition to everything else wrong, they’re being ripped off.
PAUL: I think that is the case. But, you know, at times, I get praised for doing such and such with young people and all, but one thing that I hope I’ve contributed to and that is get conservatives and limited-government people, Libertarians and people who like the military and supporters of America in general — have been taught that we should not feel guilty about not being pro war. And I think this is what the propaganda has achieved. You know, how many times have they accused me of being un-American and unpatriotic and I don’t support the troops and this sort of thing? But there’s no reason in the world why we can’t feel good about taking this position. And the young people seem to be very receptive to that. Their instincts, like the instincts I think of most people initially, is against the war. Then they’re told, well, if you’re not for the war, you’re not a good person. And I think if they hear the truth, then they might feel more comfortable.
Sort of like when I discovered Austrian economics. You know, when I naturally thought free markets were good, I kept hearing the story, well, no, that’s not good; you have to have a fair society; you have to have a little redistribution and all that. So I was delighted when I came across Mises and Hayek and Rothbard because they were able to explain this to me, that there’s nothing to feel guilty about if you believe in freedom. And they say, oh, no, you’re just a selfish person and you just want to — you know, you don’t care about other people, this sort of thing. But I finally came around to the point where if you do have an instinct to care about other people, you ought to care about freedom because that will help the maximum number of people, and the best chance for us to achieve peace and prosperity.
ROCKWELL: Ron, do you think that the whole drone warfare business — I guess Obama’s and the Pentagon’s plans to have eventually thousands of drone bases all around the world. Is this the way that they’re attempting to counter the fact that Americans don’t like all the American causalities? Unfortunately, they tend to care nothing about the foreign casualties.
PAUL: Yeah.
ROCKWELL: But they don’t like the American casualties. And this is a way to — you know, some guy in a basement in Virginia is sending in the drone in Pakistan, he’s not going to get hurt.
PAUL: No, I think what they’re trying to have is a neat little system that promotes the empire without getting their hands dirty. But, you know, it’s not going to work because we’re in a different system. We’re not fighting World War II. We’re in a fourth-generational warfare time where wars are fought differently. And they’re fought differently because it’s not going to be against government against government. So what could warrant, incite a people to rebel against certain individuals than being hit with a drone by somebody who, in many ways, in their eyes, they don’t even have the guts to look at us in the face and — they do it in secret from thousands of miles away. And when the individuals are killed, when there’s the collateral killings and families are killed, how many tens of thousands if not millions of people are affected like that? You know, the torture goes on. The pictures have been there. And this just, you know, builds up the enemy. So the sterile wars with the drones will not solve the problems of the Neo-Cons who want this world occupation. In many ways, it’s just going to bury the issue in the sense that it’s going to be more terrorism and more attacks in this way. But the world will certainly be less peopled.
And I also predict that all these individuals who run the drones, they will not be — they will not be able to avoid some of the backlash on them. Like, we have now a suicide epidemic because of people going over and doing wars, that they realize they were killing kids and doing a lot of other things they shouldn’t be doing. Well, I think the operators of the drones will suffer in a similar way. I don’t know if there’s any statistics that bear that out yet, but I think eventually, if they’re a human being and they know, well, I did shoot that missile and it killed 10 extra people, you know, it can’t help but eventually bother these people. And they bury these thoughts into their mind. They’re told it’s OK. They’ve been conditioned that war is wonderful and good. But deep down inside, there’s a conflict. And I think that’s why people are struggling and they’re suicidal.
ROCKWELL: Ron, in support of your position, there was a recent item that the drone command, or whatever it’s called within the Pentagon, was assigning chaplains specifically to counsel the drone killers and, of course, to convince them that everything they were doing was perfectly OK. So obviously, they are having — as you say, if they have consciences, if they’re human beings, they can’t feel good about this, unless you’re, of course, a serial killer and a monster.
PAUL: You know, they say about 5% — and I don’t know if this is true. They say about 5% of the people who go into the military are psychopathic, you know, to begin with because, you know, they just like guns and shooting, and it’s excitement and all this. Most people go in for different reasons. But if they withstand — if they are exposed to battle and these kinds of conditions of killing, after a while, some theorize that they all become, in a way, psychopathic or, you know, it’s very difficult to handle their emotions. But I think it’s much more difficult when you’re trying to adjust to an aggressive war, when we’re the aggressors and not the defenders. I think it would be a lot easier to adapt to some of the horrors of World War II because of Pearl Harbor and this sort of thing; and they adjusted better. But I think people are starting to realize we don’t have a noble cause over there. You know, it’s just not noble to send our young people 6,000 miles away. And quite frankly, I’m convinced some of these young people who didn’t get very far in school and for economic reasons they resort to going into the military — and they probably don’t even know their geography that well, and I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them end up in some of these countries they’ve probably never heard of or exactly knew what was going on. And they’re sent over to kill these people. And then we wonder why there’s a down side to this.
ROCKWELL: Ron, speaking of down sides, tell us what you think the effects of the whole Cyprus situation is going to be from the standpoint of the banking industry in Europe and, for that matter — and, of course, governments, and governments and banking systems in this country, too?
PAUL: Well, you know, in a way, it’s hard to take it and say that’s exactly what’s going to happen to us, but something similar to that will happen. How it evolves, we don’t know. But in Cyprus, they didn’t do what they did in Iceland. Iceland allowed a lot of bankruptcies to occur and, evidently, they’re back on their feet again. So they liquidated debt, which is what should be the goal of the correction. In Cyprus, you know, there’s a lot of bailouts. They’re not allowing the real liquidation so it looks like some of the big guys are going to get bailed out. And the bondholders of the Greek bonds and different things like this, they’ll get the bailout. But there was still some liquidation of debt and confiscation of wealth. But my prediction will be, when you’ve worked all that out, it will be unfair. It’ll be that — just like our bailouts occurred. There was some liquidation of our debt in ’08 and ’09. Some people did lose some money. And it usually was, you know, people that might have had a mortgage and lost their job and they got the bad part of the deal. And yet, the wealthy were bailed out.
So I think this is going to continue. I think the pyramid of debt is still huge. And there’s no stomach for allowing the liquidation of debt to occur. Politically, it just won’t be acceptable. It’s always going to be more acceptable to keep the printing presses running. And as long as the world takes our dollars, we’re going to keep printing them until the trust is lost. And when that day arrives — nobody knows exactly when. But I see no foundation to our system. And each day, like what went on in Iraq, that steadily undermines confidence. And one day, that’s going to happen worldwide with the dollar, and that’s going to be really bad news for a lot of us.
ROCKWELL: Well, I thought it was interesting when that European official announced that there would be similar haircuts, as they put it, for big depositors in Italy and Spain. And then, of course, they’re shocked to find out that people are taking their money out of the banks. And then he’s backtracking, oh, no, no, no, he didn’t really mean it. But probably not smart to keep huge amounts of money in a bank account whether you’re an American or a Spaniard or an Italian or anything else.
PAUL: Yeah, but weren’t there some reports also in Cyprus that a few of the big depositors were tipped off — (laughing) — you know –
ROCKWELL: Yeah, that’s right.
PAUL: — a little bit early?
ROCKWELL: That’s right.
PAUL: And they got their money out. That always seems to happen.
But it’s a very, very fragile system. And anybody who understands Austrian economics understands that permanent prosperity cannot be achieved by inflating a currency and pyramiding debt. And that once it happens and it quits functioning and producing anything, then you have to clear the market of that. And you have to get rid of this bad debt so you can start building again. And that has not been permitted. I guess the last time that truly has happened on any significant downturn was probably in 1921 here in this country where we allowed the liquidation to occur. And it wasn’t a prolonged depression. It’s only been since the Keynesian-type mentality has taken over that has prolonged these depressions and recessions so long. It’s been going on in Japan. And they still, right now, believe, well, if we just print more money, you know, it’s going to happen. But if that were the case, we wouldn’t have to really work for a living. You know, we could just print dollars and –
(LAUGHTER)
– and export dollars. So right now, that’s our best export.
ROCKWELL: Well, Ron Paul, thanks so much for coming on the show today and sharing your wisdom. And great to hear from you.
PAUL: Great to talk to you, Lew.
ROCKWELL: Bye-bye.
PAUL: Bye.
ROCKWELL: Well, thanks so much for listening to the Lew Rockwell Show today. Take a look at all the podcasts. There have been hundreds of them. There’s a link on the upper right-hand corner of the LRC front page. Thank you.
Podcast date, March 26, 2013
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Tuesday, August 27, 2013
The Incan Empire: Wealth Without Money
In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Inca Empire was the largest South America had ever known. Rich in foodstuffs, textiles, gold, and coca, the Inca were masters of city building but nevertheless had no money. In fact, they had no marketplaces at all.
Centered in Peru, Inca territory stretched across the Andes’ mountain tops and down to the shoreline, incorporating lands from today’s Colombia, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina and Peru – all connected by a vast highway system whose complexity rivaled any in the Old World. The Inca Empire may be the only advanced civilization in history to have no class of traders, and no commerce of any kind within its boundaries. How did they do it?
Many aspects of Incan life remain mysterious, in part because our accounts of Incan life come from the Spanish invaders who effectively wiped them out. Famously, the conquistador Francisco Pizzaro led just a few men in an incredible defeat of the Incan army in Peru in 1532. But the real blow came roughly a decade before that, when European invaders unwittingly unleashed a smallpox epidemic that some epidemiologists believe may have killed as many as 90 percent of the Incan people. Our knowledge of these events, and our understanding of Incan culture of that era, come from just a few observers – mostly Spanish missionaries, and one mestizo priest and Inca historian named Blas Valera, who was born in Peru two decades after the fall of the Inca Empire.
Wealth Without Money
Documents from missionaries and Valera describe the Inca as master builders and land planners, capable of extremely sophisticated mountain agriculture – and building cities to match. Incan society was so rich that it could afford to have hundreds of people who specialized in planning the agricultural uses of newly-conquered areas. They built terraced farms on the mountainsides whose crops – from potatoes and maize to peanuts and squash – were carefully chosen to thrive in the average temperatures for different altitudes. They also farmed trees to keep the thin topsoil in good condition.Incan architects were equally talented, designing and raising enormous pyramids, irrigating with sophisticated waterworks such as those found at Tipon, and creating enormous temples like Pachacamac along with mountain retreats like Machu Picchu. Designers used a system of knotted ropes to do the math required to build on slopes.
And yet, despite all their productivity, the Incas managed without money or marketplaces…
[continues at io9]
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The Incan Empire: Wealth Without Money
Monday, July 8, 2013
The Pentagon Is Spending Your Tax Dollars to Keep You in the Dark About Its Sprawling Empire
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There are hundreds, possibly thousands of U.S. personnel — the military refuses to say how many — stationed in the ochre-tinted country of Qatar. Out in the searing heat of the desert, they fly fighter jets or fix them. They equip and arm troops headed to war. Some work in a high-tech command-and-control center overseeing U.S. air operations in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and elsewhere in the Greater Middle East. Yet I found myself sitting in a hotel room in Doha, Qatar’s capital, about 30 miles east of al-Udeid Air Base, the main U.S. installation in the country, unable to see, let alone talk, to any of them.
In mid-May, weeks before my arrival in Qatar, I sent a request to the public affairs office at the base to arrange a visit with the 379th Air Expeditionary Wing, the unit that, according to the military, carries out a “critical combat mission that spans nearly 6,000 miles from the Horn of Africa to Northern Afghanistan.” Or at least I tried to. Day or night, weekday or weekend, the website refused to deliver my message. Finally, I dug up an alternate email address and sent in my request. Days passed with no word, without even an acknowledgement. I followed up yet again and finally received a reply — and then it began.
The initial response came on May 28th from the Media Operations Chief at Air Forces Central Command Public Affairs. She told me that I needed to contact the 379th Air Expeditionary Wing’s Public Affairs liaison, Captain Angela Webb, directly. So I repeatedly wrote to Captain Webb. No response. On June 10th, I received an email from Susan Harrington. She was, she told me, “taking over” for Captain Webb. Unfortunately, she added, it was now far too close to my arrival in Qatar to arrange a visit. “Due to time constraints,” she wrote me, “I do not think it will be possible to support this request since we are likely already within that 30 day window.”
Don’t think I was surprised. By now, I’m used to it. Whether I’m trying to figure out what the U.S. military is doing in Latin America or Africa, Afghanistan or Qatar, the response is remarkably uniform – obstruction and obfuscation, hurdles and hindrances. In short, the good old-fashioned military runaround. I had hoped to take a walk around al-Udeid Air Base, perhaps get a glimpse of the jumbotron-sized screens and rows of computers in its Combined Air and Space Operations Center. I wanted to learn how the drawdown in Afghanistan was affecting life on the base.
Instead, I ended up sitting in the climate-controlled comfort of my hotel room, staring at a cloudless sky, typing these words behind double-paned glass that shielded me from the 106 degree heat outside. For my trouble, on my return to the United States, I was detained at Kennedy Airport in New York by agents of the Department of Homeland Security. Their question for me: Was I planning to fight against U.S. forces in Afghanistan?
Base Desires in Africa
If you are an American citizen, you’re really not supposed to know about operations at al-Udeid Air Base. The men and women there on your dime can’t even “mention the base name or host nation name in any unsecured communications.” Instead, they’re instructed to say that they are at an “undisclosed location in Southwest Asia” instead of “the Deid,” as they call it.
It isn’t the only base that the Pentagon wants to keep in the shadows. You’re also not supposed to know how many bases the U.S. military currently has in Africa. I learned that the hard way. As a start, let me say that, officially speaking, there is only a single U.S. facility on the entire continent that the military formally calls a “base”: Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti, a tiny nation in the Horn of Africa. U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) is adamant about this and takes great pains to emphasize it. Internally, however, they do admit that they also have forward operating sites (aka “enduring locations”), contingency security locations (which troops periodically rotate in and out of), and contingency locations (which are used only during ongoing operations). But don’t try to get an official list of these or even a simple count — unless you’re ready for the old-fashioned runaround.
In May 2012, I made the mistake of requesting a list of all facilities used by the U.S. military in Africa broken down by country. Nicole Dalrymple of AFRICOM’s Public Affairs Office told me the command would look into it and would be in touch. I never heard from her again. In June, Pat Barnes, AFRICOM’s Public Affairs liaison at the Pentagon, shot down my request, admitting only that the U.S. military had a “a small and temporary presence of personnel” at “several locations in Africa.” Due to “force protection” issues, he assured me, he could not tell me “where our folks are located and what facilities they use.”
That July, with sparing assistance from AFRICOM, I published an article on “Secret Wars, Secret Bases, and the Pentagon’s ‘New Spice Route’ in Africa,” in which I attempted to shed light on a growing U.S. military presence on that continent. This included a previously ignored logistics network set up to service U.S. military operations, with critical nodes in Manda Bay, Garissa, and Mombasa in Kenya; Kampala and Entebbe in Uganda; Bangui and Djema in the Central African Republic; Nzara in South Sudan; and Dire Dawa in Ethiopia. I also drew attention to posts, airports, and other facilities used by Americans in Arba Minch in Ethiopia, Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso, and the Seychelles Islands in the Indian Ocean.
U.S. Africa Command took great exception to this. Colonel Tom Davis, their director of public affairs, wrote a detailed, irritated response. I replied to him and once the dust had settled, I asked him for, among other information, a full listing of what he called “temporary facilities” as well as all other outposts, camps, warehouses, supply depots, and anything else that might be used by U.S. personnel in Africa. He ignored my request. I followed up. Four days later, AFRICOM spokesman Eric Elliott emailed to say Colonel Davis was on leave, but added, “Let me see what I can give you in response to your request for a complete list of facilities. There will [be] some limits on the details we can provide because of the scope of the request.”
Were there ever!
That was August 2012. For months, I heard nothing. Not an apology for the wait, not a request for more time. A follow-up in late October was ignored. A note in early November was finally answered by still another AFRICOM spokesman, Lieutenant Commander Dave Hecht, who said he was now on the case and would get back to me with an update by the end of the week. You won’t be shocked to learn that the weekend came and went without a word. I sent another follow up. On November 16th, Hecht finally responded: “All questions now have answers. I just need the boss to review before I can release. I hope to have them to you by mid next week.”
Take a guess what happened next. Nada. Further emails went unanswered. It was December before Hecht replied: “All questions have been answered but are still being reviewed for release. Hopefully this week I can send everything your way.”
He didn’t.
In January 2013, answers to some other questions of mine finally arrived, but nothing on my request for information on U.S. bases. By now, Hecht, too, had disappeared and I was passed off to AFRICOM’s chief of media engagement, Benjamin Benson. When I asked about the ignored questions, he responded that my request “exceed[ed] the scope of this command’s activities, and of what we are resourced to research and provide under the Public Affairs program.” I should instead file a request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). In other words, I should begin what was guaranteed to be another endlessly drawn-out process.
I was, shall we say, irritated. Somehow, it had taken six months to get me nothing and send me elsewhere — and somehow neither Colonel Davis, nor Eric Elliott, nor Dave Hecht had realized this. I said as much to Benson. He wrote back: “Lastly, you state, ‘I"ve been led astray for the better part of a year and intend to write about it’, which of course is your right to do in our free society. We expect that as a professional, you convey the correct facts, and ask that you note that we did research, and provide answers to the questions you posed.”
Well, here you go, Ben. Duly noted. But of course, the “correct facts” are that neither Benson nor anyone else at AFRICOM ever provided answers to the crucial basing questions I posed. And Benson continues not to provide them to this very day.
When we last spoke by telephone, several weeks ago, I reiterated that I understood he couldn’t offer me a list of the locations of American bases in Africa due to “security of operations,” so all I now wanted was a simple count of facilities in Africa. “That’s tricky. We have teams coming in and out of Africa to different locations all the time,” he replied. “Places that they might be, the range of possible locations can get really big, but can provide a really skewed image of where we are… versus other places where we have ongoing operations. So, in terms of providing number, I’d be at a loss of how to quantify this.”
It seemed easy enough to me: just count them and include the necessary disclaimers. So I asked if AFRICOM kept a count of where its troops were located. They did. So what was the problem? He launched into a monologue about the difficulty of ascertaining just what truly constituted “a location” and then told me: “We don’t have a way that we really count locations.”
It couldn’t have been clearer by then. They had a count of all locations, but couldn’t count them. They had lists of where all U.S. troops in Africa were based, but not a list of bases. It was a classic runaround in action.
The First Casualty
And don’t think that was the worst of it. The most dismissive response I’ve gotten recently from anyone whose salary we pay to keep us (nominally) informed about the U.S. military came from Marco Villalobos, the FOIA manager of U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), responsible for Central America and South America.
Last year, reports surfaced of civilians killed during operations conducted or overseen by U.S. personnel in Honduras. In at least one instance, the Honduran Air Force shot down a civilian plane thanks in part, it seems, to intelligence provided by SOUTHCOM. Since the U.S. military is heavily involved in operations across Latin America, I requested records relating to civilian casualties resulting from all operations in the region.
That was in July 2012. In February 2013, I got a peculiar response from Villalobos, one I’ve never seen otherwise in hundreds of replies to FOIA requests that I’ve ever received from various government agencies. He didn’t say there were no such records. He didn’t tell me that I had contacted the wrong agency or bureau. Instead, he directed me to the United Nations Statistics Division for the relevant data.
The trouble is, the U.N. Statistics Division (UNSD) doesn’t collate U.S. military data nor is it devoted to tracking civilian casualties. Instead it provides breakdowns of big datasets, like the Food and Agriculture Organization’s figures on how many hectares of apricots were harvested in Afghanistan in 2007 (3,400) or the prevalence rate of contraceptive use for women ages 15 to 49 in Uganda in 2005 (19.7%).
I was surprised to say the least. And I wasn’t alone. When I checked in with the U.N., the Statistics Division wrote back: “could you please forward us the email you received from SOUTHCOM in which they suggest UNSD as a source, so we can contact them if they continue to give our address out in response to such inquiries which don"t pertain to our work.”
So I called Villalobos to complain. It wasn’t his fault, he quickly assured me. The decision had been made, he claimed, by the director of personnel. I asked for his name, but Villalobos refused to give it: “He’s not a public person.”
That’s the nature of the runaround. Months later, you find yourself back in the same informational cul-de-sac. And when it comes to the U.S. military, it happens again and again and again. I had a similar experience trying to embed with U.S. units in Afghanistan. I was rebuffed repeatedly for reasons that seemed spurious to me. As a result, however, a never-used Afghan visa for that trip sits unstamped in my passport — which brings me back to my recent trip to Qatar.
The American Taliban?
In the airport upon returning to the United States, I was singled out by a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agent. He directed me to a “girl” at a far counter. When I got there, I was admonished by her for being in the wrong place. Finally, I was sent to see a third CBP officer at a different workstation. Think of it as the runaround before the runaround.
This agent proceeded to question me about the contents of my bag, pulled out my papers and began reading them. She also wanted to know about my profession. I said I was a writer. What did I write about? National security issues, I told her. She asked what I thought about national security and the role of the U.S. military in the world. In my estimation, I said, it tended to result in unforeseen consequences. “Like what?” she asked. So I described my most recent article on blowback from U.S. military efforts in Africa.
Did I write books?
“I do,” I replied.
“What are the titles?”
“The latest one is called Kill Anything That Moves.”
“Kill what?”
“Kill Anything That Moves.”
She turned to her computer, promptly Googled the book, went to the Amazon page, and began scrolling through the customer reviews. She asked if my book was, as the page said, a New York Times bestseller. I assured her it was. After a short while, she told me to stay put and disappeared into a back room with my personal papers — writings, notes, reading materials. When she returned, she told me that she couldn’t conduct the rest of my “examination” in public. She would have to bring me “back.” I asked if there was a problem. No. Could I have my papers back? The answer was again no.
I was soon deposited in “Area 23” of New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport and I was definitely the odd one out. Not that there weren’t plenty of other people there. The Muslim man in the taqiyah. Three women in head scarves. Another wearing a niqab. Everyone’s skin color was at least several shades darker than mine.
I waited for a while, taking notes, before my name was called by an Officer Mott. The badge on his shirt made that clear, but he spelled it out for me anyway. “It seems like you’re taking notes on everything, so I might as well get that out of the way,” Mott said visibly perturbed, especially when I asked for his full name. “I’m not giving you my first name,” he said with palpable disgust.
Like the previous CBP agent, he also asked about my writing interests. I told him it mostly centered on U.S. foreign policy.
“Are you for or against it?”
“Am I for foreign policy?” I asked.
“Well, I’m reading that your last book is Kill Anything That Moves. That was about what?”
“The Vietnam War.”
“What about the Vietnam War?”
“Civilian casualties.”
“Sensitive topic,” he said.
“Especially for the Vietnamese,” I replied.
“Well, in this day and age with the whole war going on, that’s a sensitive issue you’re writing about… Do you get any heat or problems writing about war and civilian casualties?”
“It comes with the territory,” I told him.
As he typed away at his computer, I asked why I was singled out. “I think because some of the material you have is of interest… What you’re writing, traveling with.” I asked how they would know what was in my bag before I was detained. “Why the officer stopped you is beyond me, but what the officer discovered is something of interest, especially for national security… It’s not every day you see someone traveling with information like this.”
It was probably true. The contents of my bag were splayed out before us. The most prominent and substantive document was “Qatar: Background and U.S. Relations,” a report prepared last year by the U.S. Congressional Research Service.
Agent Mott rifled through my papers, tapped at his keyboard some more, breathed in deeply and then launched into a series of questions designed to make sure, he told me, that nothing “jeopardizes our national security.”
“How long have you been writing about wars and things like that?”
“About 10 years.”
He did a double take, looked at my passport, and typed feverishly. “I thought you were younger,” he told me. I took it as a compliment. He wanted to know if I’d traveled anywhere in the last five years as he flipped through my passport, filled as it is with visas and entry and exit stamps from around the world. The answer was obviously yes. “Pakistan? Afghanistan?” he asked.
Immediately, I thought of the unused Afghan visa in my passport and started to explain. After instructing me to get a visa, the U.S. military had strung me along for months before deciding I couldn’t embed with certain units I requested, I told him.
“Doing journalistic stuff, not fighting with them or anything like that?”
Fighting? Was I really being accused of heading to Afghanistan to join the Taliban? Or maybe plotting to launch an insider attack? Was I really being questioned about this on the basis of having an Afghan visa and writing about national security issues? “Nope. I’m a writer,” I told him. “I cover the U.S. military, so I was going to cover the U.S. military.”
Agent Mott seemed satisfied enough. He finished his questions and sent me on my way.
The next morning, I checked my email, and found a message waiting for me. It was from the Media Embed Chief in Afghanistan. “You are receiving this email because in the past you have been an embed with ISAF [International Security Force in Afghanistan] or requested an embed,” it read. “Your opinion and satisfaction are important to us.”
“You can’t make this shit up,” an old editor of mine was fond of saying when truth — as it so often does — proves stranger than fiction. This sequence of events certainly qualified. I could hardly believe my eyes, but there it was: a link to a questionnaire about how well served I was by my (nonexistent) 2012 embed in Afghanistan. Question number six asked: “During your embed(s) did you get the information and stories you require? If no please state why.”
Let me count the ways.
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