Wm. Astore | A Force Unto Itself: A Military Leviathan Has Emerged as America’s 51st and Most Powerful State

This rise of privatized militaries and mercenaries naturally contributes to actions that are inherently un-democratic and divorced from the will and wishes of the people. It is also inherently a less accountable form of war, since no one even bothers to count the for-profit dead, nor do their bodies come home in flag-draped coffins for solemn burial in military cemeteries; and Americans don’t approach such mercenaries to thank them for their service. All of which allows for the further development of a significantly under-the-radar form of war making.

Tomgram: Nick Turse, A Shadow War in 150 Countries

Since September 11, 2001, U.S. Special Operations forces have grown in every conceivable way, including their numbers, their budget, their clout in Washington, and their place in the country’s popular imagination. The command has, for example, more than doubled its personnel from about 33,000 in 2001 to nearly 70,000 today

Nick Turse: The Special Ops Surge — America’s Secret War in 134 Countries

They operate in the green glow of night vision in Southwest Asia and stalk through the jungles of South America.  They snatch men from their homes in the Maghreb and shoot it out with heavily armed militants in the Horn of Africa.  ....    By Nick Turse  January 16, 2014  TomDispatch.com    Tomgram: Nick Turse, Secret Wars and Black Ops Blowback.  Read More

A Secret War in 120 Countries The Pentagon’s New Power Elite

Tomgram: Nick Turse, Uncovering the Military's Secret Military Posted by Nick Turse at 6:21pm, August 3, 2011.  tomdispatch.com In “Getting bin Laden,” Nicholas Schmidle’s New Yorker report on the assault on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, here’s the money sentence, according to Noah Shachtman of  Wired Magazine’s Danger Room blog: “The Abbottabad raid was not DEVGRU’s maiden venture into Pakistan, More

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