Published on Portside (https://portside.org)
A Force Unto Itself: A Military Leviathan Has Emerged as America’s
51st and Most Powerful State
William J. Astore
Tuesday, March 22, 2016
TomDispatch
In the decades since the draft ended in 1973, a strange new
military has emerged in the United States. Think of it, if you will, as a
post-democratic force that prides itself on its warrior ethos [1] rather
than the old-fashioned citizen-soldier [2] ideal.
As such, it’s a military increasingly divorced from the people, with a way of
life ever more foreign [3] to
most Americans (adulatory [4] as they may
feel toward its troops). Abroad, it’s now regularly put to purposes
foreign to any traditional idea of national defense. In Washington, it
has become a force unto itself [5], following
its own priorities, pursuing its own agendas, increasingly unaccountable [6] to
either the president or Congress.
Three areas highlight the post-democratic transformation of this
military with striking clarity: the blending of military professionals with
privatized mercenaries in prosecuting unending [7] “limited”
wars; the way senior military commanders are cashing in on retirement; and finally
the emergence of U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) as a quasi-missionary [8] imperial
force with a presence in at least 135 countries [9] a
year (and counting).
The All-Volunteer Military and Mercenaries: An Undemocratic
Amalgam
I’m a product of the all-volunteer military. In 1973, the
Nixon administration ended the draft [10], which
also marked the end of a citizen-soldier tradition that had served the nation
for two centuries. At the time, neither the top brass nor the president
wanted to face a future in which, in the style of the Vietnam era just then
winding up, a force of citizen-soldiers could vote with their feet and their
mouths in the kinds of protest that had only recently left the Army in significant disarray [11]. The
new military was to be all volunteers and a thoroughly professional
force. (Think: no dissenters, no protesters, no antiwar sentiments; in
short, no repeats of what had just happened.) And so it has remained for
more than 40 years.
Most Americans were happy to see the draft abolished.
(Although young men still register for selective service at age 18, there are
neither popular calls for its return, nor serious plans to revive it.)
Yet its end was not celebrated by all. At the time, some military
men advised against [12] it,
convinced that what, in fact, did happen would happen: that an all-volunteer
force would become more prone to military adventurism enabled by civilian
leaders who no longer had to consider the sort of opposition draft call-ups
might create for undeclared and unpopular wars.
In 1982, historian Joseph Ellis summed up such sentiments in a
prophetic passage in an essay titled “Learning Military Lessons from Vietnam”
(from the book Men at War [13]):
“[V]irtually all studies of the all-volunteer army have indicated
that it is likely to be less representative of and responsive to popular opinion,
more expensive, more jealous of its own prerogatives, more xenophobic -- in
other words, more likely to repeat some of the most grievous mistakes of
Vietnam … Perhaps the most worrisome feature of the all-volunteer army is that
it encourages soldiers to insulate themselves from civilian society and allows
them to cling tenaciously to outmoded visions of the profession of arms.
It certainly puts an increased burden of responsibility on civilian officials
to impose restraints on military operations, restraints which the soldiers will
surely perceive as unjustified.”
Ellis wrote this more than 30 years ago -- before Desert Storm,
the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, or the launching of the War on
Terror. These wars (and other U.S. military interventions of the last
decades) have provided vivid evidence that civilian officials have felt
emboldened in wielding a military freed from the constraints of the old citizen
army. Indeed, it says something of our twenty-first-century moment that
military officers have from time to time felt the need to restrain civilian
officials rather than vice versa. Consider, for instance, Army Chief of
Staff General Eric Shinseki’s warning [14] early
in 2003 that a post-invasion Iraq would need to be occupied by “several hundred
thousand” troops. Shinseki clearly hoped that his (all-too-realistic)
estimate would tamp down the heady optimism of top Bush administration
officials that any such war would be a “cakewalk,” that the Iraqis would strew
“bouquets” of flowers in the path of the invaders, and that the U.S. would be
able to garrison an American-style Iraq in the fashion of South Korea [15] until
hell froze over. Prophetic Shinseki was, but not successful. His
advice was dismissed out of hand, as was he.
Events since Desert Storm in 1991 suggest that the all-volunteer
military has been more curse than blessing. Partially to blame: a new
dynamic in modern American history, the creation of a massive military force
that is not of the people, by the people, or for the people. It is, of
course, a dynamic hardly new to history. Writing in the eighteenth
century about the decline and fall of Rome, the historian Edward Gibbon noted that [16]:
“In the purer ages of the commonwealth [of Rome], the use of arms
was reserved for those ranks of citizens who had a country to love, a property
to defend, and some share in enacting those laws, which it was their interest,
as well as duty, to maintain. But in proportion as the public freedom was lost
in extent of conquest, war was gradually improved into an art, and degraded
into a trade.”
As the U.S. has become more authoritarian and more expansive, its
military has come to serve the needs of others, among them elites driven by
dreams of profit and power. Some will argue that this is nothing
new. I’ve read my Smedley Butler [17] and
I’m well aware that historically the U.S. military was often used in
un-democratic ways to protect and advance various business interests. In
General Butler’s day, however, that military was a small quasi-professional
force with a limited reach. Today’s version is enormous,
garrisoning roughly 800 [18]foreign
bases across the globe, capable of sending its Hellfire missile-armed drones on
killing missions into country after country across the Greater Middle East and
Africa, and possessing a vision of what it likes to call “full-spectrum
dominance” meant to facilitate “global reach, global power.” In sum, the
U.S. military is far more powerful, far less accountable -- and far more
dangerous.
As a post-democratic military has arisen in this country, so have
a set of “warrior corporations [19]” -- that
is, private, for-profit mercenary outfits that now regularly accompany American
forces in essentially equal numbers [20] into
any war zone. In the invasion and occupation of Iraq, Blackwater [21] was
the most notorious of these, but other mercenary outfits like Triple Canopy and
DynCorp were also deeply involved. This rise of privatized militaries
and mercenaries [22] 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 [23] for
their service. All of which allows for the further development of a
significantly under-the-radar form of war making.
The phrase “limited war [24],” applied
to European conflicts from the close of the Thirty Years’ War in 1648 to the
French Revolution in 1789, and later to conventional wars in the nuclear age,
has fresh meaning in twenty-first-century America. These days, the limits
of limited war, such as they are, fall less on the warriors and more on the
American people who are increasingly cut out [25] of
the process. They are, for instance, purposely never mobilized for
battle, but encouraged to act as though they were living in a war-less
land. American war efforts, which invariably take place in distant lands,
are not supposed to interfere with business as usual in the “homeland,” which,
of course, means consumerism and consumption. You will find no rationing
in today’s America, nor calls for common sacrifice of any sort. If
anything, wars have simply become another consumable item on the American
menu. They consume fuel and resources, money, and intellect, all in
staggering amounts. In a sense, they are themselves a for-profit
consumable, often with tie-ins to video games [26], movies [27], and other
forms of entertainment [28].
In the rush for money and in the name of patriotism, the horrors
of wars, faced squarely by many Americans in the Vietnam War era, are now largely disregarded [29]. One
question that this election season has raised: What if our post-democratic
military is driven by an autocrat who insists that it must obey [30] his
whims in the cause of “making America great again”?
Come 2017, we may find out.
Senior Military Men: Checking Out and Cashing In
There was a time when old soldiers like Douglas MacArthur talked
wistfully about fading away [31] in
retirement. Not so for today’s senior military officers. Like so many
politicians, they regularly go in search of the millionaires’ club on leaving
public service, even as they accept six-figure pensions and other retirement
benefits from the government. In the post-military years, being John Q.
Public isn't enough. One must be General Johannes Q. Publicus (ret.), a
future financial wizard, powerful CEO, or educator supreme. Heck, maybe
all three.
Consider General David Petraeus, America’s “surge” general in Iraq
and later head [32] of
U.S. Central Command. He left the directorship of the CIA in disgrace [33] after
an adulterous affair with his biographer-mistress, with whom he illegally
shared classified information. Petraeus has since found teaching gigs at
the University of Southern California, the City University of New York, and
Harvard’s Kennedy School while being appointed chairman of the investment
firm KKR Global Institute [34].
Another retired general who cashed in with an investment firm is Ray Odierno [35], the
former Army chief of staff, who became a special adviser to JP Morgan Chase,
the financial giant. (Indeed, the oddness of Odierno, an ex-football
player known for his total dedication to the Army, being hired by a financial
firm inspired this spoof [36] at a
military humor site.)
But few men have surpassed retired Air Force General John Jumper [37]. He
cashed in by joining many corporate boards, including the board of directors
for Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), a major defense
contractor. After five years he became its CEO [38] with
a seven-figure salary.
Then you have retired general officers who pull
down more than $300 an hour (no $7.25 federal minimum wage for them) advising
their former subordinates at the Pentagon as “senior mentors [39].”
No one expects generals to take vows of poverty upon
retirement. Indeed, those hefty government pensions and assorted other
benefits would preclude such vows. But in the post-democratic military world,
duty, honor, country has become duty, honor, cash.
For today’s crop of retiree generals, no Cincinnatus [40] need
apply. Of course, there’s long been a revolving door between Pentagon
offices and corporate boardrooms, but that door seems to be spinning ever
faster in the twenty-first century.
The peril of all this should be obvious: the prospect of
cashing-in big time upon retirement can’t help but affect the judgment of
generals while they’re still wearing the uniform. When you reach high
rank, it’s already one big boys' club where everyone knows everyone else's
reputation. Get one for being an outspoken critic of a contractor's
performance, or someone who refuses to play ball or think by the usual rules of
Washington, and chances are you're not going to be hired to lucrative positions
on various corporate boards in retirement.
Such an insular, even incestuous system of pay-offs naturally
reinforces conventional thinking. Generals go along to get along,
embracing prevailing thinking on interventionism, adventurism, and
dominance. Especially troublesome is the continued push for foreign military sales [41] (arms
exports) to some of the world’s most active war zones. In this way,
weaponry and wars are increasingly the business of America, a “growth” industry
that is only reinforced when retired generals are hired to lead companies, to
advise financial institutes, or even to teach young adults in prestigious
schools.
For Petraeus is not the only retired general to lecture at such
places. General Stanley McChrystal, who infamously was fired by President
Obama for allowing a command climate that was disrespectful [42] to
the nation’s civilian chain of command, is now a senior fellow [43] at
the Jackson Institute at Yale University. Admiral William McRaven, former
head of U.S. Special Operations Command during the era of black sites [44] and
deaths by torture, is now the chancellor [45] of
the entire University of Texas system. McRaven had no prior background in
education, just as Odierno had no background in finance before being hired to a
top-tier position of authority. Both of them were, however, the military
version of “company men” who, on retirement, possessed a wealth of contacts,
which helped make them highly marketable commodities.
If you're wearing three or four stars in the military, you've
already been carefully vetted as a "company man," since the promotion
process screens out mavericks. Independent thinkers tend to retire or
separate from the military long before they reach eligibility for flag
rank. The most persistent and often the most political officers rise to
the top, not the brightest and the best.
Special Operations: The American Military’s Jesuits
As Nick Turse has documented [46] at TomDispatch [47], post-9/11
America has seen the rapid growth of U.S. Special Operations Command, or SOCOM,
a secretive military within the military that now numbers almost 70,000
operatives. The scholar and former CIA consultant Chalmers Johnson used
to refer to that Agency as the president’s private army. Now, the
commander-in-chief quite literally has such an army (as, in a sense, he also now
has a private [48] robotic
air force of drone assassins [49] dispatchable
more or less anywhere). The expansion of SOCOM from a modest number of
elite military units (like the Green Berets or SEAL Team 6) into a force larger
than significant numbers of national armies is an underreported and
under-considered development of our post-democratic military moment. It
has now become the regular go-to force [50] in
the war on terror from Iraq [51] to Afghanistan [52], Syria [53] to
Cameroon, Libya [54] to Somalia [55].
As Gregory Foster, a Vietnam veteran and professor at the National
Defense University noted recently [56], this
now-massive force “provides an almost infinite amount of potential space for
meddling and ‘mission creep’ abroad and at home due, in part, to the
increasingly blurred lines between military, intelligence, police, and internal
security functions… [T]he very nature of [special ops] missions fosters a
military culture that is particularly destructive to accountability and proper
lines of responsibility… the temptation to employ forces that can circumvent
oversight without objection is almost irresistible.”
Like the Jesuit order [57] of
priests who, beginning in the sixteenth century, took the fight to heretical
Protestants and spread the Catholic faith from Europe and Asia in the Old World
to nearly everywhere in the New World, today’s SOCOM operators crusade globally
on the part of America. They slay evildoers while advancing U.S. foreign
policy and business goals in at least 150 countries [58].
Indeed, the head of SOCOM, General Joseph Votel III [59], West
Point grad and Army Ranger, put it plainly when he said that America
is witnessing [60] “a
golden age for special operations.”
A military force effectively unaccountable to the people tears at
the very fabric of the Constitution, which is at pains to mandate firm and
complete control over the military by Congress, acting in the people’s name.
Combine such a military with a range of undeclared wars and other conflicts and
a Congress for which cheerleading, not control, is the order of the day, and
you have a recipe for a force unto itself.
It used to be said of Prussia that it was a military with a state
attached to it. America’s post-democratic military, combined with the
proliferation of intelligence outfits and the growth of the country’s second
defense department, the Department of Homeland Security, could increasingly be
considered something like an emerging proto-state. Call it America’s 51st
state, except that instead of having two senators and a few representatives
based on its size, it has all the senators and all the representatives based on
its power, budget, and grip on American culture.
It is, in other words, a post-democratic leviathan to be reckoned
with. And not a single Democratic or Republican candidate for
commander-in-chief has spent a day in uniform. Prediction for November:
another overwhelming victory at the polls for America’s 51st state.
William Astore, a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF) and professor
of history, is a TomDispatch regular [61]. He
blogs at Bracing Views [62].
Follow TomDispatch on Twitter [63] and
join us on Facebook [64]. Check out
the newest Dispatch Book, Nick Turse’s Tomorrow’s Battlefield: U.S. Proxy
Wars and Secret Ops in Africa [65], and Tom
Engelhardt's latest book, Shadow Government: Surveillance,
Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World [66].
Links:
[1] http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/129695
[2] http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174957
[3] http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175034/william_astore_america%27s_foreign_legion
[4] http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175423/tomgram%3A_andrew_bacevich,_playing_ball_with_the_pentagon/
[5] http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175134
[6] http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176115/tomgram%3A_gregory_foster%2C_a_case_for_demilitarizing_the_military/
[7] http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176016/
[8] https://contraryperspective.com/2015/01/20/special-forces-americas-jesuits/
[9] http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176048/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_a_secret_war_in_135_countries/
[10] http://www.politico.com/story/2012/01/us-military-draft-ends-jan-27-1973-072085
[11] https://msuweb.montclair.edu/%7Efurrg/Vietnam/heinl.html
[12] https://contraryperspective.com/2015/12/16/more-boots-on-the-ground-they-say-as-long-as-they-are-not-wearing-them/
[13] http://www.amazon.com/dp/0913750468/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20
[14] http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/20/opinion/mills-truth-teller-iraq/index.html
[15] http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174807/tom_engelhardt_how_permanent_are_those_bases
[16] http://www.ccel.org/g/gibbon/decline/volume1/chap1.htm
[17] http://bracingviews.com/2013/05/30/war-is-a-racket/
[18] http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176043/
[19] http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175507/tom_engelhardt_the_arrival_of_the_warrior_corporation
[20] http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2013/0319/A-lesson-from-Iraq-war-How-to-outsource-war-to-private-contractors
[21] http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174780/scahill_a_democratic_sell_out_on_bush_s_mercenaries
[22] http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174959/chalmers_johnson_warning_mercenaries_at_work
[23] http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175912/tomgram%3A_rory_fanning,_why_do_we_keep_thanking_the_troops/
[24] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_war
[25] http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175314/tom_engelhardt_the_new_american_isolationism
[26] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_of_Duty
[27] http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/6882:act-of-valor-beware-exalting-our-starship-troopers
[28] http://bracingviews.com/2013/05/31/our-disneyland-approach-to-empire/
[29] http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176110/tomgram%3A_mattea_kramer,_the_grief_of_others_and_the_boasts_of_candidates/
[30] http://bracingviews.com/2016/03/04/last-night-donald-trump-disqualified-himself/
[31] http://www.presentationmagazine.com/general-macarthur-speech-7523.htm
[32] http://www.centcom.mil/en/news/press-releases/gen.-david-petraeus-assumes-command-of-centcom
[33] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/10/us/citing-affair-petraeus-resigns-as-cia-director.html
[34] http://www.kkr.com/our-firm/leadership/david-h-petraeus
[35] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_T._Odierno
[36] http://www.duffelblog.com/2015/08/markets-crash-after-odierno-fired/
[37] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_P._Jumper
[38] https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/capitalbusiness/new-saic-chief-john-jumper-aims-to-shore-up-contracting-giant/2012/04/13/gIQA1UrAFT_story.html
[39] http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/military/2009-11-17-military-mentors_N.htm
[40] http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/rulersleaderskings/p/Cincinnatus.htm
[41] http://fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/R44320.pdf
[42] http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-runaway-general-20100622
[43] http://jackson.yale.edu/mcchrystal
[44] https://contraryperspective.com/2015/05/11/the-fish-rots-from-the-head-my-qa-with-admiral-william-mcraven/
[45] https://www.utsystem.edu/chancellor/biography
[46] http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176060/tomgram%3A_nick_turse,_success,_failure,_and_the_%22finest_warriors_who_ever_went_into_combat%22/
[47] http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175790/tomgram%3A_nick_turse,_special_ops_goes_global
[48] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in-war-on-al-qaeda.html
[49] http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175551/tomgram%3A_engelhardt,_assassin-in-chief/
[50] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/28/world/middleeast/more-and-more-special-forces-become-obamas-military-answer.html
[51] http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/03/02/468956113/u-s-special-ops-troops-aim-to-round-up-isis-leaders-in-iraq
[52] http://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-special-ops-troops-afghanistan-battle-taliban-helmand-evacuated/
[53] http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/29/politics/pentagon-army-target-isis-iraq/
[54] http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/17/secret-us-mission-in-libya-revealed-after-air-force-posted-pictures
[55] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2016/03/09/u-s-special-operations-forces-conduct-helicopter-raid-in-somalia/
[56] http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176115/tomgram%3A_gregory_foster%2C_a_case_for_demilitarizing_the_military/
[57] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_Jesus
[58] http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175945/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_a_shadow_war_in_150_countries/
[59] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Votel
[60] http://www.tampabay.com/news/military/macdill/commandos-get-a-new-chief-today/2195078
[61] http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176102/
[62] http://bracingviews.com/
[63] https://twitter.com/TomDispatch
[64] http://www.facebook.com/tomdispatch
[65] http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608464636/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20
[66] http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608463656/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20
[2] http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174957
[3] http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175034/william_astore_america%27s_foreign_legion
[4] http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175423/tomgram%3A_andrew_bacevich,_playing_ball_with_the_pentagon/
[5] http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175134
[6] http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176115/tomgram%3A_gregory_foster%2C_a_case_for_demilitarizing_the_military/
[7] http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176016/
[8] https://contraryperspective.com/2015/01/20/special-forces-americas-jesuits/
[9] http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176048/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_a_secret_war_in_135_countries/
[10] http://www.politico.com/story/2012/01/us-military-draft-ends-jan-27-1973-072085
[11] https://msuweb.montclair.edu/%7Efurrg/Vietnam/heinl.html
[12] https://contraryperspective.com/2015/12/16/more-boots-on-the-ground-they-say-as-long-as-they-are-not-wearing-them/
[13] http://www.amazon.com/dp/0913750468/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20
[14] http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/20/opinion/mills-truth-teller-iraq/index.html
[15] http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174807/tom_engelhardt_how_permanent_are_those_bases
[16] http://www.ccel.org/g/gibbon/decline/volume1/chap1.htm
[17] http://bracingviews.com/2013/05/30/war-is-a-racket/
[18] http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176043/
[19] http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175507/tom_engelhardt_the_arrival_of_the_warrior_corporation
[20] http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2013/0319/A-lesson-from-Iraq-war-How-to-outsource-war-to-private-contractors
[21] http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174780/scahill_a_democratic_sell_out_on_bush_s_mercenaries
[22] http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174959/chalmers_johnson_warning_mercenaries_at_work
[23] http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175912/tomgram%3A_rory_fanning,_why_do_we_keep_thanking_the_troops/
[24] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_war
[25] http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175314/tom_engelhardt_the_new_american_isolationism
[26] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_of_Duty
[27] http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/6882:act-of-valor-beware-exalting-our-starship-troopers
[28] http://bracingviews.com/2013/05/31/our-disneyland-approach-to-empire/
[29] http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176110/tomgram%3A_mattea_kramer,_the_grief_of_others_and_the_boasts_of_candidates/
[30] http://bracingviews.com/2016/03/04/last-night-donald-trump-disqualified-himself/
[31] http://www.presentationmagazine.com/general-macarthur-speech-7523.htm
[32] http://www.centcom.mil/en/news/press-releases/gen.-david-petraeus-assumes-command-of-centcom
[33] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/10/us/citing-affair-petraeus-resigns-as-cia-director.html
[34] http://www.kkr.com/our-firm/leadership/david-h-petraeus
[35] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_T._Odierno
[36] http://www.duffelblog.com/2015/08/markets-crash-after-odierno-fired/
[37] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_P._Jumper
[38] https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/capitalbusiness/new-saic-chief-john-jumper-aims-to-shore-up-contracting-giant/2012/04/13/gIQA1UrAFT_story.html
[39] http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/military/2009-11-17-military-mentors_N.htm
[40] http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/rulersleaderskings/p/Cincinnatus.htm
[41] http://fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/R44320.pdf
[42] http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-runaway-general-20100622
[43] http://jackson.yale.edu/mcchrystal
[44] https://contraryperspective.com/2015/05/11/the-fish-rots-from-the-head-my-qa-with-admiral-william-mcraven/
[45] https://www.utsystem.edu/chancellor/biography
[46] http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176060/tomgram%3A_nick_turse,_success,_failure,_and_the_%22finest_warriors_who_ever_went_into_combat%22/
[47] http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175790/tomgram%3A_nick_turse,_special_ops_goes_global
[48] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in-war-on-al-qaeda.html
[49] http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175551/tomgram%3A_engelhardt,_assassin-in-chief/
[50] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/28/world/middleeast/more-and-more-special-forces-become-obamas-military-answer.html
[51] http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/03/02/468956113/u-s-special-ops-troops-aim-to-round-up-isis-leaders-in-iraq
[52] http://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-special-ops-troops-afghanistan-battle-taliban-helmand-evacuated/
[53] http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/29/politics/pentagon-army-target-isis-iraq/
[54] http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/17/secret-us-mission-in-libya-revealed-after-air-force-posted-pictures
[55] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2016/03/09/u-s-special-operations-forces-conduct-helicopter-raid-in-somalia/
[56] http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176115/tomgram%3A_gregory_foster%2C_a_case_for_demilitarizing_the_military/
[57] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_Jesus
[58] http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175945/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_a_shadow_war_in_150_countries/
[59] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Votel
[60] http://www.tampabay.com/news/military/macdill/commandos-get-a-new-chief-today/2195078
[61] http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176102/
[62] http://bracingviews.com/
[63] https://twitter.com/TomDispatch
[64] http://www.facebook.com/tomdispatch
[65] http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608464636/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20
[66] http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608463656/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20
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