Army Pfc. Daniel Baetson, deployed to Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti, serves as a mentor with Combined Joint Task Force Horn of Africa. (photo: Petty Officer 2nd Class Kelly Ontiveros)
The
Numbers Racket, AFRICOM Clams Up After Commander Peddles Contradictory
Statements to Congress
By Nick Turse, TomDispatch
24 June 16
One of
the strangest news developments of our time is the way the media now focus for
days, if not weeks, 24/7, on a single event and its ramifications. Omar
Mateen’s slaughter of 49 people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando is only the
latest example of this. If no other calamitous or eye-catching event comes
along (“‘Unimaginable’: Toddler’s
body recovered by divers after alligator attack at Disney resort”), it could,
like the San Bernardino shootings, top the news, in all its micro-ramifications
and repetitions, for three or four weeks.
Such
stories -- especially mass killings, especially those with an aura of terrorism
about them -- are particularly easy for strapped, often downsizing news outfits
to cover. They are, in a sense, pre-packaged. A template for them is already in
place: starting with the breaking news of some horror and soon after a tagline
like “America in shock, [grief,] [mourning,] wondering what comes next.” Then
follow the inevitable grainy smartphone videos of some aspect of the horror as
reporters fan out to capture the weeping faces; the brave or tearful accounts
of wounded survivors; the backstory on the killer or killers and his or their
tangled motivations; commentary from the usual terror (or mass shooting)
experts; the latest on the FBI’s follow-up investigations; the funerals for the
victims, including the comments of grief counselors meant to help a nation “in
mourning”; and finally, of course, the issue of “closure” and “healing,” all
topped -- if “terrorism” is part of the package -- by an endless frisson of
horror and fascination when it comes to the influence of ISIS (or allegiance
pledged to the same), lone wolves, the role of social media, and so on. In this
strange election season, there is, of course, the added thrill of watching
Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, and President Obama in mortal battle. Who could
ask for more? Not the TV news outfits that now mobilize for these events the
way the military might mobilize for war. So, as the New York
Times put it recently, “the
news industry descended on Florida” last week, and so they did.
Such
events overwhelm us, as they are meant to. They glue eyeballs, as they are also
meant to, and the reporting of all of this is now so enmeshed in the events
themselves that it is essentially indistinguishable from them. Undoubtedly --
given the allure of such intense, over-the-top media attention -- it actually
works to encourage future acts that will rivet similar attention on the next
lone wolf or group.
There
is, however, one small problem worth mentioning. For days or weeks on
end, a single place -- call it Newtown, San Bernardino, or Orlando (one school,
one gathering of government workers, one club) -- is the center of our
universe. The rest of the world? Not so much. However
significant the 24/7 event may be, it blots out just about everything else and
so plays havoc with our sense of what’s important and what isn’t. It also
ensures that, at least in the mainstream, ever fewer reporters cover ever fewer
non-24/7 stories.
For so
much that's basic to our world and will matter far more in the long run than
local slaughters, no matter how horrific, there are few or no reporters and
next to no coverage. This means, for instance, that in the distant
reaches of the imperium, much of the time the U.S. military can operate
remarkably freely, without fear of significant scrutiny. Which is why, on the
subject of the U.S. military’s “pivot” to Africa, it’s lucky that Nick Turse
has been on the beat (almost alone)
for TomDispatch. Otherwise in our new media universe, what we don’t
know could, in the end, hurt us.
-Tom
Engelhardt, TomDispatch
The
Numbers Racket
AFRICOM Clams Up After Commander Peddles Contradictory Statements to
Congress
General
David Rodriguez might be a modern military celebrity -- if he hadn’t spent his
career ducking the spotlight. After graduating from West Point in 1976, he
began his long march up the chain of command, serving in Operation Just Cause
(the U.S. invasion of Panama) and Operation Desert Storm (Iraq War 1.0) before
becoming deputy commander of United States Forces, Afghanistan, and commander
of the International Security Assistance Force-Joint Command in 2009.
In
2011, the 6’5” former paratrooper received his fourth
star and two years later the coveted helm of one of the Defense Department’s
six geographic combatant commands, becoming the third
chief of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM). Rodriguez has held that post ever
since, overseeing a colossal American military expansion on that
continent. During his tenure, AFRICOM has grown in every conceivable way,
from outposts to manpower. In the process, Africa has become a key hub for
shadowy U.S. missions against terror groups from Yemen, Iraq, and Syria to Somalia and Libya. But even as he now
prepares to turn over his post to Marine Lieutenant General Thomas Waldhauser,
Rodriguez continues to downplay the scope of
U.S. operations on the continent, insisting that his has been a kinder, gentler
combatant command.
As he
prepares to retire, Rodriguez has an additional reason for avoiding
attention. His tenure has not only also been marked by an increasing number
of terror attacks from Mali and Burkina Faso to, most
recently, Côte d'Ivoire, but
questions have arisen about his recent testimony before the Senate Armed
Services Committee (SASC). Did the outgoing AFRICOM chief lie to the senators
about the number of missions being carried out on the continent? Is AFRICOM
maintaining two sets of books in an effort to obscure the size and scope of its
expanding operations? Is the command relying on a redefinition of terms
and massaging its numbers to buck potential oversight?
If
Rodriguez knowingly deceived the Senate Armed Services Committee in an effort
to downplay the size and scope of his command’s operations, that act would be
criminal and punishable by law, experts say. That’s a big “if.” But
U.S. Africa Command’s response hardly inspires confidence. AFRICOM has
refused to comment on the subject, stonewallingTomDispatch on
questions about why Rodriguez has been peddling contradictory figures about his
command’s activities to Congress. And this rejection of transparency and
accountability is only the latest incident in a long history of AFRICOM
personnel ducking questions, rebuffing press inquiries, and preventing
Americans from understanding what’s being done in their name and with their tax
dollars in Africa.
Numbers
Game
In
March 2015, General David Rodriguez appeared before the Senate Armed Services
Committee to report on the previous year’s military missions in Africa.
“In Fiscal Year 2014, we conducted 68 operations, 11 major joint exercises, and
595 security cooperation activities,” he told the senators. The U.S. had,
in other words, carried out a total of
674 military missions across Africa, nearly two per day, up from 546 the year
before. Those 674 missions amounted to an almost 300% jump in the number
of annual operations, exercises, and military-to-military trainings since U.S.
Africa Command was established in 2008.
These
missions form the backbone of U.S. military engagement on the continent.
“The command's operations, exercises, and security cooperation assistance programs
support U.S. Government foreign policy and do so primarily through
military-to-military activities and assistance programs,” according to
AFRICOM. “These activities build strong, enduring partnerships with
African nations, regional and international organizations, and other states
that are committed to improving security in Africa.”
Very
little is known about most of these missions due to AFRICOM’s secretive
nature. Only a small fraction of them are reported in the command’s press
releases with little of substance chronicled. An even tinier number are
covered by independent journalists. “Congress and the public need to know
about U.S. military operations overseas, regardless of what euphemism is used
to describe them,” says William Hartung, a senior adviser to the Security
Assistance Monitor which tracks American military aid around the globe.
“Calling something a ‘security cooperation activity’ doesn't change the fact
that U.S. troops are working directly with foreign military forces.”
This
spring, at his annual appearance before the SASC, Rodriguez provided the
senators with an update on these programs. “In fiscal year 2015,” he
announced, “we conducted 75 joint operations, 12 major joint exercises, and 400
security cooperation activities.” For the first time ever, it seemed that
AFRICOM had carried out fewer missions than the year before – just 487.
This 28% drop was noteworthy, if little noticed.
But
was it true?
Things
started getting hazy when Rodriguez went on to offer a new version of the
number of missions AFRICOM had carried out in 2014. To hear him tell it,
2015 hadn’t represented a drop in those missions but a banner year for
them. After all, its 75 joint operations, he told the senators, topped
the 68 of 2014. Twelve major joint exercises one-upped the 11 of a year
earlier. And 400 security cooperation activities beat the 363 of the year
before.
I did
a double take and reread his 2015 statement. The discrepancy couldn’t
have been plainer. His exact words last year:
"In Fiscal Year 2014, we conducted 68 operations, 11 major joint
exercises, and 595 security cooperation activities." And this year
he said: "[W]e conducted
68 operations, 11 major joint exercises, and 363 security cooperation
activities in fiscal year 2014." Somehow, between 2015 and 2016, more than
200 missions from 2014 had simply vanished and, months later, AFRICOM has still
failed to offer an explanation for what happened, while the Senate Armed
Services Committee has, apparently, not even bothered to ask for any
clarification.
A
discrepancy of 232 security cooperation activities can’t be chalked up to a
mere miscount. And since both numbers were presented to the SASC in
written statements, the AFRICOM chief can’t simply have misspoken.
Such a
discrepancy in the total number of “security cooperation activities” conducted
by his command raises questions about what AFRICOM is actually doing on the
continent (or whether it even knows what it’s doing). The figure
Rodriguez offered this year also contradicts projections laid out in U.S. Army
Africa (USARAF) documents obtained by TomDispatch via the Freedom
of Information Act in 2014. These refer to more than 400
activities scheduled for Army troops alone in Africa that year.
Despite
numerous requests over several weeks, AFRICOM has failed to provide any comment
or clarification to TomDispatch. It also failed to respond to
requests to interview Rodriguez. A Pentagon spokesperson was able to coax
a reply out of the command as to the correct number of security cooperation
activities in 2014. According to AFRICOM, that number is indeed 363,
directly contradicting Rodriguez’s 2015 testimony and suggesting that, whether
purposely or not, the general misled members of Congress. Messages
seeking comment from the SASC staff, including Dustin Walker and Chip Unruh --
spokespeople, respectively, for U.S. Senators John McCain and Jack Reed, the
chairman and the ranking member of the committee -- were not returned.
“The
fact that General Rodriguez gave such wildly conflicting figures, and that
members of Congress aren't pressing him for an explanation, is just one more
example of how U.S. military activities in Africa and beyond have spun out of
control,” says Hartung.
Bending
the Law -- or Breaking It?
With
Rodriguez, Africa Command, and the staff of the Senate Armed Services Committee
staying silent, it’s impossible to know what motives -- if any -- lay behind
the bogus numbers offered by the AFRICOM chief.
The
command may, without public announcement, have redefined “security cooperation
activities” thanks to an as-yet-unreleased 2014 Defense Department memorandum
meant to provide guidance on the so-called Leahy Law, which prohibits the U.S
from providing assistance to foreign security forces implicated in human rights
abuses. Reclassifying certain types of training missions makes it more
difficult than ever to track both the dollars spent by AFRICOM and the number
of activities it conducted on that continent.
Africa
Command, its subordinate units, and partners also have a long history of being
unable to effectively track and manage their own efforts. A 2015 study by
the Government Accountability Office noted that AFRICOM “identifies and
synchronizes security cooperation activities through various planning
processes, but the brigades allocated to AFRICOM sometimes lack key information
about these activities.”
According to officials involved in the process,
“the increasing number of activities being conducted in Africa… challenges the
ability of the Offices of Security Cooperation to fully coordinate individual
activities with the host nation, AFRICOM, USARAF, the other service components,
and DOD executing units.”
A
2013 report by the
Department of Defense’s Inspector General on AFRICOM’s Combined Joint Task Force-Horn
of Africa found recordkeeping so
abysmal that its officials “did not have an effective system to manage or
report community relations and low-cost activities.” A spreadsheet
supposedly tracking such missions during 2012 and 2013 was, for example, so
incomplete that 43% of such efforts went unmentioned.
New
definitions, poor recordkeeping, ineffective management, and incompetence
aren’t, however, the only possible explanations for the discrepancies.
AFRICOM has a history of working to thwart efforts aimed at transparency and
accountability and has long beencriticized for its
atmosphere of secrecy. Beyond spin, the highly selective release of
information, the cherry-picking of reporters to cover a tiny fraction of its
undertakings, and the issuing of news releases that tell a
very limited story about
the command, AFRICOM hastaken steps to thwart press coverage of its footprint and missions.
After
I started asking the command questions about the shifting count of security
cooperation activities, Rodriguez told Stars and
Stripes that the command had carried out “roughly 430 annual ‘theater
security cooperation’ activities” last year, a difference of 30 from the figure
he provided to the Senate Armed Services Committee in March. Why he has
continued to peddle different numbers at different times is unclear.
Under Section 1623 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code,
knowingly making contradictory statements in court or a grand jury while under
oath can get you five years in prison. While that statute doesn’t cover
Rodriguez’s testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, experts point
to Section 1621 of Title 18, which prohibits lying to Congress while under oath
and Section 1001 covering testimony given while not under oath, as the
operative portions of the U.S. Code. A person convicted of the former
faces up to five years in jail and fines of up to $250,000. There is,
however, a high burden of proof when it comes to perjury, including clear
evidence of intent.
Rodriguez
could, for example, have been provided with faulty numbers by subordinates or
the command might have altered the way it tracks missions. If, however,
Rodriguez intentionally manipulated the numbers to deceive Congress, he broke
the law, according to Andrew McBride, who served in the Department of
Justice for a decade and is now a partner with the Washington D.C.-based law
firm of Wiley Rein. “If he has a reason to do it and he knows what he’s
doing, that is perjury. That is willfully lying under oath,” says
McBride. And under Section 1001, a person does not even have to be under
oath for the federal government to bring a false statements charge. It’s
enough for an individual to provide false information with an intent to deceive
a federal agent or entity.
There
is, as yet, no evidence that Rodriguez violated the law, but should he find
himself in hot water, it would not be a first for an AFRICOM chief. Just
after Rodriguez was nominated to take the
helm of AFRICOM back in 2012, its first commander, General William Ward, was demoted as he was
retiring from the military and ordered to repay the government $82,000 for
lavish spending on the taxpayers’ dime.
On the
eve of his own retirement, Rodriguez now finds himself the subject of scrutiny,
with his subordinates stonewalling requests for comment. Numerous emails
sent to AFRICOM spokesman Lieutenant Commander Anthony Falvo -- including those
with a subject line indicating a request to interview the AFRICOM chief --
were, according to automatic return receipts, “deleted without being read.”
At a
time when the number of U.S. troops, bases, and -- perhaps --
missions in Africa are increasing, along with the number of terrorist groups
and terror attacks on the continent, hundreds of already murky missions have
apparently been disappeared, purged from the command’s rolls and the historical
record. As troubling as this may be, the stakes go far beyond numbers,
says the Security Assistance Monitor’s William Hartung. Precise figures
about foreign military engagements are essential in a world where blowback from
military operations is an ever-present reality, but they are only a first
step.
“Providing
accurate public information on what U.S. troops are doing would at least
provide early warning of what might be to come, and allow for scrutiny and
accountability,” he points out. “Not only should AFRICOM report the
number of activities, but there should be some description of what these
activities entail. Arming and training missions can escalate into more
substantial military involvement.”
Nick
Turse is the managing editor of TomDispatch, a fellow at the Nation
Institute, and a contributing writer for the Intercept. He is the author of the New
York Times bestseller Kill Anything That Moves: The Real
American War in Vietnam. His latest book is Next Time They’ll Come to Count the
Dead: War and Survival in South Sudan. His website isNickTurse.com.
Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and
join us on Facebook. Check out the newest Dispatch Book,
Nick Turse’s Next Time They’ll Come to Count the
Dead, and Tom Engelhardt's latest book, Shadow Government: Surveillance,
Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World.
C 2015 Reader Supported News
Donations can be sent
to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD
21218. Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their
lives." Eugene Victor Debs
No comments:
Post a Comment