Washington exploiting Green Beret deaths to escalate Africa intervention
27 October 2017
More than three weeks after four special operations troops died in a firefight in Niger, the Pentagon has yet to provide a coherent account of what led to this military debacle.
Combined with President Donald Trump’s initial silence on the deaths, followed by his repugnant public debate with the widow of one of the slain soldiers, the incident has cast a spotlight on a rapidly expanding US military buildup in Africa that has been carried out behind the backs of the American people and with no public debate, much less authorization, by the US Congress.
The Trump administration has made no real effort to sell this burgeoning American military operation—conducted under the badly frayed banner of the “war on terrorism”—to the American public.
Meanwhile, leading figures in the US Senate, including Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, have claimed, however implausibly, that they knew nothing about the approximately 1,000 US special operations troops deployed in Niger and on its borders.
Trump himself provided an entirely credible claim of his own ignorance as to what is happening in Africa. Asked by reporters on the White House lawn whether he had authorized the mission in Niger, he said he had not, declaring idiotically: “I have generals that are great generals. These are great fighters; these are warriors. I gave them authority to do what’s right so that we win.”
Even as top politicians say they do not know what is going on and the public has been kept completely in the dark about US troops fighting in Africa—not to mention why they are there—the Pentagon is setting US policy. It is orchestrating a steady drumbeat to exploit the October 4 incident in Niger to push…