{"id":144039,"date":"2019-09-30T12:00:24","date_gmt":"2019-09-30T11:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=144039"},"modified":"2024-09-23T14:41:59","modified_gmt":"2024-09-23T13:41:59","slug":"more-u-s-commandos-are-fighting-invisible-wars-in-the-middle-east","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2019\/09\/more-u-s-commandos-are-fighting-invisible-wars-in-the-middle-east\/","title":{"rendered":"More U.S. Commandos Are Fighting Invisible Wars in the Middle East"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Green Berets assigned to 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne) move to a landing UH-60 helicopter for extraction during a training event near Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., on Aug. 26, 2019. Photo: Sgt. Steven Lewis\/U.S. Army<\/p><\/div>\n

25 Sep 2019 – <\/em>The percentage of commandos deployed to the Middle East is on the rise, according to new statistics provided to The Intercept by U.S. Special Operations Command. On average, more than 4,000 Special Operations forces \u2014 Navy SEALs, Army Green Berets, and Marine Corps Raiders among them \u2014 are deployed to the region each week, more than anywhere else in the world.<\/p>\n

The increase comes at a time when the United States is apparently planning a troop drawdown<\/a> in Afghanistan, despite a peace agreement with the Taliban having fallen apart. It also coincides with President Donald Trump\u2019s announcements that the\u00a0Islamic State has been defeated<\/a> and that the U.S. is \u201crapidly pulling out of Syria<\/a>.\u201d Gone are the military surges<\/a> that brought tens of thousands<\/a> of conventional U.S. forces<\/a> to Iraq and Afghanistan. Gone, too, is the faddish fixation with counterinsurgency<\/a>, rehabilitated from the Vietnam War dustbin (only to be deep-sixed again) and the military\u2019s \u201cgovernment in a box<\/a>\u201d pipe dreams.<\/p>\n

Today, American warfare is increasingly typified by a reliance on Special Operations Forces, private contractors, local proxies working with and for the military and CIA, and air power. These low-visibility forces\u00a0make\u00a0greater secrecy and less accountability more likely for U.S. military actions in the Middle East, said Daphne Eviatar, director of the Security with Human Rights program at Amnesty International USA, who views the growing reliance on\u00a0commandos as both predictable and troubling.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlready we\u2019re not getting answers to basic questions, like who the U.S. has killed and why it hasn\u2019t better protected civilians, and the more the U.S. role is turned over to Special Operations Forces, the CIA, or contractors, the less information the government is going to provide,\u201d Eviatar told The Intercept. \u201cOne has to wonder if that isn\u2019t the reason they\u2019re apparently shifting these roles to secret agents whose actions and their consequences the government isn\u2019t required to disclose.\u201d<\/p>\n

While more than 80 percent of America\u2019s commandos deployed oversees were stationed in the greater Middle East \u2014 an area the military defines as stretching from Northeast Africa to Central and South Asia \u2014 at the beginning of the decade, the number fell to just over 50 percent in 2017. Since then, however, deployments to the region have been increasing.<\/p>\n

This year, 62 percent of elite forces serving abroad have been involved in the multiple military efforts being carried out across the Central Command, or CENTCOM, area of operations, including Operation Inherent Resolve<\/a>, which is aimed at defeating ISIS, also known as Daesh, in Iraq and Syria; Operation Freedom\u2019s Sentinel<\/a>, the U.S. effort in Afghanistan, which includes counterterrorism missions and support of allied Afghan forces; and Operation Yukon Journey<\/a>, which supports Saudi Arabia<\/a> and its partners in their fight against Yemen\u2019s Houthi rebels.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe forces that have the best capabilities and are trained and educated for these kinds of counterterrorism and irregular warfare activities, including training foreign countries\u2019 forces, are U.S. Special Operations forces,\u201d said Seth G. Jones<\/a>, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and former senior adviser to U.S. Special Operations Command.<\/p>\n

This special ops increase in the CENTCOM area of operations comes as senior White House advisers have reportedly proposed expanding the CIA\u2019s presence in Afghanistan<\/a>. At the same time, the number of private contractors in the region is also on the rise. At the end of the Obama administration, there were officially 42,592 contractor personnel<\/a> in the greater Middle East, including 25,197 in Afghanistan. Today, according to CENTCOM statistics, there are 53,359 deployed<\/a> in the region, 27,457 of whom are serving in the Afghan War.<\/p>\n

The number of contractors in Afghanistan is almost double that of U.S. military personnel there<\/a>, which currently stands at about 14,000. Jones, a former adviser to the commanding general of American Special Operations forces in Afghanistan, said that the number of contractors may rise with a drawdown of troops, but believes using them to train, advise, and assist Afghan partner forces is a mistake. \u201cI think it\u2019s too risky. The benefits are heavily outweighed by a lot of different costs,\u201d he told The Intercept. \u201cThey are often motivated by profits rather than completing the mission, the quality of trainers is extremely varied, and their performance in countries like Afghanistan and Iraq has been deeply mixed at best.\u201d<\/p>\n

The combination of increased numbers of commandos, CIA operatives, and contractors suggests a \u201clight footprint<\/a>\u201d model of warfare<\/a>, variations<\/a> of which have been previously employed<\/a> by the U.S. in Afghanistan<\/a>. Victory, however, has remained elusive.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have been hitting our Enemy harder than at any time in the last ten years!\u201d\u00a0Trump tweeted<\/a>\u00a0recently. While the Taliban is at its strongest since the American invasion of 2001 and now controls or holds sway in about half the country, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan<\/a> did find that U.S. forces and their Afghan and international allies had killed more civilians than the Taliban<\/a> this year. And according to an Inspector General\u2019s report, despite unilateral and partnered missions by U.S. Special Operations Forces to \u201celiminate\u201d the local branch of ISIS, \u201cthe terrorist group will remain an enduring threat in Afghanistan<\/a>, even if the Afghan government and the Taliban reach a political settlement.\u201d<\/p>\n

The U.S. military\u2019s assessment of the situation in Syria is also at odds with Trump\u2019s pronouncements that ISIS has been \u201c100 percent\u201d defeated<\/a>. Operation Inherent Resolve \u201ccontinues to maintain a presence in Syria and Iraq as part of our mission to achieve the enduring defeat of Daesh,\u201d U.S. Army Col. Myles B. Caggins III, a spokesperson for Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve, told The Intercept. In fact, an Inspector General\u2019s report<\/a> notes that \u201cISIS likely retains between 14,000 and 18,000 \u2018members\u2019 in Iraq and Syria, including up to 3,000 foreigners.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the U.S. now maintains only what it terms a \u201cresidual force in northeastern Syria<\/a> and around a desert garrison near the Jordanian border,\u201d elite U.S. forces appear to be digging in. During the spring and early summer, American special operators increased their \u201ctraining, equipping, and reinforcing<\/a>\u201d of local allies to strengthen their ability to conduct counterinsurgency operations.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know they are hiding in the ungoverned spaces [and that] Daesh is still trying to regenerate,\u201d Air Force Maj. Gen. Eric Hill, the commander of Special Operations Joint Task Force \u2013 Operation Inherent Resolve<\/a> said recently. \u201cWe\u2019ll stay here and support the [Iraqi security forces] until no longer needed.\u201d<\/p>\n

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