Did Pentagon help strangle the Arab Spring?
By Nick Turse
As the Arab Spring blossomed and President Barack Obama hesitated about whether
to speak out in favor of protesters seeking democratic change in the Greater
Middle East, the Pentagon acted decisively. It forged ever deeper ties with
some of the most repressive regimes in the region, building up military bases
and brokering weapons sales and transfers to despots from Bahrain to Yemen.
As state security forces across the region cracked down on democratic dissent,
the Pentagon also repeatedly dispatched American troops on training missions to
allied militaries there. During more than 40 such operations with names like
Eager Lion and Friendship Two that sometimes lasted for weeks or months at a
time, they taught Middle Eastern security forces the finer points
of counter-insurgency, small unit tactics, intelligence gathering, and
information operations skills crucial to defeating popular uprisings.
These recurrent joint-training exercises, seldom reported in the media and
rarely mentioned outside the military, constitute the core of an elaborate,
longstanding system that binds the Pentagon to the militaries of repressive
regimes across the Middle East. Although the Pentagon shrouds these exercises
in secrecy, refusing to answer basic questions about their scale, scope, or
cost, an investigation by TomDispatch reveals the outlines of a region-wide
training program whose ambitions are large and wholly at odds with Washington’s
professed aims of supporting democratic reforms in the Greater Middle East.
Lions, Marines, and Moroccans - Oh My!
On May 19, Obama finally addressed the Arab Spring in earnest. He was
unambiguous about standing with the protesters and against repressive
governments, asserting that "America’s interests are not hostile to people's
hopes; they're essential to them".
Four days earlier, the very demonstrators the president sided with had marched
in Temara, Morocco. They were heading for a facility suspected of housing a
secret government interrogation facility to press for political reforms. It was
then that the kingdom's security forces attacked.
"I was in a group of about 11 protesters, pursued by police in their cars,"
Oussama el-Khlifi, a 23-year-old protester from the capital, Rabat, told Human
Rights Watch (HRW). "They forced me to say, 'Long live the king', and they hit
me on my shoulder. When I didn't fall, they clubbed me on the head and I lost
consciousness. When I regained consciousness, I found myself at the hospital,
with a broken nose and an injured shoulder."
About a five-hour drive south, another gathering was taking place under far
more hospitable circumstances. In the seaside city of Agadir, a ceremony
marking a transfer of military command was underway. "We're here to support ...
bilateral engagement with one of our most important allies in the region," said
Colonel John Caldwell of the US Marine Corps at a gathering to mark the
beginning of the second phase of African Lion, an annual joint-training
exercise with Morocco's armed forces.
United States Africa Command (AFRICOM), the Pentagon's regional military
headquarters that oversees operations in Africa, has planned 13 such major
joint-training exercises in 2011 alone from Uganda to South Africa, Senegal to
Ghana, including African Lion. Most US training missions in the Greater Middle
East are, however, carried out by Central Command (CENTCOM), which oversees
wars and other military activities in 20 countries in the Greater Middle East.
"Annually, USCENTCOM executes more than 40 exercises with a wide range of
partner nations in the region," a military spokesman told TomDispatch. "Due to
host-nation sensitivities, USCENTCOM does not discuss the nature of many of our
exercises outside our bilateral relationships."
Of the dozens of joint-training exercises it sponsored these last years,
CENTCOM would only acknowledge two by name: Leading Edge, a 30-nation exercise
focused on counter-proliferation last held in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in
late 2010; and Eager Resolve, an annual exercise to simulate a coordinated
response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or high yield
explosive attack, involving the member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council -
Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
However, military documents, open-source reports, and other data analyzed by
TomDispatch offer a window into the training relationships that CENTCOM refused
to acknowledge. While details of these missions remain sparse at best, the
results are clear: during 2011, US troops regularly partnered with and trained
the security forces of numerous regimes that were actively beating back
democratic protests and stifling dissent within their borders.
Getting friendly with the kingdom
In January, for example, the government of Saudi Arabia curtailed what little
freedom of expression existed in the kingdom by instituting severe new
restrictions regarding online news and commentary by its citizens. That same
month, Saudi authorities launched a crackdown on peaceful demonstrators.
Shortly afterward, six Saudi men sought government recognition for the
country's first political party whose professed aims, according to Human Rights
Watch, included "greater democracy and protection for human rights". They were
promptly arrested.
On February 19, just three days after those arrests, US and Saudi forces
launched Friendship Two, a training exercise in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia. For the
next 10 days, 4,100 American and Saudi troops practiced combat maneuvers and
counter-insurgency tactics under an unrelenting desert sun.
"This is a fantastic exercise and a fantastic venue, and we're sending a real
good message out to the people of the region," insisted Major General Bob
Livingston, a National Guard commander who took part in the mission. "The
engagements that we have with the Saudi Arabian army affect their army, it
affects our army, but it also shows the people of the region our ability to
cooperate with each other and our ability to be able to operate together."
Eager Lights and Lions
As the Arab Spring brought down US-allied autocrats in Tunisia and Egypt, the
Kingdom of Jordan, where criticizing King Abdulluh or even peacefully
protesting government policies is a crime, continued to stifle dissent. Last
year, for instance, state security forces stormed the house of 24-year-old
computer science student Imad al-Din al-Ash and arrested him. His crime? An
online article in which he called the king "effeminate".
In March, Jordanian security forces typically failed to take action, and some
even joined in, when pro-government protesters attacked peaceful activists
seeking political reforms. Then came allegations that state forces had tortured
Islamist activists.
Meanwhile, in March, US troops joined Jordanian forces in Eager Light 2011, a
training exercise in Amman, the country's capital, that focused on
counter-insurgency training. Then, from June 11 to June 30, thousands of
Jordanian security forces and US troops undertook Eager Lion, focusing on
special operations missions and irregular warfare as well as
counter-insurgency.
In November, Human Rights Watch's Christoph Wilcke took Jordan to task for the
trial of 150 protesters arrested in the spring on terrorism charges after a
public brawl with pro-regime supporters. "Only members of the opposition face
prosecution. The trial ... is seriously flawed," wrote Wilcke. "It singles out
Islamists on charges of terrorism and casts doubts on the kingdom's path
towards genuine political reform, its commitment to the rule of law, and its
stated desire to protect the rights of freedom of expression and assembly."
At around the same time, US troops were wrapping up Operation Flexible Saif.
For about four months, American troops had engaged in basic mentoring of the
Jordanian military, according to Americans who took part, focusing on subjects
ranging from the fundamentals of soldiering to the essentials of intelligence
gathering.
Who are Kuwait's lucky warriors?
Earlier this year, Kuwaiti security forces assaulted and arrested "Bidun"
protesters, a minority population demanding citizenship rights after 50 years
of stateless status in the oil-rich kingdom.
"Kuwaiti authorities ... should allow demonstrators to speak and assemble
freely - as is their right," wrote Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at
Human Rights Watch. More recently, Kuwait has been cracking down on online
activists.
In July, HRW's Priyanka Motaparthy wrote in Foreign Policy magazine that
26-year-old Nasser Abul was led, blindfolded and shackled, into a Kuwaiti
courtroom. His crime, according to Motaparthy, "a few tweets ... criticizing
the ruling families of Bahrain as well as Saudi Arabia".
This spring, US troops took part in Lucky Warrior, a four-day training exercise
in Kuwait designed to hone US war fighting skills particular to the region. The
sparse material available from the military mentions no direct Kuwaiti
involvement in Lucky Warrior, but documents examined by TomDispatch indicate
that translators have been used in past versions of the exercise, suggesting
the involvement of Kuwaiti and/or other Arab nations in the operation. Pentagon
secrecy, however, makes it impossible to know the full extent of participation
by the Pentagon's regional partners.
TomDispatch has identified other regional training operations that CENTCOM
failed to acknowledge, including Steppe Eagle, an annual multilateral exercise
carried out in repressive Kazakhstan from July 31 to August 23 which trained
Kazakh troops in everything from convoy missions to conducting cordon and
search operations.
Then there was the Falcon Air Meet, an exercise focusing on close air-support
tactics that even included a bombing contest, carried out in October by US,
Jordanian and Turkish air forces at Shaheed Mwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan.
The US military also conducted a seminar on public affairs and information
operations with members of the Lebanese armed forces including, according to an
American in attendance, a discussion of "the use of propaganda in regards to
military information support operations". In addition, there was a biannual
joint underwater demolitions exercise, Operation Eager Mace, carried out with
Kuwaiti forces.
These training missions are only a fraction of the dozens carried out each year
in secret, far from the prying eyes of the press or local populations. They are
a key component of an outsized Pentagon support system that also shuttles aid
and weaponry to a set of allied Middle Eastern kingdoms and autocracies.
These joint missions ensure tight bonds between the US military and the
security forces of repressive governments throughout the region, offering
Washington access and influence and the host nations of these exercises the
latest military strategies, tactics, and tools of the trade at a moment when
they are, or fear being, besieged by protesters seeking to tap into the
democratic spirit sweeping the region.
Secrets and lies
The US military ignored TomDispatch's requests for information about whether
any joint operations were postponed, rescheduled, or canceled as a result of
Arab Spring protests. In August, however, Agence France-Presse reported that
Bright Star, a bi-annual training exercise involving US and Egyptian forces,
had been canceled as a result of the popular revolt that overthrew president
ally Hosni Mubarak, a Washington ally.
The number of US training exercises across the region disrupted by
pro-democracy protests, or even basic information about the total number of the
Pentagon's regional training missions, their locations, durations, and who
takes part in them, remain largely unknown. CENTCOM regularly keeps such
information secret from the American public, not to mention populations across
the Greater Middle East.
The military also refused to comment on exercises scheduled for 2012. There is
nonetheless good reason to believe that their number will rise as regional
autocrats look to beat back the forces of change.
"With the end of Operation New Dawn in Iraq and the reduction of surge forces
in Afghanistan, USCENTCOM exercises will continue to focus on ... mutual
security concerns and build upon already strong, enduring relationships within
the region," a CENTCOM spokesman told TomDispatch by e-mail.
Since pro-democracy protests and popular revolt are the "security concerns" of
regimes from Saudi Arabia and Bahrain to Jordan and Yemen, it is not hard to
imagine just how the Pentagon's advanced training methods, its schooling in
counter-insurgency tactics, and its aid in intelligence gathering techniques
might be used in the months ahead.
This spring, as Operation African Lion proceeded and battered Moroccan
protesters nursed their wounds, Obama asserted that the "United States opposes
the use of violence and repression against the people of the region" and
supported basic human rights for citizens throughout the Greater Middle East.
"And these rights," he added, "include free speech, the freedom of peaceful
assembly, the freedom of religion, equality for men and women under the rule of
law, and the right to choose your own leaders - whether you live in Baghdad or
Damascus, Sanaa or Tehran."
The question remains, does the United States believe the same is true for those
who live in Amman, Kuwait City, Rabat or Riyadh? And if so, why is the Pentagon
strengthening the hands of repressive rulers in those capitals?
Nick Turse is the associate editor of TomDispatch.com. An award-winning
journalist, his work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Nation, and
regularly at TomDispatch. This article is the third in his new series on the
changing face of American empire. You can follow him on Twitter@NickTurse,
onTumblr, and on
Facebook.
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