ATILIO BORÓN ANALIZA LAS ELECCIONES EN RUSIA SACANDONOS DEL BURDO ENGAÑO


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BOMBAS Y PAQUETES DE COMIDA SOBRE GAZA

BOMBAS Y PAQUETES DE COMIDA SOBRE GAZA
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SI OMITIERAMOS ESTOS HORROROSOS CRIMENES, PARTICIPARIAMOS EN ELLOS, "PARTICEPS CRIMIS"

"NOT FOUND"... ¡MENTIRA!...ES QUE NO QUEREIS QUE VEAMOS EL INFINITO DOLOR QUE ESTAIS CAUSANDO! ARRIBA, PINCHAR EN ESTO: pic.twitter.com/XGlL5BYLTt Y DESPUES: View

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GAZA: ARCOIRIS APAGADO: LA LUZ HAN ASESINADO

¿Quedará todo Impune y nunca más podrán los pájaros volar? "Facit indignation versum"

FREE WORLD TOUR AND COLLAGE

FREE WORLD TOUR AND COLLAGE
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EL GRAN INFANTICIDIO

EL GRAN INFANTICIDIO
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AL GRANO: THE "AMERICAN LEADERSHIP" TIENE QUE SER PARADO O "LOS DAÑOS COLATERALES" SERAN EL COLAPSO

AL GRANO: THE "AMERICAN LEADERSHIP" TIENE QUE SER PARADO O "LOS DAÑOS COLATERALES" SERAN EL COLAPSO
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LOS DAÑOS COLATERALES DE UNA GUERRA NUCLEAR SON LA HUMANIDAD


Fidel leyéndoselo a Michel Chossudovsky cuándo se entrevistaron en La Habana en el 2010

...¿SOMOS AUN CURABLES? NO, POR ESTO:

...¿SOMOS AUN CURABLES? NO, POR ESTO:
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¿DONDE EMPIEZA AUSCHWITZ? RESPUESTA: EN GAZA

¿DONDE EMPIEZA AUSCHWITZ? RESPUESTA: EN GAZA
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POR QUÉ ASESINÓ EL FRANQUISMO A LORCA

POR QUÉ ASESINÓ EL FRANQUISMO A LORCA
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"La situación del capitalismo hoy en día no es solamente una cuestión de crisis económica y política, sino UNA CATASTROFE DE LA ESENCIA HUMANA que condena, meramente, cada reforma económica y política a la futilidad e incondicionalmente DEMANDA UNA TOTAL REVOLUCION" Herbert Marcuse, 1932 (Acotado de: "Marx, Freud, and the Critique of Everyday Life", Bruce Brown; p. 14.) ¿Qué hubiese dicho hoy, 89 años después?

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¿HACIA LA IZQUIERDA O HACIA EL "SPREADING FREEDOM AROUND THE WORLD" DE LA DERECHA?




"UN SISTEMA ECONÓMICO CRUEL


AL QUE PRONTO HABRÁ

QUE CORTARLE EL CUELLO"

Federico García Lorca ('Poeta en Nueva York')

¡ QUÉ GRAN VERDAD !
PORQUE FUÉ ESE MISMO
SISTEMA ECONÓMICO CRUEL,
PRECISAMENTE,
¡ EL QUE LE CORTÓ EL CUELLO A ÉL !


Wednesday, August 31, 2011

YA ME VAN QUEDANDO POCAS ESTRELLAS CON LAS QUE ALUMBRAR: EL CANIBALISMO DE MIS "AGUJEROS NEGROS" AUMENTA SIN CESAR...



NASA - Researchers Detail How A Distant Black Hole Devoured A Star

Science@NASA
Wed, 31 Aug 2011 11:33 CDT


On March 28, 2011, NASA's Swift detected intense X-ray flares thought to be caused by a black hole devouring a star. In one model, illustrated here, a sun-like star on an eccentric orbit plunges too close to its galaxy's central black hole. About half of the star's mass feeds an accretion disk around the black hole, which in turn powers a particle jet that beams radiation toward Earth


Two studies appearing in the Aug. 25 issue of the journal Nature provide new insights into a cosmic accident that has been streaming X-rays toward Earth since late March. NASA's Swift satellite first alerted astronomers to intense and unusual high-energy flares from the new source in the constellation Draco.

"Incredibly, this source is still producing X-rays and may remain bright enough for Swift to observe into next year," said David Burrows, professor of astronomy at Penn State University and lead scientist for the mission's X-Ray Telescope instrument. "It behaves unlike anything we've seen before."

Astronomers soon realized the source, known as Swift J1644+57, was the result of a truly extraordinary event -- the awakening of a distant galaxy's dormant black hole as it shredded and consumed a star. The galaxy is so far away, it took the light from the event approximately 3.9 billion years to reach Earth.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::


El pasado hecho presente.
Pasaron 3.900.000.000 años,
tres mil novecientos millones de años,
hasta que la luz del acontecimiento
de la absorción
de una Estrella por un Agujero Negro
llegó a la Tierra:
se pudo ver, observar y analizar,
ahora, 
lo que ocurrió entónces.

La materia prima de la metáfora implícita es incalculable.

Y es algo que los cosmologos experimentan continuamente.

Y es algo que siempre experimento:
constantemente me llegan,
a mi presente, 
"luces de mi pasado"
donde mi Agujero Negro
se come uno de mis Soles
de antaño.

Ya me van quedando pocos Soles,
Su Majestad,
pocas Estrellas con la que alumbrar
el Universo que configuró mis pasos.

El canibalismo de mis Agujeros Negros
aumenta sin cesar.

Pronto, muy pronto,
no me quedará nada con lo que aluzar.

Por ello me he quedado mirando
el 'video' de la NASA
y he sentido mi realidad:
una luz que navega,
se descompone y se disipa,
ante un poderoso campo de gravedad,
la muerte
y es devorada por la espiral,
sin Tiempo ya,
del Gran Agujero Ancestral.

La muerte es, simplemente,
SALIR DEL TIEMPO.

Salir de la Ecuación
donde Tiempo y el Espacio
Infinitamente Largo
es igual al Tiempo y el Espacio
Infinitamente Corto.

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

SEPAMOS UN POCO MAS DEL "HOMO SAPIENS" EN ESTA TIERRA




Iraq: prostitución endémica en Bagdad

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Aquella soledad de mi madre en la tarde de los domingos...





Aquella soledad de mi madre

en la tarde de los domingos...

...sin saberlo,
la llevo engachada
en mis sentidos;
es un vestido,
una túnica
que envuelve el naufragio
del hombre desde su inicio,
y que, en cualquier momento,
sale a flote, 
de pronto,
sin aviso...


Después de misa,
llegaba al vacío de la casa
y yo la veía entrar,
traje negro, 
zapatos altos,
rosario en la mano,
ausencia final,
gesto huído,
nostalgia de tristezas
que cortaba mi velo 
de adolescente a ella unido.

Y me decía, queda,
oráculo indefinido:

"Tu padre salió con los amigos, hijo"


Y no decía nada más.
Daba unos pasos
que me quemaban los oídos.
Y se sentaba
como caminante herido.

El mundo era un congelador
de tiempos derretidos.
Cualquier reloj se hubiese hundido.
Es cuando el tiempo se para
y se abre el abismo.

Y, en silencio,
nos envolvia aquella casa
de corral, patio, macetas, gallinas,
cocina de carbon y leña,
geranios, jazmin, dama de noche,
aromas perdidos,
oquedad ya que hiere al sentirlo.


Y yo comprendía,
sin saber por qué,
lo que había dicho,
sin preguntar,
sin decir nada,
callado, 
fingiendo no ver
la inundación del río.


No la quería dejar sola
porque, como un rejón,
se me clavaba su soledad
en aquellas tardes de domingo.


"Hijo, ¿y tú, qué haces aquí?;
¿por qué no sales con tus amigos?"


Y me íba a la Librería Pública
a leer lo permitido.


Pero sin sacarme la soledad
de sus jardines marchitos,
aquella que taladraba su cara
la tarde de los domingos.


Y hoy,  sólo en casa,
tú nostalgia de tristezas,
madre,
aquellas soledades
que juntos un día vivimos,
ahora está aquí conmigo.


Y te escribo estas líneas,
después de tanto tiempo,
y se las echo al Viento,
ese mismo Viento de soledades
de tantas tardes de domingo
que nos llevan y nos traen
por todos nuestros caminos.





   Estados Unidos tiene la peor desigualdad social desde 1928
 Todo político aquí justifica cualquier cosa con la frase por el bien de los niños. Los resultados de sus políticas no coinciden con tan buenos y nobles deseos

Internacional | Gramma- La Jornada | 28-08-2011 |

2 Mensajes del foro
  • 28 de agosto 03:03, abdel yeshua
     
    es aberrante el modelo plutocratico que tiene los estados unidos y ellos lo presentan al mundo como el modelo a seguir. rabia de ver tanta desigualdad por culpa de unos pocos que manejan los recursos de millones de personas.


  • 28 de agosto 08:44


    NO, "EL MODELO PLUTOCARTICO"
    NO ES ABERRANTE EN ABSOLUTO.
    PORQUE EL MODELO DE MARRAS TRABAJA
    COMO TIENE QUE TRABAJAR...
    ...PORQUE CON JUSTICIA SOCIAL,
    CON IGUALDAD,
    NO HAY ACUMULACION DE CAPITAL,
    NI NADIE PUEDE ENRIQUECERSE
    A COSTILLAS DE LOS DEMAS.


    ¿ES QUE AUN NO HEMOS APRENDIDO
    ESTA SENCILLA VERDAD?


    ¿SERA PORQUE "LOS DERECHOS HUMANOS"
    NOS CIEGA LA OPTICA DE LA HERMENEUTICA REAL?


    TAUTOLOGICAMENTE, INDUDABLEMENTE,
    SE LO PRESENTAN AL MUNDO,
    A SUS COMPINCHES,
    SOCIOS Y SECUEACES,
    COMO "MODELO A SEGUIR":
    "UNO PARA TI
    Y UN MILLON PARA MI":
    EL "ALMA MATER" DEL CAPITALISMO,
    AMIGO MIO.


    SI CONTUNUAMOS PIDIENDOLE PERAS AL OLMO
    ...NUNCA VAMOS A COMER PERAS




    ==========================


    No hay tiempo para el gobierno apretar a los ricos


    Artículos de Opinión | Bando Ciudadano | 28-08-2011

    Mensaje
    • 28 de agosto 08:33
       
      YO NO SE COMO EN UNA PLUTOCRACIA
      EL GOBIERNO Y LOS RICOS
      APARECEN SEPARADOS.


      Y NO ES CUESTION DE POLITICA,
      SINO DE SEMANTICA GRAMATICAL,
      PORQUE EL DICCIONARIO
      LO DICE MUY CLARO:
      "PLUTOCRACIA, GOBIERNO DE LOS RICOS".
      YO CREIA QUE ESTO ERA EL CAPITALISMO


      ¿ENTONCES, QUÉ CARAJO PASA AQUI?
      ¿HASTA CUANDO,
      TAN INFANTILMENTE,
      TAN ABSURDAMENTE,
      LE VAMOS A SEGUIR PIDIENDO PERAS AL OLMO?


      PORQUE SI QUEREMOS PERAS,
      SEÑORES MIOS,
      LO QUE TENEMOS QUE HACER
      ES CORTAR EL OLMO Y PLANTAR UN PERAL
      ...Y PARA ELLO NO HAY QUE SACAR
      UN DOCTORADO EN LA UNIVERSIDAD.


      ¿SEGUIMOS SIENDO TAN TONTOS
      QUE AL GOBIERNO DE LOS RICOS
      PARA LOS RICOS LO CONTINUAMOS
      LLAMANDO "DEMOCRACIA"?


      ASI ANDAMOS SIEMPRE TAN DESORIENTADOS
      ...PARA BIEN Y GOZO DE LOS CHICOS DE BILDERBERG,
      CLARO.

Friday, August 26, 2011

"COGITO ERGO....¿QUÉ?"

                         EL"COGITO" 
  
    QUE PRODUCE EL "FREE WORLD"


                                                                                    

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

LIBIA: ¿IMAGENES DEFORMADAS DE LA REALIDAD O IMAGENES FIELES DE UNA REALIDAD DEFORME?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
Este mundo, bajo la batuta del IV Reich del Capital,
se ha vuelto un "esperpento".

El famoso escritor Valle-Inclan es el que creó el término,
y hoy, a la luz de los neo-fascistas acontecimientos
de los Hitleres actuales, es más vigente que nunca.

Hoy ya no sabemos si las imágenes que nos llegan
a través de la televisión de los ricos
son IMAGENES DEFORMADAS DE LA REALIDAD
O SI SE TRATA DE LA IMAGEN FIEL
DE UNA REALIDAD DEFORME.

Y el Asalto a Libia es un ejemplo "par excellence"
al respecto.

¡¡¡ Ahora resulta que es Gadafi,
que defiende su propio país al frente de su pueblo,
"el que es buscado" y se ha "constítuido en blanco"...!!!!

(Nos recuerda al infortunado Slobodan Milošević
que después de que su país fue bombardeado
y destruído por meses...
¡¡¡ lo acusaron a él mismo de "crimenes contra la humanidad"!!!)

Cuándo, en realidad, los que tenían que ser buscados
y convertidos en "blanco", verde, colorado y amarillo,
deberían ser los responsables de los cinco meses
(CINCO MESES) de inmisericorde bombardeo 

contra un país soberano, con lo cual destrozaron 
todos los estatutos y artículos de...
¡¡¡ esa misma Ley Internacional bajo la cual
ahora acusan a Gadafi de "crimenes contra la humanidad" !!!

Y es aquí, cuándo,
en el colmo del surrealismo más grotesco,
en el paroxísmo 'kafkiano' de lo más absurdo,
en la cima más alta de un Ego Cogito
destrozado ya por todo lo que de ESPERPENTICO
conlleva éste -moderno- orwelliano "1984" 

trasladado al "2011",
nos viene a la mente la duda metódica cartesiana
de que ya no sabemos si lo que estamos viviendo son
IMAGENES DEFORMADAS DE LA REALIDAD
O SI SE TRATA DE LA IMAGEN FIEL
DE UNA REALIDAD DEFORME.


                            
   

Sunday, August 21, 2011

EL ESPERPENTO (Ramon Maria del Valle-Inclán)

VALLE-INCLAN Y SU UNIVERSALIDAD

LA ESPERPÉNTICA REALIDAD ORWELLIANA-HUXLEYANA

DE LA COSIFIFICADA Y ALIENANTE 

DICATURA BURGUESA ACTUAL

DONDE YA NO SABEMOS SI LA REALIDAD

SE APREHENDE A TRAVES DE UNA IMAGEN DEFORMADA

O ES REALMENTE ESTA IMAGEN DEFORMADA 

LA QUE CONFORMA LA REALIDAD.


Las interesantísimas características del "esperpento" (Montserat Alba, "Luces de Bohemia") son:

Lo grotesco como forma de expresión:
    • la degradación de los personajes.
    • la reificación o cosificación de los personajes, reducidos a mero signo o a muñecos.
    • la animalización o fusión de formas humanas y animales
    • la literaturización del lenguaje coloquial, frecuentemente investido de todo tipo de intertextualidades.
    • el abuso del contraste
    • la mezcla de mundo real y de pesadilla
    • la distorsión de la escena exterior
  1. La deformación sistemática de la realidad:
    • la apariencia de burla y caricatura de la realidad
    • el significado profundo, semi transparente, cargado de crítica e intención satírica que constituye la auténtica lección moral
  2. La presencia de la muerte como personaje fundamental
  3. Ambientes: Los escenarios dominantes son tabernas burdeles, antros de juego, interiores míseros, calles inseguras de Madrid.
  4. Personajes: Por las piezas deambulan borrachos, prostitutas, pícaros, mendigos, artistas fracasados, bohemios, presentados como marionetas sin voluntad, animalizados y cosificados.
Una de las reflexiones más importantes que plantea la creación esperpéntica es si se trata de una imagen deformada de la realidad, o si se trata de la imagen fiel de una realidad deforme.

Si se sustituye el escenario socio-historico de Valle-Inclan por la enajenacion, que bajo el control de pensamiento y el poder de compra y terror del Imperium actual del capitalismo, y trasferimos aquellos personajes bajo los 'librettos' de borrachos, prostitutas, pícaros, mendigos, artistas fracasados, bohemios...a los personajes de hoy en dia en este Grotesco Carnaval del presente, entenderemos perfectamente que aquella semantica que el escritor gallego le dio a su "esperpento", en esta coyuntura en la que vivimos, se ha quedado 'corta' ante LA COLOSAL MAGNITUD ESPERPENTICA QUE PADECEMOS EN ESTE "HIT ET NUNC".


Friday, August 19, 2011

LO VENGO AFIRMANDO HACE MUCHO TIEMPO: NO HAY DIFERENCIA, BASICAMENTE, ENTRE UNA MEDUSA, UNA MOSCA, Y UN 'HOMO SAPIENS'

 
     

ENCUENTRAN EL ADN COMUN 

ENTRE MEDUSAS Y HUMANOS

Rosa M. Tristán
Diario El Mundo
jue, 18 ago 2011 11:02 CDT

Thursday, August 18, 2011

U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM)

                                                                                  



A Secret War in 120 Countries
The Pentagon’s New Power Elite
By Nick Turse

Somewhere on this planet an American commando is carrying out a mission.  Now, say that 70 times and you’re done... for the day.  Without the knowledge of the American public, a secret force within the U.S. military is undertaking operations in a majority of the world’s countries.  This new Pentagon power elite is waging a global war whose size and scope has never been revealed, until now.
After a U.S. Navy SEAL put a bullet in Osama bin Laden’s chest and another in his head, one of the most secretive black-ops units in the American military suddenly found its mission in the public spotlight.  It was atypical.  While it’s well known that U.S. Special Operations forces are deployed in the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq, and it’s increasingly apparent that such units operate in murkier conflict zones like Yemen and Somalia, the full extent of their worldwide war has remained deeply in the shadows.

Last year, Karen DeYoung and Greg Jaffe of the Washington Post reported that U.S. Special Operations forces were deployed in 75 countries, up from 60 at the end of the Bush presidency.  By the end of this year, U.S. Special Operations Command spokesman Colonel Tim Nye told me, that number will likely reach 120.  “We do a lot of traveling -- a lot more than Afghanistan or Iraq,” he said recently.  This global presence -- in about 60% of the world’s nations and far larger than previously acknowledged -- provides striking new evidence of a rising clandestine Pentagon power elite waging a secret war in all corners of the world.

The Rise of the Military’s Secret Military
 Born of a failed 1980 raid to rescue American hostages in Iran, in which eight U.S. service members died, U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) was established in 1987. 

Having spent the post-Vietnam years distrusted and starved for money by the regular military, special operations forces suddenly had a single home, a stable budget, and a four-star commander as their advocate.  

Since then, SOCOM has grown into a combined force of startling proportions.  Made up of units from all the service branches, including the Army’s “Green Berets” and Rangers, Navy SEALs, Air Force Air Commandos, and Marine Corps Special Operations teams, in addition to specialized helicopter crews, boat teams, civil affairs personnel, para-rescuemen, and even battlefield air-traffic controllers and special operations weathermen, SOCOM carries out the United States’ most specialized and secret missions.  

These include assassinations, counterterrorist raids, long-range reconnaissance, intelligence analysis, foreign troop training, and weapons of mass destruction counter-proliferation operations.
One of its key components is the Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC, a clandestine sub-command whose primary mission is tracking and killing suspected terrorists.  Reporting to the president and acting under his authority, JSOC maintains a global hit list that includes American citizens.  It has been operating an extra-legal “kill/capture” campaign that John Nagl, a past counterinsurgency adviser to four-star general and soon-to-be CIA Director David Petraeus, calls "an almost industrial-scale counterterrorism killing machine."
 This assassination program has been carried out by commando units like the Navy SEALs and the Army’s Delta Force as well as via drone strikes as part of covert wars in which the CIA is also involved in countries like Somalia, Pakistan, and Yemen.  In addition, the command operates a network of secret prisons, perhaps as many as 20 black sites in Afghanistan alone, used for interrogating high-value targets.
Growth Industry

From a force of about 37,000 in the early 1990s, Special Operations Command personnel have grown to almost 60,000, about a third of whom are career members of SOCOM; the rest have other military occupational specialties, but periodically cycle through the command.  Growth has been exponential since September 11, 2001, as SOCOM’s baseline budget almost tripled from $2.3 billion to $6.3 billion.  If you add in funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it has actually more than quadrupled to $9.8 billion in these years.  Not surprisingly, the number of its personnel deployed abroad has also jumped four-fold.  Further increases, and expanded operations, are on the horizon.

Lieutenant General Dennis Hejlik, the former head of the Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command -- the last of the service branches to be incorporated into SOCOM in 2006 -- indicated, for instance, that he foresees a doubling of his former unit of 2,600.  “I see them as a force someday of about 5,000, like equivalent to the number of SEALs that we have on the battlefield. Between [5,000] and 6,000,” he said at a June breakfast with defense reporters in Washington.  Long-term plans already call for the force to increase by 1,000.  
During his recent Senate confirmation hearings, Navy Vice Admiral William McRaven, the incoming SOCOM chief and outgoing head of JSOC (which he commanded during the bin Laden raid) endorsed a steady manpower growth rate of 3% to 5% a year, while also making a pitch for even more resources, including additional drones and the construction of new special operations facilities.

A former SEAL who still sometimes accompanies troops into the field, McRaven expressed a belief that, as conventional forces are drawn down in Afghanistan, special ops troops will take on an ever greater role.  Iraq, he added, would benefit if elite U.S forces continued to conduct missions there past the December 2011 deadline for a total American troop withdrawal.  He also assured the Senate Armed Services Committee that “as a former JSOC commander, I can tell you we were looking very hard at Yemen and at Somalia.”

During a speech at the National Defense Industrial Association's annual Special Operations and Low-intensity Conflict Symposium earlier this year, Navy Admiral Eric Olson, the outgoing chief of Special Operations Command, pointed to a composite satellite image of the world at night.  Before September 11, 2001, the lit portions of the planet -- mostly the industrialized nations of the global north -- were considered the key areas. "But the world changed over the last decade," he said.  "Our strategic focus has shifted largely to the south... certainly within the special operations community, as we deal with the emerging threats from the places where the lights aren't."

To that end, Olson launched "Project Lawrence," an effort to increase cultural proficiencies -- like advanced language training and better knowledge of local history and customs -- for overseas operations.  The program is, of course, named after the British officer, Thomas Edward Lawrence (better known as "Lawrence of Arabia"), who teamed up with Arab fighters to wage a guerrilla war in the Middle East during World War I.  Mentioning Afghanistan, Pakistan, Mali, and Indonesia, Olson added that SOCOM now needed "Lawrences of Wherever."

While Olson made reference to only 51 countries of top concern to SOCOM, Col. Nye told me that on any given day, Special Operations forces are deployed in approximately 70 nations around the world.  All of them, he hastened to add, at the request of the host government.  According to testimony by Olson before the House Armed Services Committee earlier this year, approximately 85% of special operations troops deployed overseas are in 20 countries in the CENTCOM area of operations in the Greater Middle East: Afghanistan, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, and Yemen.  The others are scattered across the globe from South America to Southeast Asia, some in small numbers, others as larger contingents.

Special Operations Command won’t disclose exactly which countries its forces operate in.  “We’re obviously going to have some places where it’s not advantageous for us to list where we’re at,” says Nye.  “Not all host nations want it known, for whatever reasons they have -- it may be internal, it may be regional.”

But it’s no secret (or at least a poorly kept one) that so-called black special operations troops, like the SEALs and Delta Force, are conducting kill/capture missions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Yemen, while “white” forces like the Green Berets and Rangers are training indigenous partners as part of a worldwide secret war against al-Qaeda and other militant groups. In the Philippines, for instance, the U.S. spends $50 million a year on a 600-person contingent of Army Special Operations forces, Navy Seals, Air Force special operators, and others that carries out counterterrorist operations with Filipino allies against insurgent groups like Jemaah Islamiyah and Abu Sayyaf.

Last year, as an analysis of SOCOM documents, open-source Pentagon information, and a database of Special Operations missions compiled by investigative journalist Tara McKelvey (for the Medill School of Journalism’s National Security Journalism Initiative) reveals, America’s most elite troops carried out joint-training exercises in Belize, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Germany, Indonesia, Mali, Norway, Panama, and Poland.  So far in 2011, similar training missions have been conducted in the Dominican Republic, Jordan, Romania, Senegal, South Korea, and Thailand, among other nations.  In reality, Nye told me, training actually went on in almost every nation where Special Operations forces are deployed.  “Of the 120 countries we visit by the end of the year, I would say the vast majority are training exercises in one fashion or another.  They would be classified as training exercises.”

The Pentagon’s Power Elite

Once the neglected stepchildren of the military establishment, Special Operations forces have been growing exponentially not just in size and budget, but also in power and influence.  Since 2002, SOCOM has been authorized to create its own Joint Task Forces -- like Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines -- a prerogative normally limited to larger combatant commands like CENTCOM.  This year, without much fanfare, SOCOM also established its own Joint Acquisition Task Force, a cadre of equipment designers and acquisition specialists.

With control over budgeting, training, and equipping its force, powers usually reserved for departments (like the Department of the Army or the Department of the Navy), dedicated dollars in every Defense Department budget, and influential advocates in Congress, SOCOM is by now an exceptionally powerful player at the Pentagon.  With real clout, it can win bureaucratic battles, purchase cutting-edge technology, and pursue fringe research like electronically beaming messages into people’s heads or developing stealth-like cloaking technologies for ground troops.  Since 2001, SOCOM’s prime contracts awarded to small businesses -- those that generally produce specialty equipment and weapons -- have jumped six-fold.

Headquartered at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida, but operating out of theater commands spread out around the globe, including Hawaii, Germany, and South Korea, and active in the majority of countries on the planet, Special Operations Command is now a force unto itself.  As outgoing SOCOM chief Olson put it earlier this year, SOCOM “is a microcosm of the Department of Defense, with ground, air, and maritime components, a global presence, and authorities and responsibilities that mirror the Military Departments, Military Services, and Defense Agencies.”

Tasked to coordinate all Pentagon planning against global terrorism networks and, as a result, closely connected to other government agencies, foreign militaries, and intelligence services, and armed with a vast inventory of stealthy helicopters, manned fixed-wing aircraft, heavily-armed drones, high-tech guns-a-go-go speedboats, specialized Humvees and Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, or MRAPs, as well as other state-of-the-art gear (with more on the way), SOCOM represents something new in the military.  Whereas the late scholar of militarism Chalmers Johnson used to refer to the CIA as "the president's private army," today JSOC performs that role, acting as the chief executive’s private assassination squad, and its parent, SOCOM, functions as a new Pentagon power-elite, a secret military within the military possessing domestic power and global reach.

In 120 countries across the globe, troops from Special Operations Command carry out their secret war of high-profile assassinations, low-level targeted killings, capture/kidnap operations, kick-down-the-door night raids, joint operations with foreign forces, and training missions with indigenous partners as part of a shadowy conflict unknown to most Americans.  Once “special” for being small, lean, outsider outfits, today they are special for their power, access, influence, and aura.

That aura now benefits from a well-honed public relations campaign which helps them project a superhuman image at home and abroad, even while many of their actual activities remain in the ever-widening shadows.  Typical of the vision they are pushing was this statement from Admiral Olson: “I am convinced that the forces… are the most culturally attuned partners, the most lethal hunter-killers, and most responsive, agile, innovative, and efficiently effective advisors, trainers, problem-solvers, and warriors that any nation has to offer.”
Recently at the Aspen Institute’s Security Forum, Olson offered up similarly gilded comments and some misleading information, too, claiming that U.S. Special Operations forces were operating in just 65 countries and engaged in combat in only two of them.  When asked about drone strikes in Pakistan, he reportedly replied, “Are you talking about unattributed explosions?”

What he did let slip, however, was telling.  He noted, for instance, that black operations like the bin Laden mission, with commandos conducting heliborne night raids, were now exceptionally common.  A dozen or so are conducted every night, he said.  Perhaps most illuminating, however, was an offhand remark about the size of SOCOM.  Right now, he emphasized, U.S. Special Operations forces were approximately as large as Canada’s entire active duty military.  In fact, the force is larger than the active duty militaries of many of the nations where America’s elite troops now operate each year, and it’s only set to grow larger.

Americans have yet to grapple with what it means to have a “special” force this large, this active, and this secret -- and they are unlikely to begin to do so until more information is available.  It just won’t be coming from Olson or his troops.  “Our access [to foreign countries] depends on our ability to not talk about it,” he said in response to questions about SOCOM’s secrecy.  When missions are subject to scrutiny like the bin Laden raid, he said, the elite troops object.  The military’s secret military, said Olson, wants "to get back into the shadows and do what they came in to do.”

Nick Turse is a historian, essayist, and investigative journalist. The associate editor of TomDispatch.com and a new senior editor at Alternet.org, his latest book is The Case for Withdrawal from Afghanistan (Verso Books). This article is a collaboration between Alternet.org and TomDispatch.com.
Copyright 2011 Nick Turse
       ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Escalofriante.
"The New Barve World" de Huxley.
"1984" de Orwell,
en comparacion,
"historias infantiles".
Nunca se pudo imaginar la Omnipresente y Omnimoda
U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM)
en el mundo.
Estamos ante un nuevo capitulo de la Historia
que las mentes del pasado no pudieron vislumbrar,
y es un Monopolio Totalitario del Poder a Escala Planetaria
que la SOCOM, escalofriante-mente, representa "par excellence"


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