US ‘Secret’ Drone Base and Ron Paul’s Foreign Policy
Posted by Daniel McAdams on October 27, 2012 07:26 AM
The Washington Post yesterday detailed a secret — and not-so-secret — US base of operations in the Horn of Africa. It is from this massive, 500 acre base run by the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), that virtually all the non-Afghan war drones are launched. It is the center of the US drone war against al-Qaeda (except for those al-Qaeda elements in Libya and Syria with which the US administration is allied — think of those as Eastasia).
Appropriately, the base, called Camp Lemonnier, is located on grounds used earlier by the French Foreign Legion — the non-French arm of the French military used to keep the French colonial empire in line. Apparently irony is completely lost on the US administration.
The entire article is well worth reading, chilling as it is. In it the teeth of the US empire are laid bare. And they are ugly. If one considers a recent study of the US drone wars by Stanford University and NYU, which demonstrates a catastrophic failure rate of the drones to hit intended targets (which means that most of the time they kill innocent civilians), one could conclude, using a non-loaded definition of the term, that Lemonnier is the largest terrorist base in the world.
As the Stanford University drone study (PDF) found:
“Drones hover twenty-four hours a day over communities in northwest Pakistan, striking homes, vehicles, and public spaces without warning. Their presence terrorizes men, women, and children, giving rise to anxiety and psychological trauma among civilian communities. Those living under drones have to face the constant worry that a deadly strike may be fired at any moment, and the knowledge that they are powerless to protect themselves… from June 2004 through mid-September 2012, available data indicate that drone strikes killed 2,562–3,325 people in Pakistan, of whom 474-881 were civilians, including 176 children.”
Perhaps most fascinating about this excellent Washington Post investigative report, however, is the following paragraph:
“Other counterterrorism work at Lemonnier is more overt. All told, about 3,200 U.S. troops, civilians and contractors are assigned to the camp, where they train foreign militaries, gather intelligence and dole out humanitarian aid across East Africa as part of a campaign to prevent extremists from taking root.” (emphasis added)
Here we see the Ron Paul critique of US foreign policy plainly demonstrated: The US government does not just send in drones to kill people from Lemonnier — it also “doles out…aid” to those who obey!
Here is Ron Paul from three years ago (not that it matters, as he has been making this point for decades):
“I have often made the point that the way we treat our fellow countries around the world is we tell them what to do, and if they do it we give them money. If they don’t do it, we bomb them… If you want to promote our good values and our democratic process, you can’t antagonize the people by literally killing people over there, because if bombs were falling on this country, we wouldn’t be all that happy with that.”
Perhaps it is due to efficiency efforts, but in Lemonnier we see both under one roof: cash to those who do what they are told and drones for those who do not. But the answer, as Ron Paul repeatedly reminds us, is no aid and no drones. Period.
Steve Hogan says:
Bribes or bombs. That pretty much sums up US foreign policy. It’s guaranteed to squander a lot of money, piss off foreigners, and make Americans less safe.
Neither big government presidential candidate has any intentions of recognizing the futility of their interventionism and change course to a sane, sustainable policy of minding our own damn business.
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27th October 2012 at 7:37 pm
ron says:
Nothing like talking about the freedom in the usa.Then telling soverign nations what to do with the threat of force.
Soon to be used against americans.I wonder if the drone pilots think about this?
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27th October 2012 at 7:53 pm
JIMSKI says:
Wow, we are assholes………….
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27th October 2012 at 8:33 pm
Yojimbo says:
What an irony that we operate the largest terrorist base in the world, and we terrorize the people in Pakistan by our use of drones – that makes the US terrorists.
Wasn’t it the official story that terrorists brought down the World Trade Center? Wait, now I believe the official story!
It all makes sense now!
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27th October 2012 at 9:09 pm
Welshman says:
The United States is a peace loving nation, and yes, I do believe in Santa Claus.
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27th October 2012 at 6:12 am
Civilian contractors playing key roles in U.S. drone operations | USA COINTELPRO VICTIM OF THE PATRIOT ACT says:
[...] Obey or Be Obliterated (theburningplatform.com) [...]
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27th October 2012 at 9:55 pm