Legal documents, Pentagon reports and a host of FOIA requests reveal AFRICOM's widespread malfeasance
Six people lay lifeless in the filthy brown water.
It was 5:09 a.m. when their Toyota Land Cruiser plunged off a bridge in the West African country of Mali. For about two seconds, the SUV sailed through the air, pirouetting 180 degrees as it plunged 70 feet, crashing into the Niger River.
Three of the dead were American commandos. The driver, a captain nicknamed “Whiskey Dan,” was the leader of a shadowy team of operatives never profiled in the media and rarely mentioned even in government publications. One of the passengers was from an even more secretive unit whose work is often integral to Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), which conducts clandestine kill-and-capture missions overseas. Three of the others weren’t military personnel at all or even Americans. They were Moroccan women alternately described as barmaids or “prostitutes.”
Serious Discipline Problems Being Reported Among Personnel Deployed To U.S. Africa Command
Update #1: Report: Special Forces soldiers killed with prostitutes in Mali were on bar crawl -- Washington Post
Update #2: Book accuses AFRICOM of covering up sexual misconduct -- Politico
Update #3: The U.S. Military Behaving Badly in Africa -- Tom Engelhardt, Huffington Post/TomDispatch.com
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As Anthony Shaffer said the U.S. want warrior monks (source: book -Operation Dark Heart)
A doctor in 19th century England noticed that wives of traveling businessmen contract vaginal cancer more frequently than other women.
If you see a spot on sex trafficking in america one of the scenes will invariably be a truck stop.
Same for Africa. The highway that cuts though the Rift Valley from Uganda though Burundi, Rwanda to eastern Congo is AIDS central. It is the truckers, who are spreading it.
Then there are sailors, port cities, and brothels
These people are all transients, who spend long periods of time away from home.
So I am Captain obvious. Okay, but the Pentagon, political leaders and the public want saints.
The politicians are anything but saints. They seem to be divided between those who have been caught and those that have not. They just seem to have higher end women. Maybe the stats are not that bad but if it were more than 5% or 10% would they have room to talk?
Since Coolidge there has only be 1 maybe 2 Democrat presidents that didn't fool around, Carter & Obama (maybe & maybe the book just has not come out yet). Ike supposedly fooled around during WW2.
There is Newt, the senator from Louisiana (R), an ex-senator from Utah or Nevada (R), Menendez(?) and so many more.
In my 'home town' the prostitutes use to stand on Main street across from the public library. Where they are now, I don't know.
Under Carter deployment were up to 14 months, which leads to divorce, burnout, and wild port calls.
I have seen many generals wonder why there was so much adultery, divorce, alcohol, and drug problems, other disciplinary problems, etc.
Man I heard that 8 years ago. I wonder why I didn't think of it then. The 1st thing they could have done is a simple linear regression between time away from home and these disciplinary problems. Maybe linear regressions is not sophisticated enough, Well then data mining by other methods.
Where is the NIH or other medical people when you need them?
Maybe the generals need to be fired.
Heck most senior officer have master degrees.Some of this degrees should have given them this idea.
I know one large command spanning a very large geographical area was tracking assault and other crime against service members. It was not due to Congress or the press. I am positive they cared, but it was practical. In the short term you do not get more people. Pipelines are long and training is expensive. They were doing this more than 2 decades ago.
(A lot of generals are pretty savvy (no kidding). They have been wanting to change the retirement system for over 2 decades from a defined pension to a defined contribution since personnel costs are major budget item.)
It is not news that men in the military utilize prostitutes. How is this a "significant discipline problem". It isn't, except for brain dead politically correct liberal democratic neo-communists
Heroin, cocaine and prostitutes, while on duty, in the SOF,
Beat's Army of One as a recruiting slogan,
In the light of the recent Secret Service and DEA revelations I am surprised it took this long for this to come out. Note who are the primary sources of reporting.
O5s & O6s worry about how op tempo affects moral. I have heard it.
If you are politician, it is not on your radar screen except, when you have a presser and you mouth the words shown on the teleprompter. I am not just talking about POTUS, but many many politicians of both parties.
Every so often a news magazine or newspaper while have an article & John Q. Public might give it passing thought.
GWB would not leave for Crawford until after Christmas so secret service agents could spend the day (or part of it) with their families. I think it makes a difference. It strengthens the individuals and their families. It lessens the pressure to let off steam. I come at this from a deterministic angle.
I blame the some of the drug use on poor leadership. The road map is laid out by ROPMA (etc.) that I think supervisor and supervisee take it for granted. Person with a clear career POAM and reviews it periodically (more than 2 or 4 times a year) and in more than pro forma manner is, less likely to succumb. I read it takes 4 years to get trained. Have these people plotted out what they could do other than go from E5 to E6 or O2 to O3? Like what they could do on the outside? If they are not they do not have their eye fully on the ball.
It think it is like a affirmation (see Lou Tice's Smart Talk) A person, who is higher up on the on Maslow's hierarchy of needs, is less likely IMO to succumb. Look at the AIDS epidemic at Austin, Indiana. Those people are not starving but they have no prospects & no direction. What is that saying??? 'You cannot live by bread alone.'
When you are out in the field I bet MWR goes out the window. Bases have MWR. Ships are like small cites or towns and carry MWR with them. What about deployed grunts in small units? A person engaged in a mix of games(basketball, online video), letter writing, course work is less likely to engage in carnal pleasures.
Talking of carnal pleasure, it is easier to maintain good order and discipline, when it is kept form the top on down. G.H.W. Bush is better than Clinton. Competent though Petraeus maybe his actions are a huge damaging hit. When an officer in BUDS rings the bell 3 times as many people also quit then when an enlisted man quits. It matters.
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