BCL At It Again

IT APPEARS that the Bangladesh Chhatra League, an associate body of the ruling Awami League, is out there to destroy every semblance of propriety, rule of law and every social more. Judging by the audacity, ferocity and frequency of their lawless behaviour, it feels as if the student body is a blood-thirsty wild beast unleashed on the educational institutions of the country, by none other than the government itself. On Monday, the BCL unit of Bangladesh Agricultural University attacked and injured 20 teachers. According to a report published in New Age on Tuesday, the teachers were injured as a result of a series of incidents triggered by the misbehaviour of some BCL activists with the teachers. The teachers brought out a silent procession which came under BCL attack. The teachers then detained four of the attackers and handed them to the police. In retaliation, the teachers were once again attacked at the Teachers Student Centre where they received most of the injuries, some whom were later admitted to the Mymensingh Medical College. The BCL activists vandalised some buildings and set four vehicles on fire.

       

There are indeed signs, as the teachers association president is quoted in the report as saying, that if the action against the attackers is not taken immediately, the university might close down. That would mean that the number of educational institutions closed down as a result of BCL-instigated violence in the past two and a half years should now number in hundreds. Ever since the Awami League-led government came to power, hundreds of small and large campuses have witnessed dangerous levels of BCL-induced violence. BCL activists have fought opposition student bodies for control of campuses, locked in intra-party feud over tender grabbing, and attacked ordinary students, teachers, educational institution staff, government officials, law enforcement officials and ordinary people on the streets causing damage to vehicles, property, as well as death and injury.

Yet, in the intervening period since having come to power, the only step taken to reign them in, by the ruling party, seems to be the prime minister’s decision to stand down as the BCL chairperson, the seriousness of which can easily be doubted since she this year not only attended the BCL convention but, according to media reports, also reprimanded senior members of her cabinet for having failed to do so. As for law enforcement, it is true that the law enforcers arrest activists from time to time, especially when incidents get out of hand as it did in the agriculture university, but the offenders are soon either released on bail or acquitted. The fear is that even if the government takes some disciplinary action at the agriculture university, it is not likely to last long.

A burning, Captive London

The riots which have for the past few days wreaked havoc in London have sent shock waves through the United Kingdom and even beyond it. For a city which has been preparing assiduously for next year's Olympics, an event it means to showcase to people around the world, these troubles could not have come at a worse time. Sparked by the killing of a young man by police last week in the city's Tottenham area, the riots spilled over into wider areas over the weekend and effectively introduced a surreal atmosphere all around.

The images coming out of the rioting have been deeply disturbing. Gangs of young men have cheerfully gone around setting cars and buses and even rubbish bins alight before setting fire to shops and warehouses. The picture has been a common one in the east, north and south of London, with hooded youths caught on camera walking away with looted goods. A stretched police department together with a harried fire service have naturally not proved effective in containing the crisis. Prime Minister Cameron, Home Secretary Theresa May and London Mayor Boris Johnson have all cut their holidays short and returned home to deal with the situation.

The riots are perhaps a sign of the deep malaise which runs through British society in these difficult economic times, with jobs being lost and cuts being mulled in significant areas of the public sector. And yet what has been happening over the past few days is a clear picture of unalloyed lawlessness that cannot be excused. That is the message the authorities have been giving out. It must now be followed by sharp, effective action. Unless the rioters are roped in by the law, London will remain in a state of vulnerability. It will be an image that cannot sit well with the heritage of this historically famous city.

A Secret War In 120 Countries

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 US 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 US 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 US 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 US Special Operations forces were deployed in 75 countries, up from 60 at the end of the Bush presidency. By the end of this year, US Special Operations Command spokesman Colonel Tim Nye told me, that number will likely reach 120. ‘We do a lot of travelling—a lot more than Afghanistan or Iraq,’ he said recently. This global presence—in about 60 per cent 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 US service members died, US 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 specialised 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 specialised 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 programme 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 defence 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 per cent 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 Defence 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 industrialised 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 programme 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 per cent 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 US 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, the 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 Defence 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 theatre 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 Defence, with ground, air, and maritime components, a global presence, and authorities and responsibilities that mirror the Military Departments, Military Services, and Defence 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 US 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 un-attributed 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 emphasised, US 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.’

A Cruel Joke

THE advice of the commerce minister, Faruq Khan, i.e. people should eat less in order to avoid problems like adulteration and price spiral of food, could very well have been an impertinent attempt at inane humour over two issues of serious public concern gone inevitably wrong. Or, it could have been merely an articulation of the minister’s deep-seated indifference to the misery of the people at large, who have been reeling under the twin menaces of food adulteration and food insecurity for long. Worse still, as reported in New Age on Friday, the minister’s conclusion at a discussion on food adulteration on Thursday—i.e. people did not die taking less food; rather, they ran less risk of consuming adulterated food—seems to suggest that he may be completely estranged from real life and real people. The most innocuous interpretation of the minister’s assertion could be that he was trying to make light of his and his government’s abject failure to rein in the prices of food and other essential commodities, and put an end to adulteration of foot items. On every count, though, his remarks are irresponsible and thus unacceptable.

The commerce minister seems to have chosen to conveniently ignore certain cruel facts of life for the vast multitude. According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, food inflation in general hit a record 14.36 per cent in April while in rural areas, where most of the poor and marginalised people live, it hit 15.38 per cent—an increase of 5.02 per cent in just one year. In the wake of sustained surge in food prices, people at large have had to spend almost 60 per cent of their income on food, so indicates a host of surveys, including one by the Asian Development Bank. Also, a study by the Consumers’ Association of Bangladesh conducted late last year pointed out that low-income people have had to cut down on their food intake, risking nutrition deficiency, to cope with the price spiral. In other words, a sizeable section of the population has been forced to do what the minister suggested Thursday—i.e. eat less. Unfortunately, given rampant adulteration of food items and the government apparent failure to prevent it, it cannot be said with certainty that less intake for them has meant less risk of consumption of adulterated food.

Just the other day, the parliamentary standing committee on the commerce ministry came down hard on the minister and his ministry for their apparent failure to keep the prices of essentials on check. Earlier, the High Court ordered the government to deploy as many mobile courts as possible to make sure unscrupulous traders do not jack up the prices of certain food items to make a windfall during the month of Ramadan. Overall, thus far, since the Awami League-Jatiya Party government assumed office in January 2009, the commerce minister and his ministry have done precious little to deliver on the ruling party’s electoral pledge of keeping the prices within the reach of the common people.

Yet, the commerce minister, instead of showing remorse, could manage to come up with a suggestion that amounts to a cruel joke about the misery of the people at large. The minister and, for that matter, the government need to realise that if they cannot effectively address the price spiral, the least they can do is stop trivialising the people’s misery.

Royal Bengal Tigers: The numbers game

A book being launched to mark the World Tiger Day on July 29 has created somewhat of a controversy by claiming that government statistics on tiger population living in the Sundarbans are grossly overstated. The author is of the opinion that the government’s method of calculating tiger population living in Bangladesh’s portion of the Sundarbans relies on outdated methods, i.e. using pugmarks as a measurement of number of tigers present in the vicinity of the mangrove forest often produces misleading figures. These claims however are hotly contested by government conservation experts who state that the census carried out by the state follows internationally recognised methods that are scientifically proven. Whatever may be the case, there is no denying that the tiger population is in grave danger in Bangladesh. The reasons for their steady demise are many. These majestic creatures are being hunted down to feed the demands for an illicit wildlife trade. Tiger parts are in high demand by traditional medicine practitioners all across Asia, particularly in China.  According to international statistics, the illegal trade in tiger parts that include bones is estimated to be worth around $6 billion per annum.

Apart from poaching, the other main reason for the decline in tiger numbers is the loss of habitat and tiger prey. Tigers traditionally feed on deer and wild pigs, both of which are being killed at an alarming rate. With their traditional prey numbers dwindling and as human encroachment into traditional tiger territory increases, the close proximity between man and tiger inevitably leads the tiger to change its eating habits and start attacking livestock. This brings the tiger into direct conflict with human settlements, and in most cases it is the tiger that pays the final price.

Against this backdrop, the government in a concerted effort with other nations has stepped up efforts to save the tigers. As often is the case, forest guards are ill equipped to counter poachers. A coordinated effort with India, that includes a joint strike force that will essentially operate on both sides of the international border, with greater integration by means of sharing intelligence and unit members being sufficiently and adequately armed and equipped with requisite training and logistics including, boats, vehicles and tranquiliser guns, should help turn the tide against the indiscriminate killing of tigers. Simultaneously, the programme hopes to include the general populace of eighty villages living in primarily what may be considered tiger country in an effort to minimize human-tiger confrontations that result, more often than not, in tiger fatalities.