\nclick here for original article<\/a><\/p>\n
Lion Forward Teams? Echo Casemate? Juniper Micron?<\/p>\n
You could be forgiven if this jumble of words looks like nonsense to you.\u00a0 It isn\u2019t.\u00a0 It\u2019s the language of the U.S. military\u2019s simmering African interventions; the patois that goes with a set of missions carried out in countries most Americans couldn\u2019t locate on a\u00a0map<\/a>; the argot of conflicts now primarily fought by proxies and a former colonial power on a continent that the U.S. military views as a hotbed of instability and that\u00a0hawkish pundits<\/a>\u00a0increasingly see as a\u00a0growth area<\/a>\u00a0for future armed interventions.<\/p>\n Since 9\/11, the U.S. military has been making inroads in Africa, building alliances, facilities, and a sophisticated logistics network. \u00a0Despite repeated assurances by U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) that military activities on the continent were minuscule, a 2013\u00a0investigation<\/a>\u00a0by TomDispatch exposed surprisingly large and expanding U.S. operations — including recent military involvement with no fewer than 49 of 54 nations on the continent.\u00a0 Washington\u2019s goal continues to be building these nations into stable partners with robust, capable militaries, as well as creating regional bulwarks favorable to its strategic interests in Africa.\u00a0 Yet over the last years, the results have often confounded the planning — with American operations serving as a catalyst for blowback (to use a term of CIA tradecraft).<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n A U.S.-backed uprising in Libya, for instance, helped\u00a0spawn<\/a>\u00a0hundreds of militias that have increasingly caused chaos in that country, leading to repeated attacks on Western interests and the killing of the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans.\u00a0Tunisia<\/a>\u00a0has become ever more destabilized,\u00a0according<\/a>\u00a0to a top U.S. commander in the region.\u00a0Kenya<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Algeria<\/a>\u00a0were hit by spectacular, large-scale terrorist attacks that left Americans\u00a0dead<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0wounded<\/a>. \u00a0South Sudan, a fledgling nation Washington recently midwifed into being that has been slipping into civil war, now has more than 870,000\u00a0displaced persons<\/a>, is facing an imminent\u00a0hunger crisis<\/a>, and has recently been the site of\u00a0mass atrocities<\/a>, including rapes and killings. Meanwhile, the U.S.-backed military of Mali was repeatedly\u00a0defeated<\/a>\u00a0by\u00a0insurgent forces<\/a>\u00a0after managing to overthrow the elected government, and the U.S.-supported forces of the Central African Republic (CAR) failed to stop a ragtag rebel group from\u00a0ousting<\/a>\u00a0the president.<\/p>\n In an effort to staunch the bleeding in those two countries, the U.S. has been developing a back-to-the-future military policy in Africa — making common cause with one of the continent\u2019s former European colonial powers in a set of wars that seem to be spreading, not staunching violence and instability in the region.<\/p>\n The French Connection\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n After establishing a trading post in present-day Senegal in 1659, France gradually undertook a conquest of West Africa that, by the early twentieth century,\u00a0left it with<\/a>\u00a0a vast\u00a0colonial domain<\/a>\u00a0encompassing present-day Burkina Faso, Benin, Chad, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger, and Senegal, among other places.\u00a0 In the process, the French used Foreign Legionnaires from Algeria,\u00a0Goumiers<\/em><\/a>\u00a0from Morocco, and\u00a0Tirailleurs<\/em>\u00a0from Senegal, among other African troops, to bolster its ranks. \u00a0Today, the U.S. is pioneering a twenty-first-century brand of expeditionary warfare that involves backing both France and the armies of its former colonial charges as Washington tries to accomplish its policy aims in Africa with a\u00a0limited expenditure<\/a>\u00a0of blood and treasure.<\/p>\n In a recent op-ed for the\u00a0Washington Post<\/em>, President Barack Obama and French President Fran\u00e7ois Hollande\u00a0outlined<\/a>\u00a0their efforts in glowing terms:<\/p>\n \u201cIn Mali, French and African Union forces — with U.S. logistical and information support — have pushed back al-Qaeda-linked insurgents, allowing the people of Mali to pursue a democratic future. Across the Sahel, we are partnering with countries to prevent al-Qaeda from gaining new footholds. In the Central African Republic, French and African Union soldiers — backed by American airlift and support — are working to stem violence and create space for dialogue, reconciliation, and swift progress to transitional elections.\u201d<\/p>\n Missing from their joint piece, however, was any hint of the Western failures that helped facilitate the debacles in Mali and the Central African Republic, the continued crises plaguing those nations, or the potential for mission creep, unintended consequences, and future blowback from this new brand of coalition warfare.\u00a0 The U.S. military, for its part, isn\u2019t saying much about current efforts in these two African nations, but official documents obtained by TomDispatch through the Freedom of Information Act offer telling details, while\u00a0experts<\/a>\u00a0are sounding alarms about the ways in which these military interventions have already fallen short or failed.<\/p>\n Operation Juniper Micron<\/strong><\/p>\n After 9\/11, through\u00a0programs<\/a>\u00a0like the Pan-Sahel Initiative and the Trans-Saharan Counterterrorism Partnership, the U.S. has\u00a0pumped<\/a>\u00a0hundreds of millions of dollars into training and arming the militaries of Mali, Niger, Chad, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal, Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia in order to promote \u201cstability.\u201d\u00a0 In 2013, Captain J. Dane Thorleifson, the outgoing commander of an elite, quick-response force known as Naval Special Warfare Unit 10, described such efforts as training \u201cproxy\u201d forces in order to build \u201ccritical host nation security capacity; enabling, advising, and assisting our African CT [counterterror] partner forces so they can swiftly counter and destroy al-Shabab, AQIM [Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb], and Boko Haram.\u201d\u00a0 In other words, the U.S. military is in the business of training African armies as the primary tactical forces combatting local Islamic militant groups.<\/p>\n The first returns on Washington\u2019s new and developing form of \u201clight footprint\u201d warfare in Africa have hardly been stellar.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>After U.S. and French forceshelped<\/a>\u00a0to topple Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, neighboring Mali went from bulwark to basket case.\u00a0 Nomadic\u00a0Tuareg fighters<\/a>\u00a0looted the weapons stores of the Gaddafi regime they had previously served, crossed the border, and began taking over northern Mali.\u00a0 This, in turn, prompted a\u00a0U.S.-trained officer<\/a>\u00a0— a product of the Pan-Sahel Initiative — to stage a military coup in the Malian capital, Bamako, and oust the democratically elected president of that country.\u00a0 Soon after, the Tuareg rebels were muscled aside by heavily-armed Islamist rebels from the homegrown Ansar al-Dine movement as well as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Libya\u2019s Ansar al-Shariah, and Nigeria\u2019s Boko Haram, who instituted a harsh brand of Shariah law, creating a humanitarian crisis that caused widespread suffering and sent refugees streaming from their homes.<\/p>\n In January 2013, former colonial power France launched a military intervention, code-named\u00a0Operation Serval<\/a>, to push back and defeat the Islamists.\u00a0 At its peak, 4,500 French troops were fighting alongside West African forces,\u00a0known<\/a>\u00a0as the African-led International Support Mission in Mali (AFISMA), later\u00a0subsumed<\/a>\u00a0into a U.N.-mandated Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA).\u00a0 The AFISMA force, as detailed in an official U.S. Army Africa briefing on training missions obtained by TomDispatch, reads like a who\u2019s who of American proxy forces in West Africa: Niger, Guinea, Burkina Faso, C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire, Togo, Senegal, Benin, Liberia, Chad, Nigeria, Gambia, Ghana, and Sierra Leone.<\/p>\n Click here to see a larger version<\/a><\/em><\/strong> Under the moniker Juniper Micron, the U.S. military\u00a0supported<\/a>\u00a0France\u2019s effort,airlifting<\/a>\u00a0its soldiers and materiel into Mali, flying\u00a0refueling missions<\/a>\u00a0in support of its airpower, and providing \u201cintelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance\u201d (ISR) through\u00a0drone operations<\/a>\u00a0out of Base Aerienne 101 at Diori Hamani International Airport in Niamey, the capital of neighboring Niger.\u00a0 The U.S. Army Africa AFISMA document also makes reference to the deployment to Chad of an ISR liaison team with communications support. \u00a0Despite repeated pledges that it would put no boots on the ground in troubled Mali, in the spring of 2013, the Pentagon\u00a0sent<\/a>\u00a0a small contingent to the U.S. Embassy in Bamako and others to support French and MINUSMA troops.<\/p>\n After issuing five media releases between January and March of 2013 about efforts to aid the military mission in Mali, AFRICOM simply\u00a0stopped<\/a>\u00a0talking about it.\u00a0 With rare\u00a0exceptions<\/a>, media coverage of the operation also dried up.\u00a0 In June, at a joint press conference with President Obama, Senegal\u2019s President Macky Sall did\u00a0let slip<\/a>\u00a0that the U.S. was providing \u201calmost all the food and fuel used by MINUSMA\u201d as well as \u201cintervening to assist us with the logistics after the French response.\u201d<\/p>\n A January 2014\u00a0Stars and Stripes<\/em>\u00a0article\u00a0mentioned<\/a>\u00a0that the U.S. air refueling mission supporting the French, run from a U.S. airbase in Spain, had already \u201cdistributed 15.6 million gallons of fuel, logging more than 3,400 flying hours\u201d and that the effort would continue.\u00a0 In February, according to military reports, elements of the Air Force\u2019s 351st Expeditionary Refueling Squadron delivered their one millionth pound of fuel to French fighter aircraft conducting operations over Mali.\u00a0 A December 2013 briefing document obtained by TomDispatch also mentions 181 U.S. troops, the majority of them Air Force personnel, supporting Operation Juniper Micron.<\/p>\n Eager to learn where things stood today, I asked AFRICOM spokesman Benjamin Benson about the operation.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re continuing to support and enable the French and international partners to confront AQIM and its affiliates in Mali,\u201d he told me.\u00a0 He then mentioned four key current mission sets being carried out by U.S. forces: information-sharing, intelligence and reconnaissance, planning and liaison teams, and aerial refueling and the airlifting of allied African troops.<\/p>\n Click here to see a larger version<\/a><\/em><\/strong> U.S. Army Africa documents obtained by TomDispatch offer further detail about Operation Juniper Micron, including the use of Lion Forward Teams in support of that mission.\u00a0 I asked Benson for information about these small detachments that aided the French effort from Chad and from within Mali itself.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t have anything on that,\u201d was all he would say.\u00a0 A separate briefing slide, produced for an Army official last year, noted that the U.S. military provided support for the French mission from Rota and Moron, Spain; Ramstein, Germany; Sigonella, Italy; Kidal and Bamako, Mali; Niamey, Niger; Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso; and N\u2019Djamena, Chad.\u00a0 Benson refused to offer information about specific activities conducted from these locations, preferring to speak about air operations from unspecified locations and only in generalities.<\/p>\n Click here to see a larger version<\/a><\/em><\/strong> Official military documents obtained by TomDispatch detail several U.S. missions in support of proxy forces from the Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali, including a scheduled eight weeks of pre-deployment training for troops from Niger in the summer of 2013, five weeks for Chadian forces in the autumn, and eight weeks in the autumn as well for Guinean soldiers, who would be sent into the Malian war zone.\u00a0 I asked Benson about plans for the training of African forces designated for MINUSMA in 2014.\u00a0 \u201cIn terms of the future on that… I don\u2019t know,\u201d was all he would say.<\/p>\n Another official briefing slide produced by U.S. Army Africa notes, however, that from January through March 2014, the U.S. planned to send scores of trainers to prepare 1,400 Chadian troops for missions in Mali.\u00a0 Over the same months, other U.S. personnel were to team up with French military trainers to ready an 850-man Guinean infantry force for similar service.\u00a0 Requests for further information from the French military about this and other missions were unanswered before this article went to press.<\/p>\n Operation Echo Casemate<\/strong><\/p>\n Last spring, despite years of U.S. assistance, including support from Special Operations forces advisors, the Central African Republic\u2019s military was swiftlydefeated<\/a>\u00a0and the country\u2019s president was ousted by Seleka, a mostly Muslim rebel group.\u00a0 Months of violence followed, with Seleka forces\u00a0involved<\/a>\u00a0in widespread looting, rape, and murder.\u00a0 The result was growing sectarian clashes between the country\u2019s Muslim and Christian communities and the rise of Christian \u201canti-balaka<\/a>\u201d militias. \u00a0(\u201cBalaka<\/em>\u201d means machete in the local Sango language.) \u00a0These militias have, in turn, engaged in an orgy of\u00a0atrocities<\/a>and\u00a0ethnic cleansing<\/a>\u00a0directed against\u00a0Muslims<\/a>.<\/p>\n In December, backed by a United Nations Security Council resolution and in a bid to restore order, France\u00a0sent<\/a>\u00a0troops into its former colony to bolster peacekeepers from the African-led International Support Mission in the Central African Republic (MISCA).\u00a0 As with the Mali mission, the U.S. joined the effort,\u00a0pledging<\/a>\u00a0up to $60 million in military aid, pouring money into a\u00a0trust fund<\/a>\u00a0for MISCA, and providing airlift services, as well as training African forces for deployment in the country.<\/p>\n Dubbed Echo Casemate, the operation — staged out of Burundi and Uganda — saw the U.S. military airlift hundreds of Burundian troops, tons of equipment, and more than a dozen military vehicles into that strife-torn land in just the first five days of the operation,\u00a0according<\/a>\u00a0to an AFRICOM media release.\u00a0 In January, at France\u2019s request, the U.S. began\u00a0airlifting<\/a>\u00a0a Rwandan mechanized battalion and 1,000 tons of their gear in from that country\u2019s capital, Kigali, via a staging area in Entebbe, Uganda (where the U.S. maintains a \u201ccooperative security location\u201d and from which U.S. contractors had previously\u00a0flown<\/a>\u00a0secret surveillance missions).\u00a0 The most recent airlift effort took place on February 6th, according to Benson.\u00a0 While he said that no other flights are currently scheduled, he confirmed that Echo Casemate remains an ongoing operation.<\/p>\n Asked about U.S. training efforts, Benson was guarded.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t have that off the top of my head,\u201d he told me.\u00a0 \u201cWe do training with a lot of different countries in Africa.\u201d\u00a0 He offered little detail about the size and scope of the U.S. effort, but a December 2013 briefing document obtained by TomDispatch mentions 84 U.S. personnel, the majority of them based in Burundi, supporting Operation Echo Casemate. The\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0recently\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0that the U.S. \u201crefrained from putting American boots on the ground\u201d in the Central African Republic, but the document clearly indicates that a Lion Forward Team of Army personnel was indeed sent there.<\/p>\n Another U.S. Army Africa document produced late last year noted that the U.S. provided military support for the French mission in that country from facilities in Germany, Italy, Uganda, Burundi, and the Central African Repubilc itself. It mentions plans to detail liaison officers to the MISCA mission and the Centre de planification et de conduite des op\u00e9rations (the Joint Operations, Planning, and Command and Control Center) in Paris.<\/p>\n As U.S. personnel deploy to Europe as part of Washington\u2019s African wars, additional European troops are heading for Africa.\u00a0 Last month, another of the continent\u2019s former\u00a0colonial powers<\/a>, Germany,\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0that some of its troops would be sent to Mali as part of a Franco-German brigade under the aegis of the European Union (EU) and would also aid in\u00a0supporting<\/a>\u00a0an EU \u201cpeacekeeping mission<\/a>\u201d in the Central African Republic.\u00a0 Already, a host of other former imperial powers on the continent — including\u00a0Belgium<\/a>, Italy,\u00a0the Netherlands<\/a>, Portugal,\u00a0Spain<\/a>, and the\u00a0United Kingdom<\/a>\u00a0—\u00a0are part of a European Union\u00a0training mission<\/a>\u00a0to school the Malian military.\u00a0 In January, France\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0that it was reorganizing its roughly 3,000 troops in Africa\u2019s Sahel region to reinforce a logistical base in Abidjan, the capital of C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire, transform N’Djamena, Chad, into a hub for French fighter jets,concentrate<\/a>\u00a0special operations forces in Burkina Faso, and run drone missions out of Niamey, Niger (already a U.S.\u00a0hub<\/a>\u00a0for such missions).<\/p>\n Scrambling Africa<\/strong><\/p>\n Operations by French and African forces, bolstered by the U.S. military, beat back the Islamic militants in Mali and allowed presidential elections to be held.\u00a0 At the same time, the intervention caused a veritable\u00a0terror diaspora<\/a>\u00a0that helped lead to attacks in Algeria, Niger, and Libya, without resolving Mali\u2019s underlying instability.<\/p>\n Writing in the most recent issue of the\u00a0CTC Sentinel<\/em>, the official publication of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, analyst Bruce Whitehousepoints out<\/a>\u00a0that the Malian government has yet to reassert its authority in the north of the country, reform its armed forces, tackle graft, or strengthen the rule of law:\u00a0 \u201cUntil major progress is made in each of these areas, little can be done to reduce the threat of terrorism\u2026\u00a0 the underlying causes of Mali\u2019s 2012 instability — disaffection in the north, a fractured military, and systemic corruption — have yet to be fully addressed by the Malian government and its international partners.\u201d<\/p>\n The situation may be even worse in the Central African Republic.\u00a0 \u201cWhen France sent troops to halt violence between Christians and Muslims in Central African Republic,\u201d John Irish and Daniel Flynn of Reuters recently\u00a0reported<\/a>, \u201ccommanders named the mission Sangaris after a local butterfly to reflect its short life.\u00a0 Three months later, it is clear they badly miscalculated.\u201d\u00a0 Instead, violence has escalated, more than one million people have been displaced, tens of thousands have been killed, looting has\u00a0occurred<\/a>\u00a0on a massive scale, and last month\u00a0<\/strong>U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper\u00a0informed<\/a>Congress that \u201cmuch of the country has devolved into lawlessness.\u201d<\/p>\n It is also quickly becoming a regional arms-smuggling hot spot.\u00a0 With millions of weapons reportedly unaccounted for as a result of the pillaging of government armories, it\u2019s\u00a0feared<\/a>\u00a0that weaponry will find its way into other continental crisis zones, including Nigeria, Libya, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.<\/p>\n In addition, the coalition operation there has failed to prevent what, after a visit to the largely lawless capital city of Bangui last month, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres\u00a0called<\/a>\u00a0\u201cethnic-religious cleansing.\u201d\u00a0 Amnesty International found much the same.\u00a0 \u201cOnce vibrant Muslim communities in towns and cities throughout the country have been completely destroyed as all Muslim members have either been killed or driven away. Those few left behind live in fear that they will be attacked by anti-balaka groups in their towns or on the roads,\u201d the human rights groupreported<\/a>.\u00a0 \u201cWhile an African Union peacekeeping force, the African-led International Support Mission to the Central African Republic (MISCA), supported by French troops, has been deployed in the country since early December 2013, they have failed to adequately protect civilians and prevent the current ethnic cleansing from taking place.\u201d<\/p>\n French Wine in New Bottles?<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re not involved with the fighting in Mali,\u201d AFRICOM spokesman Benjamin Benson told me, emphasizing that the U.S. military was not engaged in combat there.\u00a0 But Washington is increasingly involved in the growing wars for West and Central Africa.\u00a0 And just about every move it has made in the region thus far has helped\u00a0spread<\/a>\u00a0conflict and chaos, while contributing to African destabilization.\u00a0 Worse yet, no end to this process appears to be in sight.\u00a0 Despite building up the manpower of its African proxies and being backed by the U.S. military\u2019s logistical might, France had not completed its mission in Mali and will be keeping troops there to conduct\u00a0counterrorism operations<\/a>\u00a0for the\u00a0foreseeable future<\/a>.<\/p>\n Similarly, the French have also been\u00a0forced<\/a>\u00a0to send\u00a0reinforcements<\/a>\u00a0into the Central African Republic (and the U.N. has\u00a0called<\/a>\u00a0for still more troops), while Chadian MISCA forces have been repeatedly\u00a0accused<\/a>\u00a0of attacking civilians.\u00a0 In a sign that the U.S.-backed French military mission to Africa could spread, the Nigerian government is now\u00a0requesting<\/a>\u00a0French troops to help it halt increasingly deadly\u00a0attacks<\/a>\u00a0by\u00a0Boko Haram<\/a>\u00a0militants who have gained strength and weaponry in the wake of the unrest in Libya, Mali, and the Central African Republic (and have reportedly also\u00a0spread<\/a>\u00a0into Niger, Chad, and Cameroon).\u00a0 On top of this, Clapper recently\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0that Chad, Niger, Mali, and Mauritania were endangered by their support of the French-led effort in Mali and at risk of increased terror attacks \u201cas retribution.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, this seems to have changed little for the director of national intelligence.\u00a0 \u201cLeveraging and partnering with the French is a way to go,\u201d he\u00a0told<\/a>\u00a0Congress last month. \u201cThey have insight and understanding and, importantly, a willingness to use the forces they have there now.\u201d<\/p>\n France has indeed exhibited a longstanding\u00a0willingness<\/a>\u00a0to use military force in Africa, but what \u201cinsight and understanding\u201d its officials gleaned from this experience is an open question. \u00a0One hundred and sixteen years after it completed its conquest of what was then\u00a0French Sudan<\/a>, France\u2019s forces are again\u00a0fighting<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0dying<\/a>\u00a0on the same fields of battle, though today the country is called Mali.\u00a0 Again and again during the early 20th century, France\u00a0launched<\/a>military expeditions, including during the 1928-1931 Kongo-Wara rebellion, against indigenous peoples in French Equatorial Africa.\u00a0 Today, France\u2019s soldiers are being\u00a0killed<\/a>\u00a0on the same ground in what\u2019s now known as the Central African Republic.\u00a0 And it looks as if they may be slogging on in these nations, in partnership with the U.S. military, for years to come, with no evident ability to achieve lasting results.<\/p>\n A new type of expeditionary warfare is underway in Africa, but there\u2019s little to suggest that America\u2019s backing of a former colonial power will ultimately yield the long-term successes that years of support for local proxies could not.\u00a0 So far, the U.S. has been willing to let European and African forces do the fighting, but if these interventions drag on and the violence continues to leap from country to country as yet more militant groups morph and multiply, the risk only rises of Washington wading ever deeper into post-colonial wars with an eerily colonial look. \u00a0\u201cLeveraging and partnering with the French\u201d is the current way to go, according to Washington.\u00a0 Just where it\u2019s going is the real question.<\/p>\n Nick Turse is the managing editor of\u00a0<\/em>TomDispatch.com<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and a fellow at the Nation Institute.\u00a0 He recently won the 2014\u00a0<\/em>Izzy Award<\/em><\/a>\u00a0for \u201coutstanding achievement in independent media\u201d for his reporting on civilian war casualties from Vietnam to Afghanistan.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Turse\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0pieces have appeared in the\u00a0<\/em>New York Times<\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>Los Angeles Times<\/a>, and\u00a0the Nation<\/a>,\u00a0at the<\/em>\u00a0BBC<\/em><\/a>, and\u00a0<\/em>regularly<\/em><\/a>\u00a0at<\/em>TomDispatch.<\/em>\u00a0He is the author most recently of the New York Times bestseller<\/em>Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>(just out in paperback).<\/em>\u00a0 You can catch his conversation with Bill Moyers about that book by\u00a0<\/em>clicking here<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" America\u2019s New Model for Expeditionary Warfare by\u00a0Nick Turse, Tom Dispatch click here for original article Lion Forward Teams? Echo Casemate? Juniper Micron? You could be forgiven if this jumble of words looks like nonsense to you.\u00a0 It isn\u2019t.\u00a0 It\u2019s the language of the U.S. military\u2019s simmering African interventions; the patois that goes with a set […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2932,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/afisma_small.jpg?fit=283%2C306&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2931"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2931\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2933,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2931\/revisions\/2933"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n![\"afisma_small](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tomdispatch.com\/images\/managed\/afisma_small.jpg?w=640\" "\\"\\"")
\nU.S. Army Africa briefing slide detailing U.S. efforts to aid the African-led International Support Mission in Mali (AFISMA).<\/em><\/p>\n
\n![\"lion_forward_small](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tomdispatch.com\/images\/managed\/lion_forward_small.jpg?w=640\" "\\"\\"")
\nDecember 2013 U.S. military document detailing American efforts to support French military operations in Mali and Central African Republic.<\/em><\/p>\n
\n![\"tcc_training_small](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tomdispatch.com\/images\/managed\/tcc_training_small.jpg?w=640\" "\\"\\"")
\nOfficial briefing slide with details on U.S. training for Chad and Guinea — \u201ctroop contributing countries\u201d aiding the U.S.-supported military mission in Mali.<\/em><\/p>\n