\nclick here for original article<\/a><\/p>\n
What is Operation New Normal?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a question without an answer, a riddle the U.S. military refuses to solve. It\u2019s a secret operation in Africa that no one knows anything about. Except that someone does. His name is Lieutenant Colonel Robert E. Lee Magee. He lives and breathes Operation New Normal. But he doesn\u2019t want to breath paint fumes or talk to me, so you can\u2019t know anything about it.<\/p>\n
Confused? Stay with me.<\/p>\n
Whatever Operation New Normal may be pales in comparison to the real \u201cnew normal\u201d for U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM). The lower-cased variant is bold and muscular. It\u2019s an expeditionary force on a war footing. To the men involved, it\u2019s a story of\u00a0growth<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0expansion<\/a>, new\u00a0battlefields<\/a>, \u201ccombat<\/a>,\u201d and \u201cwar<\/a>.\u201d It\u2019s the\u00a0culmination<\/a>\u00a0of years of\u00a0construction<\/a>, ingratiation, and interventions, the fruits of wide-eyed\u00a0expansion<\/a>\u00a0and dismal policy\u00a0failures<\/a>, the backing of\u00a0proxies<\/a>\u00a0to fight America\u2019s battles, while increasing U.S. personnel and firepower in and around the continent.\u00a0 It is, to quote an officer with AFRICOM, the blossoming of a \u201cwar-fighting combatant command<\/a>.\u201d And unlike Operation New Normal, it\u2019s finally heading for a media outlet near you.<\/p>\n Ever Less New, Ever More Normal<\/strong><\/p>\n Since 9\/11, the U.S. military has been ramping up missions on the African continent, funneling money into projects to woo allies, supporting and trainingproxy forces<\/a>, conducting humanitarian outreach, carrying out air strikes and commando raids, creating a sophisticated\u00a0logistics network<\/a>\u00a0throughout the region, and building a string of camps, \u201ccooperative security locations,\u201d and bases-by-other-names.<\/p>\n All the while, AFRICOM\u00a0downplayed<\/a>\u00a0the expansion and much of the media,with<\/a>\u00a0a few\u00a0notable<\/a>exceptions<\/a>, played along.\u00a0 With the end of the Iraq War and the drawdown of combat forces in Afghanistan, Washington has, however, visibly \u201cpivoted\u201d to Africa and, in recent weeks, many\u00a0news<\/a>\u00a0organizations,especially<\/a>\u00a0those\u00a0devoted<\/a>\u00a0to the\u00a0military<\/a>, have begun\u00a0waking<\/a>\u00a0up to the\u00a0new normal<\/a>\u00a0there.<\/p>\n While daily U.S. troop strength continent-wide hovers in the relatively modest range of\u00a05,000<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a08,000<\/a>\u00a0personnel, an under-the-radar expansion has been constant, with the U.S. military now\u00a0conducting<\/a>\u00a0operations alongside almost every African military in almost every African country and\u00a0averaging<\/a>\u00a0more than a mission a day.<\/p>\n This increased engagement has come at a continuing cost.\u00a0 When the U.S. and other allies intervened in 2011 to aid in the ouster of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, for instance, it helped set off a chain reaction that led to a security vacuum\u00a0destabilizing<\/a>\u00a0that country as well as neighboring Mali.\u00a0 The latter saw its elected government\u00a0overthrown<\/a>\u00a0by a U.S.-trained officer.\u00a0 The former never recovered and has tottered toward failed-state status ever since.\u00a0 Local militias have been\u00a0carving out<\/a>\u00a0fiefdoms, while killing untold numbers of Libyans — as well, of course, as U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans in a September 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, the \u201ccradle\u201d of the Libyan revolution, whose forces the U.S. had\u00a0aided<\/a>\u00a0with training, materiel, and military might.<\/p>\n Quickly\u00a0politicized<\/a>\u00a0by Congressional Republicans and\u00a0conservative<\/a>\u00a0news outlets, \u201cBenghazi<\/a>\u201d has become a shorthand for many things, including Obama administration\u00a0cover-ups<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0misconduct<\/a>, as well as White House\u00a0lies<\/a>and\u00a0malfeasance<\/a>.\u00a0 Missing, however, has been thoughtful analysis of the implications of American power-projection in Africa or the possibility that blowback might result from it.<\/p>\n Far from being chastened by the Benghazi deaths or chalking them up to a failure to imagine the consequences of armed interventions in situations whose local politics they barely grasp, the Pentagon and the Obama administration have used Benghazi as a growth opportunity, a means to take military efforts on the continent to the next level.\u00a0 \u201cBenghazi\u201d has provided AFRICOM with a beefed-up mandate and new clout.\u00a0 It birthed the new normal in Africa.<\/p>\n The Spoils of Blowback<\/strong><\/p>\n Those 2012 killings \u201cchanged AFRICOM forever,\u201d Major General Raymond Fox, commander of the II Marine Expeditionary Force,\u00a0told<\/a>\u00a0attendees of a recent Sea-Air-Space conference organized by the\u00a0Navy League<\/a>, the Marine Corps, the Coast Guard, and the Merchant Marine. \u00a0\u00a0The proof lies in the new \u201ccrisis response\u201d forces that have popped up in and around Africa, greatly enhancing the regional reach, capabilities, and firepower of the U.S. military.<\/p>\n Following the debacle in Benghazi, for instance, the U.S. established an Africa-focused force known as Special-Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force-Crisis Response (SP-MAGTF CR<\/a>) to give AFRICOM quick-reaction capabilities on the continent.\u00a0 \u201cTemporarily positioned\u201d at Mor\u00f3n Air Base in Spain, this rotating unit of Marines and sailors is officially\u00a0billed<\/a>\u00a0as \u201ca balanced, expeditionary force with built-in command, ground, aviation, and logistics elements and organized, trained, and equipped to accomplish a specific mission.\u201d<\/p>\n Similarly, Benghazi provided the justification for the birthing of another rapid reaction unit, the Commander\u2019s In-Extremis Force.\u00a0 Long in the planning stages and\u00a0supported<\/a>\u00a0by the head of the Special Operations Command, Admiral William McRaven, the Fort Carson, Colorado-based unit — part of the 10th Special Forces Group — was sent to Europe\u00a0weeks after<\/a>\u00a0Benghazi.\u00a0 Elements of this specialized\u00a0counterterrorism unit<\/a>\u00a0are now \u201cconstantly forward deployed,\u201d AFRICOM spokesman Benjamin Benson told TomDispatch, and stand \u201cready for the commander to use, if there\u2019s a crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n The East Africa Response Force (EARF), operating from the lone avowed American base in Africa — Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti — is another new quick-reaction unit.\u00a0 When asked about EARF, Benson said, \u201cThe growing complexity of the security environment demonstrated the need for us to have a [Department of Defense]-positioned response force that could respond to crises in the African region.\u201d<\/p>\n In late December, just days after the 1st Combined Arms Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment, out of Fort Riley, Kansas,\u00a0arrived<\/a>\u00a0in Djibouti to serve as the newly christened EARF, members of the unit were whisked off to South Sudan.\u00a0 Led by EARF\u2019s commander, Lieutenant Colonel Lee Magee, the 45-man platoon was dispatched to that restive nation (midwifed into being by the U.S. only a few years earlier) as it slid toward civil war with armed factions moving close to the U.S. embassy in the capital, Juba.\u00a0 The obvious fear: another Benghazi.<\/p>\n Joined by elements of the Special-Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force-Crisis Response and more shadowy\u00a0special ops troops<\/a>, members of EARF helped secure and reinforce the embassy and\u00a0evacuate<\/a>\u00a0Americans.\u00a0 Magee and most of his troops\u00a0returned<\/a>\u00a0to Djibouti in February, although a few were still serving in South Sudan as recently as\u00a0last month<\/a>.<\/p>\n South Sudan, a nation the U.S.\u00a0poured<\/a>\u00a0much time and effort into\u00a0building<\/a>, is lurching toward the brink of genocide,\u00a0according<\/a>\u00a0to Secretary of State John Kerry.\u00a0 With a ceasefire already\u00a0in shambles<\/a>\u00a0within hours of being signed, the country stands as another stark foreign policy failure on a\u00a0continent<\/a>\u00a0now\u00a0rife<\/a>with them.\u00a0 But just as Benghazi proved a useful excuse for dispatching more forward-deployed firepower toward Africa, the embassy scare in South Sudan acted as a convenient template for future crises in which the U.S. military would be even more involved.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re basically the firemen for AFRICOM. If something arises and they need troops somewhere, we can be there just like that,\u201d Captain John Young, a company commander with the East Africa Response Force,\u00a0told<\/a>\u00a0Stars and Stripes<\/em>\u00a0in the wake of the Juba mission.<\/p>\n The New Normal and the Same Old, Same Old<\/strong><\/p>\n A batch of official Army Africa documents obtained by TomDispatch convinced me that EARF was intimately connected with Operation New Normal.\u00a0 A July 2013 briefing slide, for instance, references \u201cEast Africa Response Force\/New Normal,\u201d while another concerning operations on that continent mentions \u201cNew Normal Reaction Force East.\u201d\u00a0 At the same time, the phrase \u201cnew normal\u201d has been increasingly on the lips of the men running America\u2019s African ops.<\/p>\n Jason Hyland, a 30-year State Department veteran who serves as Foreign Policy Advisor to Brigadier General Wayne Grigsby, the commander of Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA), for instance,\u00a0told<\/a>\u00a0an interviewer that the task force \u201cis at the forefront in this region in implementing U.S. policy on the \u2018new normal\u2019 to protect our missions when there are uncertain conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n A news release from CJTF-HOA concerning the Juba operation also used the phrase:\u00a0\u201c<\/em>While the East Africa Response Force was providing security for the embassy, additional forces were required to continue the evacuation mission. Under the auspices of \u2018the new normal,\u2019 which refers to the heightened threat U.S. Embassies face throughout the world, the SP-MAGTF CR arrived from Mor\u00f3n, Spain,\u201d\u00a0wrote<\/a>\u00a0Technical Sergeant Jasmine Reif.<\/p>\n Earlier this year in\u00a0Seapower<\/em>\u00a0magazine, the commander of Special-Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force Crisis Response, Colonel Scott Benedict,described<\/a>\u00a0the \u201cnew normal\u201d as a world filled with \u201ca lot of rapidly moving crises,\u201d requiring military interventions and likened it to the Marine Corps deployments in the so-called\u00a0Banana Wars<\/a>\u00a0in Central America and the Caribbean in the early twentieth century.<\/p>\n On a visit to Camp Lemonnier, Marine commandant General James Amos echoed the same sentiments,\u00a0calling<\/a>\u00a0his troops \u201cAmerica\u2019s insurance policy.\u201d\u00a0 Referencing the Marine task force, he invoked that\u00a0phrase<\/a>\u00a0in an even more expansive way.\u00a0 Aside from \u201cwinning battles\u201d in Afghanistan, he\u00a0said<\/a>, the creation of that force was \u201cprobably the most significant thing we\u2019ve done in the last year-and-a-half as far as adjusting the Marine Corps for what people are now calling the new normal, which are these crises that are happening around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n In March, Brigadier General Wayne Grigsby explicitly noted that the phrase meant far more than simple embassy security missions.\u00a0 \u201cSitting in Djibouti is really the new normal,\u201d the CJTF-HOA commander\u00a0said<\/a>. (He was, in fact, sitting in an office in that country.)\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s not the new normal… as far as providing security for our threatened embassies.\u00a0 It\u2019s really the new normal on how we\u2019re going to operate as a [Department of Defense entity] in supporting the national security strategy of our country.\u201d<\/p>\n Operation New Normal and the Incredible Disappearing Lee Magee<\/strong><\/p>\n With so many officials talking about the \u201cnew normal\u201d and with documents citing a specific operation sporting the same name, I called up AFRICOM\u2019s media chief Benjamin Benson looking for more information.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t know the name new normal,\u201d he told me. \u201cIt isn\u2019t a term we\u2019re using to define one of the operations.\u201d<\/p>\n That seemed awfully curious.\u00a0 An official military document obtained by TomDispatch explicitly noted that U.S. troops would be deployed as part of Operation New Normal in 2014. The term was even used, in still another document, alongside other code-named operations like Juniper Micron and Observant Compass, missions to aid the\u00a0French and African interventions<\/a>\u00a0in Mali and to\u00a0degrade or destroy<\/a>\u00a0Joseph Kony\u2019s murderous\u00a0Lord\u2019s Resistance Army<\/a>\u00a0in central Africa.<\/p>\n Click here to see a larger version<\/a><\/em><\/strong> Next, I got in touch with Lieutenant Colonel Glen Roberts at CJTF-HOA and explained that I wanted to know about Operation New Normal.\u00a0 His response was effusive and unequivocal: I should speak with Lee Magee — that isLieutenant Colonel Robert E. Lee Magee<\/a>, a West Point graduate, third-generation Army officer, and commander of the East African Response Force who had deployed to South Sudan as the nation shattered on the rocks of reality.\u00a0 \u201cHe lives this concept and has executed it,\u201d was how Roberts put it.<\/p>\n Was I available to talk to Magee the next day?\u00a0 Yes, indeed.<\/p>\n On March 27th, the day of the proposed interview, however, a lower-ranking public affairs official got in touch to explain that Lieutenant Colonel Magee could not speak to me and Lieutenant Colonel Roberts was out of the office.\u00a0 I asked to reschedule for the next day.\u00a0 The spokesman said he didn\u2019t know what their calendars looked like, but that Roberts was expected back later that day. \u00a0I left a message, but heard nothing.<\/p>\n The next morning, I called the press office in Djibouti and asked to speak to Magee.\u00a0 He wasn\u2019t there.\u00a0 No one was.\u00a0 Everyone had left work early. The reason? \u201cPaint fumes.\u201d<\/p>\n That was a new one.<\/p>\n Another follow-up and Roberts finally got back in touch.\u00a0 \u201cApologies, but I am no longer able to arrange an interview with Magee,\u201d he informed me.\u00a0 \u201cThanks for understanding.\u201d<\/p>\n But I didn\u2019t understand and told him so.\u00a0 After all, Magee was the man wholived and executed<\/em>\u00a0the new normal.\u00a0 I thought we were set for an interview.\u00a0 What happened?<\/p>\n \u201cHe has simply declined an interview, as is his privilege,\u201d was the best Roberts could do.\u00a0 Magee had been dropped into the hot zone in South Sudan to forestall the next Benghazi, and had previously\u00a0spoken<\/a>\u00a0with other\u00a0media outlets<\/a>about his work in Africa, but conversing with me about Operation New Normal was apparently beyond the pale.\u00a0 Or maybe it had something to do with those paint fumes.<\/p>\n On March 31st, Roberts told me that he could answer the questions by email — questions that I had already sent in on March 17th.\u00a0 But no response came.\u00a0 I followed up again.\u00a0 And again.\u00a0 And again.\u00a0 I sent the questions a second time.<\/p>\n As of publication, almost two months after my initial inquiry, no word yet.\u00a0 That, evidently, is the new normal, too.<\/p>\n The Real New Normal<\/strong><\/p>\n Quite obviously, the U.S. military isn\u2019t eager to talk about Operation New Normal, which — despite Benjamin Benson\u2019s contentions, Lee Magee\u2019s silence, and Glen Roberts\u2019 disappearance — is almost certainly the name for a U.S. military mission in East Africa that, U.S. documents suggest, is tied to the Benghazi-birthed East African Response Force.<\/p>\n More important than uncovering the nature of Operation New Normal, however, is recognizing the real new normal in Africa for the U.S. military: ever-increasing missions across the continent — now\u00a0averaging<\/a>\u00a0about 1.5 per day — ever more engagement with local\u00a0proxies<\/a>\u00a0in ever more African countries, the construction of ever more new facilities in ever more countries (including plans for a possible new compound in Niger), and a string of bases\u00a0devoted<\/a>\u00a0to surveillance activities spreading across the northern tier of Africa.\u00a0 Add to this impressive build-up the three new rapid reaction forces, specialized teams like acontingent<\/a>\u00a0of AFRICOM personnel and officials from the FBI and the departments of Justice, State, and Defense created to help\u00a0rescue<\/a>\u00a0hundreds of Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped by members of the Islamic militant group Boko Haram, and other shadowy quick-response units like the seldom-mentionedNaval Special Warfare Unit 10<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cHaving resources [on the continent] that are ready for a response is really valuable,\u201d Benson told me when talking about the Djibouti-based EARF.\u00a0 The same holds for the U.S. military\u2019s new normal in Africa: more of everything valuable to a military seeking a new mission in the wake of two fading, none-too-successful wars.<\/p>\n The Benghazi killings, unrest in South Sudan, and now the Boko Haram kidnappings have provided the U.S. with ways to bring a long-running \u201clight footprint in Africa\u201d narrative into line with a far heavier reality.\u00a0 Each crisis has provided the U.S. with further justification for publicizing a steady expansion on that continent that\u2019s been underway but under wraps for years.\u00a0 New forces, new battlefields, and a new openness about a new \u201cwar,\u201d to\u00a0quote<\/a>\u00a0one of the men waging it.\u00a0 That\u2019s the real new normal for the U.S. military in Africa — and you don\u2019t need to talk to Lieutenant Colonel Lee Magee to know it.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A Secret African Mission and an African Mission that\u2019s No Secret by\u00a0Nick Turse, Tom Dispatch click here for original article What is Operation New Normal? It\u2019s a question without an answer, a riddle the U.S. military refuses to solve. It\u2019s a secret operation in Africa that no one knows anything about. Except that someone does. 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\n![\"operationnewnormal_small](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tomdispatch.com\/images\/managed\/operationnewnormal_small.jpg?w=640\" "\\"\\"")
\nFrom a 2013 U.S. Army Africa briefing slide referencing Operation New Normal.<\/em><\/p>\n