uitamre

U.S. government molds ‘mobile, agile’ military
Appointment of army chief promotes role of Special Operations forces
http://www.themilitant.com/2003/6723/672350.html

BY PATRICK O’NEILL
U.S. defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld has announced that a former head
of Special Operations forces will serve as the new chief of the U.S.
army. The appointment of retired Gen. Peter Shoomaker follows the
promotion of the special forces to a key role in the military conquests
of Afghanistan and Iraq.
Rumsfeld has been among the most outspoken champions of the enhanced
role of the Green Berets, Delta Force, and Navy Seals in the U.S.
military.

These moves are further signs that a revolution is under way in the
organization of the U.S. military. They reflect the U.S. rulers’ push
for more mobile, less ponderous armed forces ready to move rapidly to
areas of battle as U.S. imperialism needs.

The invasion of Iraq was a victory for the approach of the defense
secretary and his supporters over their critics in the government and
military brass. In that assault, U.S. Gen. Thomas Franks, the commander
of the operation and another Rumsfeld ally, relied heavily on air
power, laser- and satellite-guided bombs, and a ground army that was
numerically small in comparison with the U.S.-led forces in the 1991
Gulf War. The U.S. and British units’ rapid advance from Kuwait to
northern Iraq in the face of a badly led and demoralized Iraqi army
silenced those in Washington who said that the invading force was too
small and lightly armed and would get bogged down.

Franks, who headed the U.S. Central Command recently and is retiring
this summer, is being replaced by Lt. Gen. John Abizaid—dubbed the “Mad
Arab” by his fellows in the military brass—who also played a major role
in Washington’s conquest of Iraq.

Following the war, U.S. president George Bush singled out the Special
Operations Command for particular praise. Shoomaker headed the command
for three years from 1997. He was stationed in Korea in the mid-1970s.

U.S. forces are redeployed
In keeping with the ongoing remolding of the armed forces for more
frequent and far-flung aggression, U.S. officers have begun a
significant redeployment of their troops in Europe, Asia, the Middle
East, and the Americas on the pretext of “fighting terrorism.” The
number of U.S. soldiers stationed in Germany will fall from almost
70,000 to as few as 15,000. Most will head east to Poland, Bulgaria,
Hungary, and Rumania.

That will bring them closer to likely theaters of imperialist
intervention in the Middle East, Africa, and Russia. “Why do we need a
joint force to be in Germany, where there’s nothing happening?” a
senior military official told the Los Angeles Times. “You have to have
troops close to ports and airfields that are closer to the action.”

The total U.S. forces in Europe were reduced from 300,000 to around
100,000 in the decade following the end of the Cold War.

In addition, Washington is moving troops south from the so-called
demilitarized zone dividing the Korean peninsula, which takes them out
of range of north Korean artillery in case of a military conflict with
Pyongyang. The Pentagon is also probing to establish new bases in
Australia, Singapore, the Philippines, and Vietnam, in addition to
Japan and south Korea, where it has tens of thousands of troops.

Up until recently, some 80 percent of the 1.4 million U.S. troops were
stationed in the United States, south Korea, and Germany.

In the Middle East, the U.S. military is pulling most of its
5,000-strong force out of Saudi Arabia, while reinforcing its presence
in Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and now Iraq. Further east, thousands of
troops are in Afghanistan and some 1,500 have been stationed in
Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet republic.

Meanwhile, under Washington’s Plan Colombia, U.S. forces have been
deployed in a number of Andean countries in Latin America under the
guise of combating the drug trade and terrorism. It’s an area of the
world where the volcano of the class struggle is smoldering.