The Classic Military Runaround: Your Tax Dollars at Work Keeping You in the Dark

[marmar]

from TomDispatch:





The Classic Military Runaround
Your Tax Dollars at Work Keeping You in the Dark

By Nick Turse


There are hundreds, possibly thousands of U.S. personnel -- the military refuses to say how many -- stationed in the ochre-tinted country of Qatar. Out in the searing heat of the desert, they fly fighter jets or fix them. They equip and arm troops headed to war. Some work in a high-tech command-and-control center overseeing U.S. air operations in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and elsewhere in the Greater Middle East. Yet I found myself sitting in a hotel room in Doha, Qatar’s capital, about 30 miles east of al-Udeid Air Base, the main U.S. installation in the country, unable to see, let alone talk, to any of them.

In mid-May, weeks before my arrival in Qatar, I sent a request to the public affairs office at the base to arrange a visit with the 379th Air Expeditionary Wing, the unit that, according to the military, carries out a “criti­cal combat mission that spans nearly 6,000 miles from the Horn of Africa to Northern Afghanistan.” Or at least I tried to. Day or night, weekday or weekend, the website refused to deliver my message. Finally, I dug up an alternate email address and sent in my request. Days passed with no word, without even an acknowledgement. I followed up yet again and finally received a reply -- and then it began.

The initial response came on May 28th from the Media Operations Chief at Air Forces Central Command Public Affairs. She told me that I needed to contact the 379th Air Expeditionary Wing’s Public Affairs liaison, Captain Angela Webb, directly. So I repeatedly wrote to Captain Webb. No response. On June 10th, I received an email from Susan Harrington. She was, she told me, “taking over” for Captain Webb. Unfortunately, she added, it was now far too close to my arrival in Qatar to arrange a visit. “Due to time constraints,” she wrote me, “I do not think it will be possible to support this request since we are likely already within that 30 day window.”

Don’t think I was surprised. By now, I’m used to it. Whether I’m trying to figure out what the U.S. military is doing in Latin America or Africa, Afghanistan or Qatar, the response is remarkably uniform -- obstruction and obfuscation, hurdles and hindrances. In short, the good old-fashioned military runaround. I had hoped to take a walk around al-Udeid Air Base, perhaps get a glimpse of the jumbotron-sized screens and rows of computers in its Combined Air and Space Operations Center. I wanted to learn how the drawdown in Afghanistan was affecting life on the base. ...................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175721/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_the_snags%2C_snares%2C_and_snafus_of_covering_the_u.s._military/#more

[msongs]

1. the primary target of the US military is the treasury of the United States....

since the military serves the needs of war profiteering corporations

[xtraxritical]

2. ^THAT^ is SO true.