When the Pentagon wants to mislead the public about where US troops are, generally speaking, they just lie. Yet sometimes the number of troops is just too big to claim as a rounding error, and questions start happening.
This week, the focus is on over 44,000 US military personnel deployed to “unknown,” which immediately raises red flags, because that’s not a place. Pentagon officials, however, say there is “no good way” to describe where they are.
Pentagon spokesman Col. Rob Manning, on the one hand, presented this as an “operational security” and “denying the enemy any advantage,” including, it seems providing any specifics on who “the enemy” at this point even is.
At the same time, Manning presented this as simply a limitation of the Pentagon’s current capabilities, and that there is literally “no personnel system” in the Pentagon that tracks where everyone is, and they just stick everyone else in “unknown” so the number of troops they officially have balances out with the number of troops deployed in actual, real places.
Pentagon spokesman Eric Pahon went a step further, saying that the figures are flat out fiction, and were “not meant to represent an accurate accounting of troops currently deployed to any location. They should not be relied upon for a current picture of what is going on.”
Secretary of Defense James Mattis suggested that the situation was complicated, but also that he wasn’t entirely comfortable with the lack of accounting for troops abroad, saying at some point he was going to try to put everything together and figure out where everyone really is.
The Pentagon can’t provide “accounting” for troops, equipment, or money, yet taxpayers are expected to “just trust” these clowns?
What do you expect from Terrorists?
They cannot, tactically speaking that would give away too much information.
Yeah troops, we all know what they are, MERCENARIES!!
I don’t think the mercenairies are actually included in this number. I mean it’s not like the German Hussars in the Revolutionary war, these days mercenairies are more like soldiers of fortune in my opinion. Some of these troops are probably just a bank account number.
Probably so, but if you are getting paid to fight in another country? Mercenary, IMO.
Deployed to ‘unknown’?
Its nice to think its all about being super-secret but its also possible too many poverty draftees promoted into record-keeping flunked geography.
BS…this is not something that “accidentally” came about (not sure how “poverty” and your implied incompetence figures in) – it’s SOP now. The fig-leaf of “OPSEC” allows the Pentagon to “legally” lie to the American people (and Congress.) It’s not the so-called enemy they’re afraid of sharing information with, it’s the American people. They’d prefer to keep us ignorant, compliant, and complacent.
Mission Accomplished!!
It was a joke and a poor one if it implies wealth discrimination in a direction that is not intended. Still…
The U.S. popular education system is not exactly the envy of the world nor are Americans themselves particularly impressed. This will negatively affect the poor most of all, whose needs for survival and social status will not prioritize egghead stuff unless they are somehow motivated to self-educate beyond the classroom.
Many kids drop out to earn a living and learning geography is hardly a priority in most cases, despite the fact that geography and geopolitics will ultimately shape the destiny of their nation. As informed citizens and voters they are purposely disarmed but also induced to willfully disarm their minds.
One way out for the poor is the poverty draft. However, the U.S. military seems to be showing signs of promoting on political utility, not necessarily competence. Its very possible that there are a greater-than-usual number of people performing actions without fully understanding their implications nor caring because the higher ups want solder-bots, not soldiers. So it would not surprise me if same lower level staffers are fuzzy if not purposely in the dark on the names and locations of the countries they’re helping to invade where its not their problem to know.
There’s no shortage of discontent within the military over unnecessary wars. However, it was competent and informed soldiers who realized the folly of the Vietnam war, and helped end it. Paradoxically that same competence allowed them to survive and outfight the Viet Cong.
Great powers lose wars politically, usually starting with the decision to fight but also removing competent opposition to doing stupid, which just makes a bad situation worse over time.
I recall a American soldier that captured some Chinese soldiers in the Korean war in the fifties . The Chinese soldiers all were mad because we had invaded China .. We told them we are not in China we are in Korea .. The Chinamen were surprised to learn that .
Or, they were surprised to learn Korea wasn’t part of China.
Flunking geography in China has a somewhat different meaning and implications where China’s immediate borders are concerned and the State sets the curriculum.
Still the same principle; China then was a failed empire, controlling ‘need to know’ went to far.
Some DAESH troops in Aleppo thought they were in Jerusalem; cannon fodder doesn’t need to know stuff except where it can motivate them. If the knowledge would inconvenience the brass, past a certain level knowledge a soldier doesn’t need to know won’t be given nor will curiosity be appreciated.
That’s is often the way our grain sales are announced XX million metric tons sold to unknown destination . If we filled out a report going to the government with some similar unknowns we would get a telephone call
Rank has certain privileges, screwing up is one of them. The one getting the phone call probably doesn’t have rank and privilege.
According to Zero Hedge, “Pentagon To Undergo First Ever Audit After Decades Of Sloppy Accounting And Missing Trillions” – Tyler Durden, Dec. 10, 2017.
I guess its kind of comforting to know misplacing 44 000 actual live bodies (are they alive?) is perhaps more motivating than misplacing trillions of dollars. Or maybe they hope they can scrape up some money by outing some ghost soldiers receiving paycheques.
Ominous as this sounds, there may be a simpler explanation. The Pentagon could be so incompetent that they literally don’t f—ing know where the 44,000 are.
Trump willingly said he was not going to announce what our military is doing . He does not want the enemy to find out . Of course if Trump turns out to be just as transparent as our last few leaders the enemy might be us .
Thank you Eric.
Those prostitutes aren’t going to screw themselves, and all that alcohol and illegal drugs isn’t going to consume itself either. One thing for sure, these folks AREN’T doing one damn thing to “protect our freedom” or our “liberty.” I know this 100% because the ONLY folks who have EVER threatened or destroyed our freedom and liberty are the elected and unelected government parasites that infest our city, county, state, and federal governments.
I would put the 44,000 troops under the Black Ops category.
Or in the heroin drug cultivation class by way of Afghanistan.
Regime change ops in Africa?
We do have 3 private armies with a lot of former military officers working for them One used to be called Black water . These Armies do a lot of illegal things the government would not like to take responsibility for .I think they change their name real often like the Muslim terrorists organizations do . So you have to really stay on the ball to keep track of who is doing what to who . I suppose everything is classified so it even becomes more difficult to know what is going on .
“Pentagon officials, however, say there is “no good way” to describe where they are.” – Interesting way to put it. Two undiscussed possibilities come my my mind: 1) They are currently not ON the planet, or not in OUR time, or both at the same time. 2) These are ghost soldiers, created out of thin air to allow some corrupt military officers to pocket their salaries.