Some of the best works on the American Empire are being done by reporters and publicatioins exclusively focused on the various branches of the US military. Sean Naylor, of the Army Times, is an example. His six part series on covert American activities in Somalia is an enormously valuable insight into the nuts and bolts of global imperial efforts, missions that will go on long after the United States has left Iraq and Afghanistan. An excerpt:
The official referred to Joint Special Operations Command’s notion of “the unblinking eye” — using intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets to keep a target under constant watch. In Iraq and Afghanistan, JSOC was “developing the concept of ‘we don’t want any blinks in our collection’ — the unblinking eye,” the senior intel official said.
But the wars in those countries deprived commanders in the Horn of the overhead assets they needed, “so in Somalia, it was a blink all the time,” the official said, adding that commanders “would go days without any kind of overhead collection capability” they controlled.
Not a military-focused organization, but still intensely informative is The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, a London-based non-profit that “bolsters original journalism by producing high-quality investigations for press and broadcast media.” They’ve created a timeline of known American actions in Somalia.
A map of the world, split into American unified combatant commands:
5 comments
February 22, 2012 at 1:09 pm
saintneko
Did Tolkien call it the unblinking Eye of Sauron, or was that added later?
Because I really wanna see the USAF field a drone modeled on the Eye of Sauron.
Or is making your targets flee in abject fear not part of the plan?
February 22, 2012 at 3:03 pm
Anderson
Same thought. The Lidless Eye, was an epithet for Sauron.
February 22, 2012 at 5:22 pm
chris
Well, I see I’m slow off the mark on Tolkien, so I’ll offer the other obvious allusion: Big Uncle Sam is watching you.
Does it not occur to these people to think about *why* spying on everyone all the time is an activity normally reserved for villains?
February 22, 2012 at 5:33 pm
saintneko
Or creepy stalkers. I wonder if the US military calls up terrorists in the middle of the night and just sits there and breathes.
February 23, 2012 at 4:34 am
ajay
Does it not occur to these people to think about *why* spying on everyone all the time is an activity normally reserved for villains?
Not just for villains. One exception:
He sees you when you’re sleeping
He knows when you’re awake
He knows when you’ve been bad or good
So be good for goodness’ sake!
Another: God, of course. For a lot of these people, the idea that they are being watched all the time by a being of limitless power is rather comforting.