"Annually, USCENTCOM executes more than 40 exercises with a wide range of partner nations in the region," a military spokesman told TomDispatch. "Due to host-nation sensitivities, USCENTCOM does not discuss the nature of many of our exercises outside our bilateral relationships."
Of the dozens of joint-training exercises it sponsored these last years, CENTCOM would only acknowledge two by name: Leading Edge, a 30-nation exercise focused on counter-proliferation last held in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in late 2010; and Eager Resolve, an annual exercise to simulate a coordinated response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or high yield explosive attack, involving the member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council -- Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE.
However, military documents, open-source reports, and other data analyzed by TomDispatch offer a window into the training relationships that CENTCOM refused to acknowledge. While details of these missions remain sparse at best, the results are clear: during 2011, U.S. troops regularly partnered with and trained the security forces of numerous regimes that were actively beating back democratic protests and stifling dissent within their borders.
Getting Friendly With the Kingdom
In January, for example, the government of Saudi Arabia curtailed what little freedom of expression existed in the kingdom by instituting severe new restrictions regarding online news and commentary by its citizens. That same month, Saudi authorities launched a crackdown on peaceful demonstrators. Shortly afterward, six Saudi men sought government recognition for the country's first political party whose professed aims, according to Human Rights Watch, included "greater democracy and protection for human rights." They were promptly arrested.
On February 19th, just three days after those arrests, U.S. and Saudi forces launched Friendship Two , a training exercise in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia. For the next 10 days, 4,100 American and Saudi troops practiced combat maneuvers and counterinsurgency tactics under an unrelenting desert sun. "This is a fantastic exercise and a fantastic venue, and we're sending a real good message out to the people of the region," insisted Major General Bob Livingston, a National Guard commander who took part in the mission. "The engagements that we have with the Saudi Arabian army affect their army, it affects our Army, but it also shows the people of the region our ability to cooperate with each other and our ability to be able to operate together."
Eager Lights and Lions
As the Arab Spring brought down U.S.-allied autocrats in Tunisia and Egypt, the Kingdom of Jordan, where criticizing King Abdulluh or even peacefully protesting government policies is a crime, continued to stifle dissent. Last year, for instance, state security forces stormed the house of 24-year-old computer science student Imad al-Din al-Ash and arrested him. His crime? An online article in which he called the king "effeminate."
In March, Jordanian security forces typically failed to take action, and some even joined in, when pro-government protesters attacked peaceful activists seeking political reforms. Then came allegations that state forces had tortured Islamist activists.
Meanwhile, in March, U.S. troops joined Jordanian forces in Eager Light 2011, a training exercise in Amman, the country's capital, that focused on counterinsurgency training. Then, from June 11th to June 30th, thousands of Jordanian security forces and U.S. troops undertook Eager Lion , focusing on special operations missions and irregular warfare as well as counterinsurgency.
In November, Human Rights Watch's Christoph Wilcke took Jordan to task for the trial of 150 protesters arrested in the spring on terrorism charges after a public brawl with pro-regime supporters. "Only members of the opposition face prosecution. The trial... is seriously flawed," wrote Wilcke. "It singles out Islamists on charges of terrorism and casts doubts on the kingdom's path towards genuine political reform, its commitment to the rule of law, and its stated desire to protect the rights of freedom of expression and assembly."
At around the same time, U.S. troops were wrapping up Operation Flexible Saif. For about four months, American troops had engaged in basic mentoring of the Jordanian military, according to Americans who took part, focusing on subjects ranging from the fundamentals of soldiering to the essentials of intelligence gathering.
Who Are Kuwait's Lucky Warriors?
Earlier this year, Kuwaiti security forces assaulted and arrested "Bidun" protesters, a minority population demanding citizenship rights after 50 years of stateless status in the oil-rich kingdom. "Kuwaiti authorities" should allow demonstrators to speak and assemble freely -- as is their right," wrote Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. More recently, Kuwait has been cracking down on online activists. In July, HRW's Priyanka Motaparthy wrote in Foreign Policy magazine that 26-year-old Nasser Abul was led, blindfolded and shackled, into a Kuwaiti courtroom. His crime, according to Motaparthy, "a few tweets" criticizing the ruling families of Bahrain as well as Saudi Arabia."
This spring, U.S. troops took part in Lucky Warrior, a four-day training exercise in Kuwait designed to hone U.S. war fighting skills particular to the region. The sparse material available from the military mentions no direct Kuwaiti involvement in Lucky Warrior, but documents examined by TomDispatch indicate that translators have been used in past versions of the exercise, suggesting the involvement of Kuwaiti and/or other Arab nations in the operation. Pentagon secrecy, however, makes it impossible to know the full extent of participation by the Pentagon's regional partners.
TomDispatch has identified other regional training operations that CENTCOM failed to acknowledge, including Steppe Eagle, an annual multilateral exercise carried out in repressive Kazakhstan from July 31st to August 23rd which trained Kazakh troops in everything from convoy missions to conducting cordon and search operations. Then there was the Falcon Air Meet, an exercise focusing on close air-support tactics that even included a bombing contest, carried out in October by U.S., Jordanian, and Turkish air forces at Shaheed Mwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan.
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