Sunday, June 28, 2009

Man the ramparts

Here is an interesting tale by Prof. Paul Rogers on the new Special Operations Training Centre in Jordan.

For those of you who can't be bothered to read the full piece, here's a little flavour:

"The centre, the world's largest facility of its kind, will stretch over 600 hectares and cost twice as much as Baladia (that's another one in Israel). It will initially be used by special forces from the US, Jordan, Kuwait and Bahrain; but the plan is that many armies from around the world - including the middle east and Africa - will send contingents to train there in the coming months and years...

"The construction of this enormous military facility, at the very moment that elsewhere in the "global governance" landscape there is an intense search for ways to contain widespread social distress by alleviating the plight of the poor and marginalised, is one of those weird coincidences of timing that sometimes shed unexpected light on the heart of current global problems.

Food for thought!