{"id":99005,"date":"2020-02-15T15:51:53","date_gmt":"2020-02-15T22:51:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=99005"},"modified":"2020-02-15T15:51:53","modified_gmt":"2020-02-15T22:51:53","slug":"funny-american-logic-love-the-navy-hate-the-army","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/02\/15\/funny-american-logic-love-the-navy-hate-the-army\/","title":{"rendered":"Funny American Logic \u2013 Love the Navy, Hate the Army"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dilrook Kannangara<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

After a\nbrief lapse the US government has restarted their hilarious and unsubstantiated\nwar crimes allegations against the Sri Lanka army. A US government spokesman\nhas stated that they will not give visa to the army commander who has not even\nattempted to get US visa! This comes in the context of a long history of the US\ngovernment alleging war crimes on the Sri Lankan army. Oddly enough USA did\nissue visa to the same person over a decade ago to New York where he worked as\nSri Lanka\u2019s representative to the UN! What changed?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However,\nwhat is most hilarious is the US duplicity towards the Sri Lankan army and the\nnavy. The navy is not levelled these allegations. In fact, the US government\nhas helped the Sri Lankan navy in many ways and donated extremely valuable\nassets since 2003. A large number of warships from USA and US allies, GPS\nlocation sharing of Tamil terrorist locations, raising Sri Lanka Marines,\nallowing a SLN aligned private company to do sea marshaling in the Indian Ocean\nand free training provision to SLN personnel are examples. In fact, no other\nmilitary unit in the world gets so much US freebies than the Sri Lanka navy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The highly\npublicized alleged abduction of Tamil civilians from Colombo allegedly by the\nSri Lanka Navy has not got comparable NGO and international attention as the\nalleged killing of Tamil terrorist leaders by the army in 2009.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s\nbecause Sri Lanka\u2019s exclusive economic zone is essential to contain China, keep\nmaritime trade routes open and enforce a \u2018rules based\u2019 world order that favours\nUSA and allies. SL-US military deals including ACSA have everything to do with\nthe Sri Lanka navy with the Sri Lanka air force marginally touched but has no\nuse of the army. MCC corridors will also be centred around either coastal areas\nor land strips connecting sea ports. USA needs the Sri Lanka navy but doesn\u2019t\nneed the army.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

USA is not\nalone. It is backed by most developed nations that are US allies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this\nsituation, Sri Lanka can gain maximum leverage by bringing the army and the\nnavy as a single unit. USA and allies will have no option than to deal with it.\nWar crimes allegations will be quickly forgotten. It also helps Sri Lanka. At\nthe moment the large army is not equipped with sea operations which is\nessential. On the other hand, the navy has to coordinate with the army for\nground operations. This will not be the case if the two branches of the military\nare merged. There will be huge economies of scale and information sharing as\nwell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Sri\nLankan politicians will not like it as the merged unit will have too much power\nto their liking. It is foolish to think the military will ever challenge politicians.\nIt has not happened and given the current constitutional framework it will\nnever happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lanka must gain\nmaximum benefit of US duplicity by merging the army and the navy into one\nmilitary unit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dilrook Kannangara After a brief lapse the US government has restarted their hilarious and unsubstantiated war crimes allegations against the Sri Lanka army. A US government spokesman has stated that they will not give visa to the army commander who has not even attempted to get US visa! This comes in the context of a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dilrook-kannangara"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99005\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}